MISJUDGED

Misjudged

All my life, I have been judged based on how I look. People assume that I am white because my skin tone is white. When I tell them that I am not, they can start to see how I do not look as white as they thought. They look deeper than my skin color and see features of me that they do not recognize as white. For example, my nose is very arab looking, It is long and round at the end. My hair is also very thick and dark. Does having green eyes and light skin make me look less Arab? Arab people have an olive toned skin color but it is still light skin. So I ask myself what part of how I look hides the Arab looking features?

It was the first day of freshman year and I walked through the crowded cafe in my school where it was loud and chaotic. There were people all running around trying to find their classes. I started to search for my room too. I finally found it- room 301, it was the art room. The other students and I that were waiting to go into the class walked into the room. We all sat in random seats because almost no one knew each other. There were so many new faces and people to take in and names to remember. The walls were covered with windows and you could see the busy streets below. I liked this room, it was a very free and open space, it left a lot of room for imagination and creativity. When class started, we were told that we would have to work in groups of two and draw a picture of someone else’s clothing item or anything that they had on them. I turned to the boy next to me. He had dark brown hair and olive toned skin.

We simultaneously asked, “Do you want to be my partner?”

We both laughed at the timing of our question, and then we introduced ourselves.

“My name is Amani.”

His name was Naseem. As I was talking to him, I noticed that he had a hat that had an embroidered Palestinian flag on it. It was black which made the green, red, and white colors of the flag stand out.

I immediately asked, “Are you Palestinian?”

My smile reached from ear to ear. I have never met someone that is my age and is my ethnicity.

“Yeah, my mom and dad are both from there,” He said. “Why?”

“I am Palestinian too! My dad grew up in Ramallah (a city in Palestine).”

We were both smiling now, but he found it hard to believe that I was Arab. I started to get annoyed, as if I would purposely lie about my ethnicity . Why did he not believe me? I continued to try to convince him. I spoke a few words in Arabic, like hello how are you, to prove to him that I am indeed Arab.

“You look so white though! I still can not believe that you’re Arab.”

After all this he still would not have been able to tell that I was Arab if i did not tell him. I was relieved that he finally believed me. I automatically felt close to him even tho we just met.

This happens to me very often where I have to prove myself as not white. When someone tells me I look white, I get offended even though I am partly white. It makes me feel closer to the part of myself that is Palestinian and the culture that goes along with it. It gets very annoying when people point out that I do not look like my ethnicity. I can not change what I look like. I wish my ethnicity could be recognized more clearly before people start to judge me. Ethnicity is a complicated thing because your appearance can deceive what people think about where you are from. After going through these experiences it made me realize how easily people can misjudge based on something that person can not change, their appearance.