Unable to suppress the anguish of ‘Ghasa’ which in Arabic describes a propulsive pain that lodges itself in the throat, Noor returned to Iraq in 2018. Through grass-roots community building and storytelling as a means of healing, being Iraqi and American were no longer antithetical “I could embrace the two,” without betraying her original cause.Įven after finding solace in the US, Iraq’s legacy still dominated Noor’s thinking. “I was adding and bringing something to the table,” which Noor said non-Arabs were appreciative of. Perhaps for the first time she recognised that being understood was about more than surrounding herself with fellow countrymen or women. There she acquired a renewed sense of confidence and overcame the impasse of assimilation. Her entry into college in 2010 marked an ideational shift.

Having overcome the dread of diaspora, Noor and her family now shine as an example of Arab American pride “Baghdad is the only home I’ve known and will return to one day,” is the idea Noor clung to, unable to reconcile the injury America caused Iraq and the safety it promised.Įven the US flag was synonymous with punitive US sanctions and the desolation and poverty they forced on Noor and millions of other Iraqi children. Still, accepting America’s status as her new 'home’ felt like a betrayal. “We knew of America only from TV and maybe they knew of Arabs only from front-page headlines.” The “real struggle,” she says, began two years later in 2008 when the family relocated to the US. It was the beginning of what she describes as “the unravelling of me.” Unavoidable references to her near-yet-distant homeland in class and during small talk served as a cruel reminder of her dislocation. Unable to suppress the anguish of ‘Ghasa’ which in Arabic describes a propulsive pain that lodges itself in the throat, Noor returned to Iraq in 2018'

'Even after finding solace in the US, Iraq’s legacy still dominated Noor’s thinking.

“When they spoke to me in their dialect I felt excluded from the conversation, and yet Iraq was always brought up.” They crossed the Rubicon, the point of no return, into Syria as Iraq’s civil war raged on.ĭespite the cultural and linguistic ties the two neighbours share, in Syria Noor experienced homesickness and her first culture shock. “It was my sweet sixteenth birthday,” Noor said, recounting the day that she and her family escaped Iraq.

The shining book club edition