Hadia Awan - LTED 380

  “Where are you from?” “Oh I live in Bayonne, New Jersey” “No, but where are you really from?” “Oh! You mean where I was born! I was born in Brooklyn, New York.” “No no. Where are you really really from?” This is a question I have heard on many occasions. I am a Muslim Pakistani American. I was born and raised here but ethnically I am from Pakistan, as my parents were brought up there. I wear a hijab (a headscarf Muslim women wear for modesty). People look at me and automatically assume the following things: I only speak Arabic, I have a heavy Arab accent, I am from Egypt, I am new to the United States, and that I am oppressed. Not a single one of these assumptions about me are true. I do not speak Arabic, although I can partially understand one dialect and I do not have an Arab accent either. My parents are from Pakistan, which is relatively far from Egypt and spending my entire life in the United States certainly contradicts the argument that I am new here. And lastly, I am not opp

        “Everything has a purpose”. As an English major, I have heard this phrase many times. Whether it was in regards to a poem, a fictional story, or even an analysis of a movie, professors have told me on several occasions that nothing an author adds to the story is by accident. Even if it is a miniscule scene that seems unimportant to the plot but maybe significant to a character, the author placed every piece intentionally. Let’s apply this same logic to another system familiar to us.  The American education system began when the colonists arrived in America and realized they wanted all citizens to read, write, and speak in English. They believed being educated would make them more civilized. Education became an important mission and all people went to school in shifts so as to continue working to earn a living at the same time.  Another reason, a reason that has only become bigger as the years go by, is to indoctrinate the children. The immigrants coming to the Americas were f

  Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.  Martin Heidegger “Building, Thinking, Dwelling” For years, we have tried as people to master language, but the unfortunate truth is that language is what controls us. We need it to communicate with others, to sell and buy, to learn, educate. Ironically enough, people tend to use this same tool as a means of power over others. In India, those who speak Hindi are considered superior as that is the national language. Similarly in America and Britain, those who speak a specific dialect of English consider themselves to be better than others.  I come from a family in which we speak multiple languages: English, Urdu, and Punjabi. Along with these, my dad can understand Pashto and Sairaki and my entire family can understand Egyptian Arabic. With that being said, there are many languages swarming around in my mind but the language I am most comfortable speaking in is Englis

For years, this country has battled with the idea of "American identity" and what makes a person an "American". Who or what is an "American"? Is it the person who was born here? Is it the person who has been here since they were a child? Is it the person who speaks English? Is it the one who works tirelessly day and night to provide for his family? Is it the one who files his taxes? Is it the one with white skin? Brown skin? Black skin?  It seems through the way that different cultural and religious groups are treated, the "American" identity con sists of the following characteristics: white skin, accentless English, having been born on American soil.  The white culture has become that which is normal and anything else is considered out of the ordinary Anyone else seems to be unfit to call themselves American. People emigrate from all over the world to come to the United States to create a new life for themselves. Unfortunately they are treated l

          Go back to your country ! A phrase many immigrants, bilingual citizens, Muslims, people who speak with an accent, Hispanics, essentially anyone who is not white has been told at least once in their life by a white person. Go back to your country ! A phrase a privileged white woman yelled to my mom while driving one day, all because she was not getting her way. One day my mom was driving my friend and I home from high school when a white woman who was trying to enter a lane when it was my mother’s right to move forward yelled “Go back to your country!”. All this unnecessary hate because my mom did not let her enter the traffic lane. My mother wears a hijab, a Muslim headscarf worn by women, and was targeted for her appearance and her religion. Go back to your country ! A phrase the poor deli owner who speaks with an accent hears when his customers want to intimidate him.  ​      In specific, Asian Americans in this country have always felt like “forever foreigners”, alw