Wake Me Now:

On a blog called No Snow Here, a post titled “Being Mixed Arab American” caught my attention. Questions of my personal racial identity have been swirling around in my head for years, but the quest for answers hasn’t been a pressing one. My ethnic background just isn’t something I tend to focus on, and most folks don’t know what I am either. Brown? White? Obviously mixed, but with what? Most ask if I’m Mexican. A few assume Native American. Those more traveled comment on my “Mediterranean features.” My mother says I’m half-Saudi but that is a part of my heritage I know nothing of having never met my biological father or been raised around other Arabs. Islam is a foreign religion to me. No clue how to put on a burka nor have I ever owned one.

READ MORE