What is a newgyptian anyway? Part ONE
October 05, 2004
You know, at least once a week I sit down and think, "This week I'm gonna write about identity, and what it means to be me. And how I see myself." But then the issue gets to be too much, too taxing. I get lazy. Figure no one wants to know, or those who know me have already lived it with me.
But enough things have happened today to make me think that maybe now is as good a time as any.
First, it was listening to the Smiths/Morrissey all day at work today, and having two of my favorite songs on repeat: "There is a light and it never goes out" & "Bengali in Platforms."
A sampling of the lyrics?
Driving in your car
Oh, please don't drop me home
Because it's not my home, it's their
Home, and I'm welcome no more
****
Don't blame me
Don't hate me
Just because I'm the one to tell you
That life is hard enough when you belong here
Oh...
Shelve your Western plans
Then it was reading her entry, and just being awake anyway after a long, hard day at work, and a nice evening gathering with friends at Andrea, and then coming home to my family�I'm so happy to be here with my family. My sister gushing over her fianc�e, my dad obsessing over the stock market, my mom in the balcony, offering up twenty extra prayers�the prayers she promised to God months ago, for her children to have happy lives. And I just figured I should start explaining.
The question has always loomed there large in my life. Who am I? Where is home?
At first, when I was younger, the question wasn't really voiced, or really a question. At least not to me. When my elementary school class mates asked me where I was from, I naturally said "Egypt." What I think they wanted to know was�where in Jersey was I from. But, at that young age, I did not realize that I was American too. That, though born in Egypt by some accident of timing and circumstance, I was born American too, my parents having years before become citizens of what was, at that time, to them, a great nation.
When I was getting ready to move to Kuwait at the formative and impressionable age of 12, I had already developed a healthy distaste for America's armpit, and was rearing to hightail it out of there...
Welcome to Kuwait, the Gulf, the Middle East in general. The world's true melting pot, trust me. Stick your hand in and come out with 15 different identities, each one completely logical in its own way.
In Kuwait I started to really be faced with the question of my identity. People would ask, where are you from? And I'd say, Egyptian by way of Jersey. But then my parents started telling me, Egyptians�.they don't like us here. Keep quiet about it. If you see a cop flash him your American passport, don't speak in Arabic. They will know, and they will try to mess with you. Look around! They love Bush, and his war of liberation. They will love you too, just don't speak Arabic.
But in school, all the Arabs looked down on you if you tried to pretend you were not, if you didn't take pride your heritage. I still stuck out. My Arabic was not as good anyway, and when we traveled for sports team I was always lucky to be able to do so without too much visa trouble. That's when all my team mates found out, "hey, she's American."
But I still leaned toward the Arab side, the Egyptian side. I realized I was not fully�there. That I may have seemed like a fraud. But when anyone other than a cop asked, I was still Egyptian.
Enter college. Enter inadequate signage on college dorm room doors. Enter my GA's favorite game to play, "Ask her where she's from?!"
"Hey, you, where you from? This sign on your door says Hawaii, Kuwait, are you from Kuwait?"
Sigh. It's Hawalli, not Hawaii. Well, I went to high school there. But I'm not from there. I went to an international school.
"So, like, are you parents in the army? In oil?"
No. My parents�they just like to move a lot. They've moved 15 times since they've been married.
"So, like where are you from? Because your English? It's really good."
Well, you see, it's like this. I was born in Egypt. Lived there till I was three�
"Oh, so you're Egyptian? Must be a bitch getting a visa."
Well, no. My parents were already US citizens when I was born. It just happened to be another moving year for us. My older sister? She was born in Manhattan. My younger brother? He was born in Princeton.
This actually seems to confuse people more.
So then I developed the spiel. Born an American citizen in Egypt. Lived there for a couple of years, then moved to Jersey. Lived there for a while too. Somewhere in the middle there we lived in Bahrain for a year, moved back, and then a little while later we moved to Kuwait. The end.
Finally, a dear, clever friend said, "Hey! I know�we'll call you newgyptian! And actually how about Knewgyptian? That silent 'k' can stand for Kuwait."
And thus, k/newgyptian was born.
And I am too tired to go on. But I've finally got the ball rolling, and I'll get there soon.
Shout out to yibba for "[pushing] the moment to its crisis." And for getting me, like I feel I get her(her internet persona at least), and for lessening the edge of paranoia that is always there when I put myself out there. More on that though�some other day.
Next time -- in-depth discussion of identity, third culture, and song lyrics quoted above!