Chasing Normal

[Music]

we’ve all had that class in school where

it felt like everyone

understood the material except for you

let’s say in this scenario the class

that you were not so great at was a math

class

you preferred english a little bit more

so first semester you’re only enrolled

in math classes and at the beginning

you’re utterly lost

but with time you get a little bit

better working with numbers

now let’s say in the next semester you

transfer to only english classes and

you’re excited

except here’s the catch during your time

taking math classes you completely

forgot how to write essays and while

basic grammar so you take a little bit

of time to try and regain what you used

to know

but your writing is still a little bit

rough now for whatever reason you keep

switching back and forth between only

taking math classes or only taking

english classes

your teachers and peers are getting a

little bit impatient

it feels like you’re in a never-ending

loop and you just wish you had a normal

schedule

this is my story i’m an immigrant

i’m only 16 years old yet i have 15

schools under my belt both in the u.s

and in the middle

east and no i wasn’t a military kid but

sociologists have come up for a term for

kids like me

third cultured kids or tcks but what’s a

tck

a third culture kid is essentially

someone who has curated the culture

from the one that they were born into to

the one that they had to adapt to

to begin i didn’t start speaking until i

was around four years old

when i moved to the united states from

jordan i had to take on taking a foreign

language while i was already struggling

with my native tongue

through esl classes and learning how to

perfect my american accent i was

assimilated enough that i wouldn’t be

picked on because of my language skills

but this came at a cost i lost a

significant amount of my arabic

when i went back to jordan halfway

through third grade i

forgot everything i was put into a

government school since i transferred so

late in the year and i was put into a

special education class because i was

unable to communicate with people

outside of my immediate family

i really beat myself up over it i

developed guilt for something that was

completely out of my control

sooner or later i developed some

leverage in arabic but i kept running

into an issue of not being patient with

myself

and it took me a while to realize that

this doesn’t make me dumb or

unintelligent

i often have to ask people to rephrase a

certain sentence

or a simplifying idea for me to really

digest it because of complexities

since i have to differentiate between

rules and principles from

the languages that i’ve had to adapt to

now if i could say the next thing from

the highest rooftop just so people can

really listen and understand it i

definitely would

healthy adaptation does not mean

allowing criticism

of who you are as a person

healthy adaptation does not mean

allowing criticism

of who you are as a person

to some people it’s not immediately

obvious that i’m in fact a person of

color

when i was younger i had much tanner and

darker skin

and it made me stick out like a sore

thumb in a predominantly white town that

didn’t take too kindly to people from

outside

as i’ve gotten older i received comments

along the lines of you know

if it weren’t for your dark features and

facial structure

you could totally pass off as white

something that i used to take as a

compliment

in the first semester of fifth grade is

when it really hit me that to others

i was not seen as normal my friends and

i were standing outside of our home room

waiting for a teacher to finish our

other class when one of them turned to

me and asked

so is your family a part of isis

do you know any terrorists and can you

tell them not to blow us up

a part of me wanted to solve while

another part of me wanted to tackle her

for saying something

so insensitive and so untrue

and that’s only the very tip of the

iceberg and unfortunately not the worst

thing that i’ve had to experience

there’s a specific type of hurt and

confusion that comes with being

stereotyped and labeled and it’s only

amplified when it’s by people who you’ve

known for quite a bit of time

my identity was no longer of a young

girl who loved to sing and dance but

rather

of terrorist and outsider

and you’d think that i would have felt

more at home when i went back to jordan

but i still dealt with similar

experiences

anytime that i would be introduced to

anyone i would be introduced as

the american and only that and that’s

all all i was really known for

even if i was attending an international

school when arabs meet a foreigner they

usually

treat them with the utmost hospitality

respect and kindness

but i was met with the double standard

of being treated like a traitor

since i spoke english a little bit more

than i spoke arabic

when i would share my experiences in the

states to anyone in jordan

i would usually be met with snickering

or looks of pity as if i was a toddler

going on a tangent about some cartoon

they watched

when i would bring this issue up to

anyone it would usually be dismissed as

something hormonal

i was continuously going through an

existential crisis and identity crisis

throughout my childhood in teen years

and the worst part is

i was never taken seriously

summer before seventh grade i started

looking up

basic white girl outfits now don’t get

me wrong it’s a very very comfortable

style but i only wanted to dress this

way as a means to erase my identity

and to be normal i basically whitewashed

myself to the point where i just wanted

to forget

who i was exactly i started referring to

myself as exotic pretending that i

didn’t know anything about the middle

east

just because it pleased people

last year at the beginning of quarantine

i realized that no matter how hard i

tried

i would never be seen as normal and that

was totally okay

i stopped trying to actively look like a

white stereotype

anastasia

for those who don’t have a translator on

hand what i essentially said is that i

started speaking in arabic more because

i felt like speaking in arabic

we are bound to stray away from normal

to feel like we’re not enough of

something

except here’s the thing normal doesn’t

exist

just think with me for a while what do

you define as normal

because what you define as normal is

completely abnormal to another person

i was stuck trying to fit this

stereotype and made a middle ground

between two cultures

but i couldn’t because that middle

ground didn’t even exist

we’ve romanticized an idea that’s rooted

in perfectionism

and glamorized through films instagram

posts

and magazine covers we are not meant to

be perfect

we are meant to be human your normal

is you it is what makes you laugh what

makes you cry it is what brings you life

so do not let people force their normal

on to you because their normal is not

meant to suit you so whether you’re

working with numbers or writing a book

report

remember the importance of patients or

in arabic

and the importance of your identity and

your normal

thank you