My homeland
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In grade 11, my art teacher revised a text I had written about one of my Palestinian textile art pieces, an art form that embodies my identity and homeland. I had written: I was born in America and grew up in Canada, but I am Palestinian. In his editing, he crossed it out and remarked, "If you were born in America, doesn’t that make you American and not Palestinian?"
Seeing this was shocking—it was a deliberate severance of the bond between me and my heritage, imposed by a white teacher who didn’t grasp the depth of Arab identity. For Arabs, identity is inherited from our parents, regardless of where we are born. I am Palestinian.
I am Palestinian because my lineage, eight generations of family names, traces directly to the village of Yibna in Palestine. All were born there, except my father, who was born in Rafah, Gaza.
To me, my homeland isn’t defined solely by its physical boundaries but by the family connected to it, those who were exiled, who fought for it, who died for it, and those living in the diaspora. Geographic distance does not sever my connection to my homeland.
Namazie challenges a similar idea of “homeland”—a concept my teacher unknowingly questioned—where homeland is not confined to imperialist-drawn borders but is instead defined by one’s identity and experiences. It can be something intangible, unknown, a “home rooted in the unrooted.”
While my homeland still exists, I also view pan-Arabia as an extension of it: a space not bound by recognition or definition, existing within our collective consciousness as our true homeland.