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