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content warning: mention of guns
First grade marked the birth of my pseudonym. As an impressionable 6 year old who recently moved from the South, I told my teacher that the last letter of my first name was silent — after all, that’s what the kids in Florida used to call me. Just like that, this metamorphosis was decided on a random Thursday morning. Or was it a Monday? It was 14 years ago and the earliest independent choice I remember making. The absence of a singular letter felt more welcoming in a lottery of similar names. The extra “n” was too much to ask of silver-tongued America. Consequently, my meaning disintegrated. “Hanan” is the Arabic personification of compassion, while “Hana” means bliss. I finally felt like just another number in the lottery, indistinguishable from the rest, blissful in ignorance.
I pictured my reflection as two enemies with ears steaming: one of the West urging conformity and the other of the East celebrating my rich cultural heritage. I spent my mornings in an all-American costume, riddled with the shame of needing to, only to end my nights immersed in rich stories of resilience that have been passed down for generations. The odd sensation I thought I overcame with a quick persona change only resurfaced in different settings, revealing a deeper conflict. Walking through a parking lot, getting picked up from school or even exchanging looks with a stranger invited a newfound sense of danger. I was a coward among soldiers in my own home, a foreign feeling for most 6 year olds. I grappled with the idea that my silence about my name was not just a personal choice, but rather a threat to my identity that has been colored by centuries of courage. I eventually began feeling guilty for sweeping my identity under the rug, contemplating whether this incognito impulse was even legal. Like a package deal, I secured my hijab with that extra letter.
Fourth grade marked the rebirth of my origin. I began wearing my hijab, and this blanket of solace befriended me with a newfound acceptance. While, yes, it does “get hot on summer days,” I’ve always felt safer in the warmth. I moved schools and introduced my real name, removing the phantom of whiteness and unveiling my resurrection. Since second grade, I’ve lived in this western Iraq known as “Dearborn.” It was like living in a mirror maze, where I was surrounded by familiar faces that shared my cultural background, offering smiles of solidarity instead of stares of alienation. However, venturing even 10 minutes from this welcoming enclave invites masses of eyes and microaggressions.
While living in such a strong community of similar people fostered security, it also summoned seclusion. The close-knit environment personified itself in a near-unconditional embrace, which was only granted under the unspoken pressure to conform to cultural norms — whether it was how I dressed, the dialect I spoke or the stories I shared. Even among those who shared the bulk of my struggles, the familiar face of isolation lingered as a constant presence in my unshared thoughts. And no man is an island; despite the necessary warmth of community, the need for genuine connection remains virtually insatiable. Identity is a shared exterior spectrum that offers familiar comfort, but it seldom allows for the expression of the personal layers that nurture individuality within it.
As I grew, the hunger for something more gnawed at me. It wasn’t just the curiosity of different cultures — but also the desire to potentially find belonging beyond the confines of Dearborn. I turned to the internet, a phrase that often signals the beginning of many bad decisions. I spent hours on a website called “Omegle,” video calling strangers. Expecting wholesome friends and unaware of the infestation of creepy men, I discovered the world’s unfiltered cruelty. I often found myself talking with someone who seemed friendly at first, only for them to stage a racist breakdown once a one-sided attachment had been formed. This happened to me twice, which is already twice too many.
One instance sticks with me to this day. I was having a heartfelt conversation with someone for quite some time. After the influx of empty, fleeting interactions with people who seemed to only exist online, I began to lose hope. Then, unexpectedly, I met someone who made me think, “Wow, maybe they’re not all bad!” It was a breath of fresh air, reminding me that meaningful connections can still happen in a digital world. This was one of the few times in my life where pessimism would’ve served me better. We spent hours building rapport in each other’s unconventional trust, sharing the kind of personal struggles that never leave the walls of our tortured minds. After the last exchange of smiles, the stranger pulled out a carefully placed shotgun from under his desk and pointed it at the camera while shouting strange slurs I never even knew existed. It appears this is a common performance that I fell for – a “prank” that changed the trajectory of my life and my view of every stranger I saw within and beyond a screen. What began as manageable isolation morphed into a parasitic abjection, pulling at the remaining threads of my shrinking self. I felt anxious about my surroundings, viewing every interaction I had with suspicion. I felt like I was spiraling into a paranoid haze, unable to face the effort it would take to climb the broken stairs of belonging. I convinced myself that, like Omegle, the world is filled with absolute villains.
I decided to manifest the hatred bred by this ostracization into a drive for knowledge. Every few days, I asked my dad to buy me a different book from eBay on various topics explaining why the universe was my antagonist. He watched with growing concern, as my collection ranged from “The Communist Manifesto” to “The Trouble with Being Born.“ I dove into a deep phase of listening to rebellious Spotify-recommended artists (shoutout Mitski) and reading the idiosyncrasies around me. My single bookshelf began titanically overflowing and unnaturally curving, accreting Jenga-stacked towers of extra books around my room. It felt like a coming-of-age movie scene of a character igniting a life-altering epiphany, with purple eye bags hanging on my face and crumbled papers piling on the floor. Every piece of media I consumed was a catalyst to understanding and a shedding of the false self I had constructed.
My deeply sunken eyes began to shift forward, digesting the competition engulfing me. Every time I learned something new, I’d parade to my living room with my parents sighing, knowing they’re in for a long conversation. We’d be up chirping with the morning birds, as I struggled to properly communicate such complex ideas in a language that has become a stranger to me. However, my fluid thoughts didn’t travel past the solid bricks of my house. Now, education is the west wind controlling my every move in a world spinning east. It is the self-seeding, forbidden fruit, which I pioneer as the first in my family. Swimming in pages for a lifetime worked up my appetite for knowledge, which I carry in a briefcase to the future. With each new step, I reclaim the name my parents gave me — Hanan, a reminder of the humanity that defines me. It’s as if I found the winning ticket I had once discarded, a piece of myself I never realized was key. No longer scattered across juxtaposing territories, I finally move forward whole.
MiC Columnist Hanan Husein can be found at hhusein@umich.edu.
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