Yesterday, I went to a new hairdresser because the last one I had never listens to me and always puts color in my hair that she likes. Her latest efforts made me feel Irish, which is the closest to an identity crisis that I ever came.
I didn't know anything about the new person. After the usual pleasantries and as soon as I sit down, my new stylist hits me with--no, not the blow-dryer--but the usual friendly question:
"Amal? Is that Persian?"
"Close," I say. It's sometimes risky to answer this question, and sometimes I'm tempted to lie to avoid a long discussion especially when I'm paying money to relax. "Arabic. I'm Palestinian," I say. In response, I hear an "Oh!" interrupted with something between a giggle and a chuckle, followed by: "I'm Israeli. Don't be afraid, I'm not going to hurt you." I shrug: "I come in peace too."
Her name is Yardena, which, she tells me, means "Jordan." Her parents named her that because she was born soon after the 1967 war. She says that lots of girls born at the time were given that name. "Why?" I ask. She doesn't know. "Your parents should have named you "Falasteena" if they were seeking to name you after the conquered," I say. To myself.
I ask her many questions, feeling this is a rare chance to reverse roles and play interrogator. I learn that she's from a place between Beer al Sabe3 and Tel Aviv. She has 10 siblings. Her father Moroccan. Her mother half Tunisian, half Italian. "You're three quarter Arab, then," I say enthusiastically as if I've just discovered a new natural color. She shrugs. She knows a bit of Arabic, whatever she learned from her grandparents who only know Arabic. But she cooks Moroccan food, using lots of cumin. "I love cumin," I say.
When finally she has a chance to ask me questions, I seem to confuse the heck out of her. She has no idea where I am from. "West Bank" and "Ramallah" make no impression on her. "Territories?" I optimistically try a term she may be familiar with, leaving "occupied" out in order not to start a fight. To her puzzled look, I snap, "No way I'm going to say Judea and Samaria, lady. 'Territories' is my compromise for the day. Take it or leave it." Well, considering that my head is in her hands, and her hands are holding a sharp object, I say that using my "inside" voice. Finally, I desperately throw at her the only Hebrew word I know: "where there is Makhsoum. Lots of makhsoums.*" She nods, and I convince myself that I see a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
At some point in our conversation, if you can call it that, she gets so irritated by my pathetic attempts to explain to her the documents I use to travel that she impatiently blurts out, "Why don't you get an Israeli passport?"
Damn, why didn't I think of that!
At this point, I feel like shaving my hair off. Yardena is really clueless. And on this particular day it happens that I have no maps on me to explain to her who I am and who she is. I knew, though I never could understand, that for many Israelis the "territories" might as well be on the moon and "occupation" is a term that you use to impress on your date that you do not work at the local falafel stand. But to be confronted with this denial face to face was a new experience.
To cover up my agitation, I tell her that she's cutting too much hair and that I really love cumin.
* checkpoint
11 comments:
Wow, I thought I had awkward hair appointments....
Lol, thanks for that serious yet wittily and humorously-written story Amal. I like all the quick little analogies: "for many Israelis the "territories" might as well be on the moon and "occupation" is a term that you use to impress on your date that you do not work at the local falafel stand."
Hehe...I guess privilege makes one very clueless huh?
What Amal, I cant believe you didnt have any pamphlets on you to explain everything!
Thanks for the story,I'm hungry for more...
Great story
I loved this story. You painted a picture in my head...
Thanks
Will
The popularity of the name Yardena with that generation may have more to do with the queen of cheese the singer Yardena Arazi, who became famous around 1970.
I want to say something though. In such encounters often the national element in the identity is highlighted, it becomes the main thing. While for the person itself it may not be. For example here in London I am not 'the Israeli'. Sure it is one element in the mix but before that I am a South Londoner, a squatter, a cyclist, a student.... May the love of cumin prevail.
lara,
congratulations on the award!!!
anonymous,
Ya, no pamphlets that day. I was traveling light. big mistake.
Kinzi and Will,
thanks for reading.
Mink,
All I know about the popularity of Yardena I learned from her.
I hear what your saying about our identities. But not all identieis are created equal and often whether you can be this or that depends on how others see you and not how you define yourself. Sometimes we have the luxury to choose what we want to be at a particular day, sometimes we don't.
And cumin did indeed save the day that day. But it will be of no help had I been crossing an Israeli checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
I agree. It is determined much by the context and what is possible in London and New York is not possible in Palestine/Israel. There, not acknowledging the power relations is much more problematic. People can't hide behind the argument that they are not interested in playing this game. They may be uninterested but they are made interested by being the soldier or the woman trying to cross.
Whenever I'm there, I am acutely aware of my priveleged position, my freedom of movement of all things. Moral responsibility is involved in this, not to accept it and to change it. Does it apply to everybody? - a Jewish Ultra-Orthodox, a russian immigrant, a Philipino foreign worker have varying levels of freedom, but on the whole much more than any West Bank/Gaza Palestinian.
I tend to think that the more power you have over the situation the more responsibility you have.
Very difficult, it's an issue I think about a lot, I don't have clear answers.
Oh, gee thanks Amal. Oh, and that paper was written for my Renaissance Portraiture class (Spring 2006), we had to pick one of the many possible topics from a list to do a final presentation and research paper on. I chose to look over the painted and medallion portraits of Mehmet II by Italian artists Gentile Bellini and Costanzo da Ferrara. What's interesting is that my paper I wrote after the presentation focused as its thesis on the "Occidental" gaze on the "Orient" and how that was expressed through Renaissance European depictions of Turks (as Muslims, generally) and Turkish sultans. I probably would have never had the motivation to write that thesis had I not taken your course on Representations (Fall 2005) in the semester before.
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