Looking at the tall, chubby old white guy in line at Wal-Mart's checkout counter, I told him that I wasn't Mexican, and he could take his bigoted ass elsewhere. With that being said, I flat out refused to serve him. Angrily he demanded to speak to a manager. We waited in silence, while I checked out the customers behind him as he stood aside, sulking. The call went over the intercom, and the minutes ticked by. Around two in the afternoon, the store gets crazy busy, something I know better than anyone. I've worked here since high school.
Finally, my manager showed up, and the old white dude's eyes went wide. Our store manager and my long-time friend, Omar Watson, is friendly and ruggedly handsome but most of all, he's big, tall and black. He looked from me to the old buzzard, then asked what was going on. After a sequence of events too bugging to get into now, Omar told the bigoted imbecile to get out of the store, lest he call security. The old white man muttered something under his breath, his shoulders sagged, then he walked away. Omar looked at me with concern and asked me if I was okay. I'll be just fine, I said with a smile. He patted my shoulder then went back to the office.
My name is Ramallah Nazzal and I'm a young woman of Palestinian descent living in the City of Galveston, Texas. I was born in the southeast of Ramallah, Palestine, the town whose name I bear. My parents, Zaher and Nafisah Nazzal moved to the States in the summer of 1992, a year after I was born. I've lived in the U.S. my whole life, but I've often felt like the cultural other. Why is that, you may ask? Well, the reasons are many.
My father is pure Palestinian, but my mother's lineage includes Palestinian, Moroccan and Ethiopian. People often ask my mom if she's mixed, due to her burnished bronze skin tone, frizzy black hair and dark eyes. Her features reflect the various ethnicities embodied within her, from the Arabian to the Sub-Saharan and the North African. Considering my mother's direct Afro-Arabian ancestry, that's perfectly understandable.
Me? I inherited the best of all possible worlds, I think. I stand five-foot-ten, curvy and sexy, with dark bronze skin, curly black hair and light brown eyes. Depending on who's looking, and what they're looking for, people often mistake me for Colombian, Brazilian and a host of other ethnicities I know next to nothing about. I don't speak Spanish, beyond a few basic sentences and swear words. I am not Hispanic, I'm Arab.
Given the fact that Texas shares a border with Mexico, and lots of Mexican-descended people have been living in the Lone Star State for generations, I can understand why someone might mistake me for a Hispanic woman. I do have 'the look', whatever that means. Lots of women who look like me live around here, most of them Hispanic. That doesn't mean I like hearing it, though. People are surprised when I tell them that there is a growing Arab immigrant community in Texas. We don't all live in Dearborn, Michigan, or New York City.
My people live everywhere in this world. You'll find Arabs in African nations like the Republic of South Africa and Uganda, along with Latin American nations like Brazil and Argentine, and Caribbean nations like the island of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad. We're supremely adaptable, lively, and generally speaking, we are prolific. I was raised in Texas, and I've endured all kinds of racism throughout my life. There's a strong anti-Mexican sentiment in this part of Texas, partly because the Lone Star State's demographics are changing.
The influx of Mexicans, Chinese, and recent African immigrants ( they are very different from African-Americans ) is causing a lot of rednecks to feel uneasy. We 'immigrants' tend to have more brats than the white families do, and that bothers some of them. When worlds collide, there's bound to be trouble. I'm not at all surprised that this old redneck tried to insult my perceived ethnicity when he felt I didn't show him enough deference. I'm a minority woman and he's the almighty white American male. I guess I forgot to bow and kneel? Sorry, redneck freak, I am a Muslim woman from Palestine. I bow only before the might of Allah. Tell that to your hillbilly friends, filthy pig!
After standing on my feet for four hours straight, I go on break. There's a MacDonald's restaurant inside the Wal-Mart, but I avoid eating there. Instead, I stood at the back of the building, smoking and lost in thought. I'm tall so when I gain a few pounds, it's not the end of the world but I am watching myself. I used to be so active in high school. I was the only chick on the wrestling team at Galveston Academy. Not the easiest thing in the world, trust me. When you're a female facing guys on the wrestling mat, they'll do anything to beat you. It's where I met one of my all-time favorite peoples, Omar Watson.
The son of an African-American Muslim father, Suleiman Watson, and Mexican-American mother, Irene Sanchez, Omar and I were destined to be pals. For starters, we were the only Muslim students at Galveston Academy, and we were both student-athletes. Omar played football and did wrestling for a couple of years. I've loved the sport of wrestling ever since I tried out for the team in the ninth grade and made it. As you can imagine, my conservative Palestinian immigrant parents took issue with it. Wanna know the reason they relented and let me sign up? Omar's dad, Mr. Suleiman Watson.
