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My Experience as an Egyptian American
Identity is a culmination of human experience, diversity and being part of a community that connects us. Being Egyptian-American, my identity is closely tied to both the life I lived in Egypt, and the life I live here in the United States.
My experience in Egypt consisted of living in large apartment flats similar to what you’d see in big cities like New York, of Pyramid adventures and camel rides on desert ground. I remember commuting through buses, microbuses and trams, and navigating through jaywalkers and traffic, side street markets and the many tourists.
I spent my childhood surrounded by my family — a silly, loud, funny family. We’d have large family gatherings where uncles, aunts and cousins I didn’t know existed would join us for dinner.
I learned English along with Arabic and had friends who I played with after school. I climbed trees and picked mulberries off its stems and watched sunsets with my family from our balcony.
When I was ten, I remember packing a large suitcase alongside my brother as my mom told us of the adventures we’d be having in America. “We’ll have a big house and a backyard,” my mom would tell us with excitement.
I know now that what my mom was searching for was what many others from all over the world were searching for. I came to the United States with family who believed in the American dream.
When I arrived in the U.S. I was shocked in every essence of the word but more so, I was afraid of not fitting in. Soon after, my mom enrolled me in the third grade, and although I studied English in Egypt, it was still hard for me to communicate with classmates and teachers; language barriers became an enemy to my self-development.
Throughout middle and high school I was asked questions about my nationality. I was asked if I had lived in a hut back in Egypt, or if I had owned a camel, or if I was somehow a descendant of Cleopatra. I was always surprised at how little people knew about Egypt and how quickly people threw stereotypes around. Some people didn’t even know that Egypt was in Africa.
But what shocked me the most was being told by a classmate that “I’d be afraid to ride in an airplane with you.” Television didn’t help with those kind of stereotypes either.
I soon realized that some people’s prior perceptions of Egypt were automatically attached to me. Even if I tried to crawl my out from under people’s preconceived notions, I’d find myself pulled back.
It’s hard to form an identity when a part of you is thousands of miles away, the other part of you is trying to adopt someone else’s identity and the rest of you is being judged by people’s standards, stereotypes and their ideas of you.
There remains this large disconnect between a picture of the Egypt I knew then, the Egypt I’ve grown unfamiliar with and my place in the United States now. That’s the thing about living half your life in one country, brought up based on one culture’s ideals and then transported to find yourself immersed in completely different ideals — you tend to lose who you are.
You may be wondering why you should care about my story, or any stranger’s story for that matter. But the truth is, if you cared about my story, maybe you’d see me from a different perspective, beyond the superficial, beyond stereotypes, beyond brown hair and brown skin. You’d see a world outside your own; you’d see a perspective that television screens won’t show you. Maybe you’d see a girl that struggles with something that everyone struggles with—identity. You’d get to know who I am, my life in Egypt, my life now, and you would no longer ask me if I lived in a hut, or if I owned a camel, or if I was a descendant of Cleopatra. You’d find yourself relating to me and maybe you’d find that we all beat to the same drum.
Everyone has a story, and their story matters. Ultimately, it’s our stories that keep us connected.
Nada Sewidan
Cougar Chronicle