My Stories and Insights in 26 Letters
Who knew that the alphabet would be the key to liberating my voice, the conduit to my self-advocacy, and growth as a person and as an educator? Language and I have always had a long love affair. I remember when I graduated from high school and told my family that I wanted to study and teach English, my mother cried. Drawing heavily from the Arabic culture, her perception was those who failed the sciences would go on to study humanities. As the valedictorian of my high school class and the first to attend university, she felt I was “too smart” to teach English. But language would empower me to take back my narrative and the narrative of my ancestors. The fusion of voices would rise from the existing blur of stereotypes and the delicate muffle of cultural propriety to create a sweeping mosaic. It would enable me to pave the way as a scholar-activist wearing my identity as a hijabi (headscarf-wearing), Muslim, Arab, American woman. Today, my mother couldn’t be more proud.
Here is my rich and colorful human experience and some insights I have gained through those experiences brought to life in 26 letters.
Allies and collaborators where art thou? As I look, reflect, and apply my experiences to my life as an educator, I understand the power dynamics in my classroom. I realize that it’s not enough for me to understand and appreciate the value of my students’ cultural and linguistic pluralism as assets and how they inform my classroom every day as I was taught in my teacher training days. My students, like me, need an ally and co-collaborator to stand on the front lines with them. #AllyIsAVerb
Bayan, Suleiman, and Rayanne; the names of my children. As parents, we strive to give our children lives better than our own. As critical evaluators of our own childhood, we think we have all the answers. False! As different as the world of my children is from my own, the fears of my brown, Muslim children have not changed much. Putting Maslow at the forefront, how can our children ever self-actualize if they cannot feel safety and belonging? #SafetyB4Education
Census. Dear Politicians, what bubble do I shade when the identity options don’t represent me? I am not an “other” even though I am perceived as the other, and I am definitely not “white.” Arabs are not recognized by the census; therefore, very little research exists about them as a subgroup. So, can we give the Arabs a bubble, please? #DemandRepresentation
Dr. Sawsan. On the day of my graduation, I couldn’t stop tears of happiness from flowing down my face as my grandfather, beaming, proudly embraced me and said, “This is the first daktora [doctor in Arabic] of Deir Yassin,” my ancestral home village, the first village to be ethnically cleansed in a massacre in the occupation of Palestine in 1948. What he didn’t know was that even though I was successful in obtaining the highest degree in my field, it still wouldn’t free me of the racial prejudices of gatekeepers or ensure I would be judged solely on my qualifications, regardless of the racial biases of those reading the ethnic name “Sawsan” on my resume. I still couldn’t get an interview for leadership positions in most districts. #TakeOffTheRacistLens
Elephant in the room? In my first weeks teaching in a district as the only teacher of color, I had a student announce, “My father says you’re a terrorist.” I knew many students felt similarly. I appreciated his boldness in calling out the elephant in the room. It was a learning opportunity for all of my students, so we spent two periods dissecting the loaded statement. Two days later, his father called to apologize. We are afraid of what we don’t understand. Don’t be afraid to engage in contentious issues and answer difficult questions, especially when they involve your role as an educator. #BringOnCriticalConversations
Fear has been a double-edged sword for Arabs and Muslims. Media conspiring with politics have instilled a culture of fear, demonizing us. Arabs are also afraid every time a new event takes place in the world. I remember being a student in class when the Oklahoma bombing occurred in 1995, praying that it wasn’t a Muslim or an Arab, fearing the backlash of the horrible crimes on our community again. My color and my faith have mistakenly been transformed into a symbol of terrorism. #NotATerrorist
Guilty until proven innocent, this is the plight of many teachers who take risks in schools to facilitate critical conversations in class. I recall being summoned to the principal’s office for teaching the same anti-bias curriculum as three other teachers in my grade. We planned together and taught together, but only I had the privilege of obtaining VIP status in the principal’s office. The difference you ask, they were white! #ProfilingAtItsBest
Home is where the heart is. Although I have always considered America my home, America has not embraced and nurtured me as one of its own. I can’t count the number of times I have been told to go back to my country. We definitely suffer from the diaspora blues: too brown for white America and too American for our native countries. #AcceptAllOfMe
Imposter syndrome is real. It creeps up in the most crucial times. The bombardment of negative images and low expectations for Arab women coupled with a lack of representation in the public education sector often leads to feelings of isolation that accompany those of imposterism. #NotAFraud
Just let me be! I’ve worked hard to develop myself and prove that I deserve the positions and degrees I’ve earned. I love my job, and I love what I do. I look forward to a time when schools seeking diversity are the norm and not the exception, a time when educators of color don’t have to work that much harder to earn the positions and respect afforded to others. #EqualOpportunityForAll
Knots in my stomach was the only feeling I had to describe 9/11/2001. It was a catastrophe for all Americans, including Muslim Americans and Arab Americans. I was teaching in an Islamic School in New Jersey at the time. It was after our school received bomb threats that we learned about the planes. Since the tunnels and bridges from New York shut down immediately and many of our parents worked there, parents couldn’t get to their children for days. Teachers packed their cars with as many students as possible and took the kids to our homes. In addition to the fears of all other Americans, we had to alleviate fears of personal threat and separation. #DuallyScarred
Language- I dream in Arabic and in English. My alef is as precious as my A. My cultural and linguistic pluralism is something I’ve always been proud of, yet it was one of the first gifts my elementary educators wanted to take from me. Today, speaking Arabic on a plane is enough to be forcefully removed. #LanguageIsAnAsset
Muslim, an intersection of my identity that has deemed me a terrorist, a warped image of a religion rooted in peace, and the origin of every positive quality I possess. I never felt I had to choose between my American values and my Islamic values. Contrary to general belief, they dance together in harmony. #MuslimAmericanWaltz
Names are indications of who we are. My name is Sawsan Jaber, phonetically pronounced as Sosen, Arabic for Lily. I have been called Sansan, Selsun, Susan, and Jaber. I have always felt like ethnic names ring in my ear with the sound of music. Let’s make an intentional effort to learn our students’ ethnic names and where they originate from because we care. #LearnMyName
Outright racism! I have dealt with my fair share of outright racism. I had a teacher interrupt my class to ask me “How do you feel after what your people did in France?” referencing an ISIS bombing. She taught students who looked like me every day. If education is the eradicator of ignorance, why are some educators the epitome of racist ignorance? #DegreesDontNegateIgnorance
Palestine, my ancestral land, plagued by apartheid, a country intentionally erased from the world map, is weaved into the veins of my family like the intricate cross stitches of the traditional tatreez in the dresses of Palestinian women. Its place in our hearts is as deep as the grounded roots of the olive trees. We sing and dance the melody of dabke, our traditional dance, and enjoy the rich flavors of our kunafa, maklouba, zait, zaatar, hummus and falafel. My big Palestinian family preserves the stories threatened by the attempted erasure of our people. #ResistByExisting
Question. Asking questions and teaching students to ask questions, interrogating the status quo and their realities is the first step necessary for critical change. Question everything. Question the gatekeepers, the history you’ve been taught, the stories you’ve heard, the news you watch, and the uncomfortable situations. Question traditional educational practices, resources used in classrooms, labels applied to groups of students, and the value of standardization. #PowerInQuestions
Resilience. I have inherited the resilience of my grandpa, my sido, a Nakba survivor from the Palestinian massacre of Deir Yassin; he carried his two baby sisters to safety as he fled from the shower of gunfire and gas bombs in the early morning hours of April 9, 1948. My sido, at the age of 87, holds the key to his father’s house in 2020 with the hopes of one day obtaining his right to return. #NoWhiteFlag
Single stories are a curse of history. The stories of the powerful are the ones we hear. Those victimized by the single-story either spend their lives dispelling the myths or succumbing to the reality that they will follow like shadows in the darkness. Even efforts to ‘decolonize curriculum’ often omit any representation of the Arab and Muslim histories and stories. The omission of narratives by activists contradicts their message. I have attended educational conferences with focuses on equity and no mention of Arabs or Muslims despite their unquestionable marginalization. #DismantleTheSingleStory
Time heals all wounds. Or does it? What if things get more aggressive with time? The passage of time without changing your course doesn’t equal progress. What if time makes us numb? What happens when aggression is channeled in a passive-aggressive nature? #DeadFishGoWithTheFlow
Underrated. Teachers of color have always been underrated. My Ph.D. dissertation focused on the perceptions of inclusion of Arab American students in public schools. All of the students in my study unanimously called out the only Arab teacher in the school as someone they felt they could relate to. Students need to see themselves represented in their teachers and in their school leadership. #DiversifyOurEducators
Voice. In my career as a student and as a professional, I have often needed to self-advocate because very few people were willing to put themselves out there. My love for language and literature was born out of a need to self-advocate. Frederick Douglass taught me early on that the value of the letters of the alphabet was higher than that of the food we eat. My victories come with persistence, resilience, and hard work. Despite my career challenges, my victories are many: a Ph.D., teaching in an inclusive district, publishing an article in ASCD, speaking at multiple educational conferences, podcasts, and writing a few blogs. Up until this year, my story was the untold story. #MyWords=MyVoice
Working together is integral. People of color generally function in silos. Although our experiences and histories of marginalization differ, our goal is the same. We want to be seen and heard. We want a seat at the table. We want equal opportunity and representation for us and for our children. We want our accurate histories preserved. We need to work together to get there. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” #MLKSpokeBigFacts
X-clusion. Intentions to be culturally responsive can sometimes lead to those same students feeling excluded or singled out. I’ve heard teachers say “I am teaching this novel because it is representative of those students’ experiences.” When conversing with those same students, they felt the same novel was stereotypical. No text is representative of a whole group of people. #CulturallyExclusive
Your people is a term I never understood. I’ve heard it in different settings and always wondered who does the speaker perceive as “my people?” With time, I realized that this derogatory term was another way to intentionally exclude and ‘other’ people. I feel like all people are my people.#IntentionalExclusion
Zero tolerance is where we should all be sitting on the idea that any child in our schools or classrooms doesn’t have a voice, isn’t valued, or doesn’t belong. In 2020, with the normalization of hate speech through the media, my children, among other students of color are the targets of some of the most aggressive hate by teachers and students. #HateIsNotNormal
My fragmented stories above are pieces of my history and lived human experience. We don’t have opportunities to share and appreciate those as much. My career path has been one with many potholes. Every pothole has taught me a lesson about life and prepared me to be a stronger advocate for all children. Our children should not have to struggle; we must mend these holes and make the ride smoother. With that, I charge every educator that reads this blog to #PaveTheWay.
This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Challenge, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday’s blog post by Islah Tauheed (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog circle).
