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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
challenging
informative
Najla Said is such a relatable writer- her story hits home for anyone who deals with a crisis of the identity. But it’s so much deeper than that, and gives insight into a world I will never be a part of. I’m thankful for the chance she’s given me to hear about an experience that many Americans whose families have immigrated from other countries face. Especially those from Arabic countries. What it’s like to grow up as an American while simultaneously being an outsider because of her Lebanese-Palestinian parents and their culture.
I was struck when she talked about how immigrants to Canada are encouraged to keep their cultures and be Canadian second, vs America having a society of assimilation. We are American first and everything else second, but at the same time so many will never be seen as true Americans due to their family’s country of origin or skin color. I believe this is the core of why the USA struggles with such hefty division- White families that have immigrated here generations ago feel they have a claim to this land that no one else does, even the Native Americans that cultivated this land long before anyone else stepped foot on it. Everyone else is an other, and they are demanded to be not seen nor heard.
Another thing that stuck out to me was within her identity crisis, how those around Najla treated her. Growing up in an Arabic family that still has close ties to their culture, but then being with White friends who say ‘You’re not really Arabic, you’re basically white!’ has got to be such a mindfuck for young people in America. This is not the compliment people think it is, and only serves to separate someone further from their cultural identity. It also shows how these people think- you’re not like the bad ones, you’re different! Such an awful sentiment that reeks of supremacist ideals.
Najla’s story is so thought provoking and eye opening, I would definitely suggest this to everyone. I did wish there was more focus on what has been happening in Palestine, but this is a memoir first and education second and I still heavily appreciate that.
I was struck when she talked about how immigrants to Canada are encouraged to keep their cultures and be Canadian second, vs America having a society of assimilation. We are American first and everything else second, but at the same time so many will never be seen as true Americans due to their family’s country of origin or skin color. I believe this is the core of why the USA struggles with such hefty division- White families that have immigrated here generations ago feel they have a claim to this land that no one else does, even the Native Americans that cultivated this land long before anyone else stepped foot on it. Everyone else is an other, and they are demanded to be not seen nor heard.
Another thing that stuck out to me was within her identity crisis, how those around Najla treated her. Growing up in an Arabic family that still has close ties to their culture, but then being with White friends who say ‘You’re not really Arabic, you’re basically white!’ has got to be such a mindfuck for young people in America. This is not the compliment people think it is, and only serves to separate someone further from their cultural identity. It also shows how these people think- you’re not like the bad ones, you’re different! Such an awful sentiment that reeks of supremacist ideals.
Najla’s story is so thought provoking and eye opening, I would definitely suggest this to everyone. I did wish there was more focus on what has been happening in Palestine, but this is a memoir first and education second and I still heavily appreciate that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Racism
Moderate: Cancer
In the conclusion, Said writes about how she needed to be encouraged to publish a memoir as "I worried I did not know enough about my dad’s work, I was scared of making political statements of any kind, I was afraid of sounding like a whining spoiled brat." Unfortunately, this is exactly how I felt about this book. Said writes vapidly as a self-described "Upper West Side Princess," almost never touching on what being Palestinian means to her, spending her youth distancing herself from her Arabness and her adulthood embracing the Orientalist views of the Middle East her father strove to dispel. Worst, the book often conflates all Jews with Zionists, contains a wild amount of normalization of Israel, and perpetuates Islamophobia. Said not only positions herself as "not like other girls" but also as "one of the good Arabs."
Describing being in Beirut when the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon started: "There's something I want to explain and I want to be clear about it. You can spend your life being a humanist, a pacifist, a thoughtful person who does not even think about hating or does not even know what it is to hate. That is to say you can really and truly be a human being who is tolerant and open-minded and humane, judging people by how they behave toward you, and treating them the way you wish to be treated. But when you are being attacked, when bombs are falling around you, planes are hovering over your head, when your life is in danger and you are scared, it is so easy to look up to the sky and feel abject boiling hatred for the people doing this to you and curse them out. When you are fearful for your life and you are being bombed by a certain group of people, you are not thinking, "Oh, but I know that not all Israelis agree with this." There's not time for that. Just as there is not time for them to think that it is not all Lebanese attacking back. And there is no time to think about the Israeli pilot who wishes he weren't in the plane dropping bombs on everybody. All you can think in these situations is "fuck everyone.'"
Thorough the memoir, Said continues to claim that she was connecting with her Arab roots at different points in her life, but then continues to distance herself from them: "It was relatively easy to avoid my Arabness in college, too. In part, it was because the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, so to anyone who wasn't actually from Palestine or Israel, the Israelis and Palestinians seems to be getting along fine. The war in Lebanon had ended and the country was being rebuilt. And I went to a school were political activity on campus was non-existent." It's true that Princeton is not known for it's political activity, but to ignore the work of the NAACP, LGBTQ+ groups, and others is a strange choice. The way Said describes herself, it sounded like she actively avoided any political organizations.
She also discussed "identity politics" in a strange tangent: "People are always shocked to know that my father wasn't a fan of this "identity politics PC-movement" of calling yourself "a Pacific Islander from the third island to the right of Samoa hyphen American." I guess it makes sense that someone who championed the rights and humanity of The Other would be a fan of declaring yourself an African-American or whatever. But he wasn't. And that makes sense, too. Daddy didn't like labels. Oriental was the one he was most famous for disliking, but it was just an example of millions of others."
Though the book is titled "Looking for Palestine," Said also spends time distancing her family from Palestine: "These were the people who saw him [Edward Said] as a human symbol of a geographical place. These people make me crazy, even though they mean well. It actually never occurred to us to bury Daddy in Palestine, because Palestine, though a cause he embraced wholeheartedly and fought for his entire adult life, is a place he hadn't really known. The world had conflated Edward Said with Palestine, but I had not. I had only really ever known Daddy. But how could I explain that to the world?"
In the end, the book is more about wealthy New York neighborhoods, Ivy League universities, and how great it is to vacation in Lebanon in the summer than it has anything to do with Palestine. Even in her final step towards learning about what it means to be Arab, interviewing Arabs in America with a group of Arab artists in the direct aftermath of 9/11, Said talks more about her Lebanese mother and her history than she does about her father or Palestinians.
I wonder if she had written this now, seeing how much information she's been sharing on her Instagram about Gaza and about the mistreatment of Arabs in the USA, her framing would be different.
Describing being in Beirut when the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon started: "There's something I want to explain and I want to be clear about it. You can spend your life being a humanist, a pacifist, a thoughtful person who does not even think about hating or does not even know what it is to hate. That is to say you can really and truly be a human being who is tolerant and open-minded and humane, judging people by how they behave toward you, and treating them the way you wish to be treated. But when you are being attacked, when bombs are falling around you, planes are hovering over your head, when your life is in danger and you are scared, it is so easy to look up to the sky and feel abject boiling hatred for the people doing this to you and curse them out. When you are fearful for your life and you are being bombed by a certain group of people, you are not thinking, "Oh, but I know that not all Israelis agree with this." There's not time for that. Just as there is not time for them to think that it is not all Lebanese attacking back. And there is no time to think about the Israeli pilot who wishes he weren't in the plane dropping bombs on everybody. All you can think in these situations is "fuck everyone.'"
Thorough the memoir, Said continues to claim that she was connecting with her Arab roots at different points in her life, but then continues to distance herself from them: "It was relatively easy to avoid my Arabness in college, too. In part, it was because the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, so to anyone who wasn't actually from Palestine or Israel, the Israelis and Palestinians seems to be getting along fine. The war in Lebanon had ended and the country was being rebuilt. And I went to a school were political activity on campus was non-existent." It's true that Princeton is not known for it's political activity, but to ignore the work of the NAACP, LGBTQ+ groups, and others is a strange choice. The way Said describes herself, it sounded like she actively avoided any political organizations.
She also discussed "identity politics" in a strange tangent: "People are always shocked to know that my father wasn't a fan of this "identity politics PC-movement" of calling yourself "a Pacific Islander from the third island to the right of Samoa hyphen American." I guess it makes sense that someone who championed the rights and humanity of The Other would be a fan of declaring yourself an African-American or whatever. But he wasn't. And that makes sense, too. Daddy didn't like labels. Oriental was the one he was most famous for disliking, but it was just an example of millions of others."
Though the book is titled "Looking for Palestine," Said also spends time distancing her family from Palestine: "These were the people who saw him [Edward Said] as a human symbol of a geographical place. These people make me crazy, even though they mean well. It actually never occurred to us to bury Daddy in Palestine, because Palestine, though a cause he embraced wholeheartedly and fought for his entire adult life, is a place he hadn't really known. The world had conflated Edward Said with Palestine, but I had not. I had only really ever known Daddy. But how could I explain that to the world?"
In the end, the book is more about wealthy New York neighborhoods, Ivy League universities, and how great it is to vacation in Lebanon in the summer than it has anything to do with Palestine. Even in her final step towards learning about what it means to be Arab, interviewing Arabs in America with a group of Arab artists in the direct aftermath of 9/11, Said talks more about her Lebanese mother and her history than she does about her father or Palestinians.
I wonder if she had written this now, seeing how much information she's been sharing on her Instagram about Gaza and about the mistreatment of Arabs in the USA, her framing would be different.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Death of parent
Moderate: Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, War
slow-paced
I want to put this book in the top 5 books of all time list because it so wonderfully captures how isolated so many feel. However, part of it feels false. The part that keeps coming back to me is when Najla describes her friend's parents - they're Zionists and yet they're okay? It may as well read, "They're Nazi's but they're okay".
Other than that, and maybe that is in there so the book would be published in the US because how can the US be truthful about our colony, Israel? This book was beautiful, poignant, and realistic.
Other than that, and maybe that is in there so the book would be published in the US because how can the US be truthful about our colony, Israel? This book was beautiful, poignant, and realistic.
I have to admit, I'm a little embarrassed for this woman. Imagine having such a famous and iconic father who defined postcolonial studies, and then going on to introduce yourself as a Upper West Side princess, with no irony whatsoever.
I think this is an instance of a person coasting on the fame of family member. Najla spends her whole life denying her heritage, living in an incredibly privileged, rich, white washed, and racist bubble (GIRL, YOU NEED NEW FRIENDS). The (supposed) premise of this book is coming to terms with her mixed identity, but she really never does. She identifies more as Lebanese (which is fine), and there was no looking for anything remotely Palestinian in terms of her trying to navigate her identity (in between running around richy rich New York with her weird, painfully clueless friends). She grudgingly accepts it post 9/11 because she can't really "pass," and the last chunk of the book was her pushing her one woman theater show.
A friend of mine raved about this and begged me to read this, and we are going to discuss this during our next tea party/bashing session/gossip extravaganza. The only thing that interested me was seeing Edward Said as a father, but even then, he comes off as slightly senile and doddering.
I think this is an instance of a person coasting on the fame of family member. Najla spends her whole life denying her heritage, living in an incredibly privileged, rich, white washed, and racist bubble (GIRL, YOU NEED NEW FRIENDS). The (supposed) premise of this book is coming to terms with her mixed identity, but she really never does. She identifies more as Lebanese (which is fine), and there was no looking for anything remotely Palestinian in terms of her trying to navigate her identity (in between running around richy rich New York with her weird, painfully clueless friends). She grudgingly accepts it post 9/11 because she can't really "pass," and the last chunk of the book was her pushing her one woman theater show.
A friend of mine raved about this and begged me to read this, and we are going to discuss this during our next tea party/bashing session/gossip extravaganza. The only thing that interested me was seeing Edward Said as a father, but even then, he comes off as slightly senile and doddering.