Their Death & My Life

Many people may disagree, but I want to believe that beauty can come from tragedy. Rather, I have to believe that beauty can come from tragedy. For the only reason I was born is the same reason why over 100,000 people died in Iraq—Saddam Hussein being in power. My Arab father met my Mexican mother because he, a Shia Muslim, was forced to become a refugee and was practically shipped from a Saudi Arabian refugee camp all the way to Chicago by the humanitarian organization that chose to help him. In a sense, without Saddam’s oppression and marginalization of Shia Muslims and Kurdish people, I would not exist. That’s the reality—my family’s reality.  Therefore, I have to find joy in coming from two vastly different cultures, or else I’ll feel that all those deaths—deaths of people whom I (and no one else) will never know—only resulted in pain and suffering. Even so, that doesn’t invalidate the hardships I’ve endured.

Never Fitting In, Always Standing Out

As much as I want to see the good in being mixed, I can’t lie and say that it doesn’t come with its own struggles. For instance, I cannot talk about being Arab without addressing the elephant in the room—terrorism. Growing up in the Midwest post-9/11, I constantly assured my classmates that my father, my sibling, and I are not terrorists and that we condemn the acts extremist groups carried out in the name of Islam. While others found refuge from racial comments in the comfort of their family, I could not. On the Mexican side of my family, it is common for my relatives to refer to me as “La hija de Osama” [Daughter of Osama bin Laden.]

When I was younger, I used to believe this was something unique about my mother's side of the family, but it wasn't until I studied abroad in Ecuador in spring of 2025 that I realized I may always be isolated because of my mixed background. 

At airports, I was stopped and asked to present documents that my fellow travelers were not expected to. I was also asked by a TSA agent about how I became fluent in Spanish. When I shared that I am Mexican, he said, “Mexican and what?” and when I said I was Arab, he was satisfied and let me enter the plane. Instances like these are not unusual in Latin America. On multiple occasions after finding out I was Muslim, people expressed to me how they didn’t like Islam and how Muslims live without freedom. 

Now, dear reader, you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned my experience traveling to the Middle East or encounters with other Arab folk. The reality is that I don’t have much experience. Because of what my father had to suffer in his youth, he decided that teaching his children Arabic and Arab culture would only be harmful in the current American climate, and so he opted not to do it. It also didn’t help that I grew up in a small town, where it was not an exaggeration to say that my family was the only Arab family living there. Therefore, the only real ties I have with being Arab are my name and my physical appearance—I desperately cling to whatever delicate strings my father has yet to cut that bind us back to Iraq.

What am I? 

I am Latin American and Arab, but sometimes it feels like I’m neither. Here’s a simple explanation on how I view myself: Take two buckets of paint—let’s say red and blue—which represent my parents. Once combined, they make a new color, purple. Purple is not red, nor is it blue. It is its own existence. While purple contains elements of red and elements of blue, it can never truly be considered red or blue. Its experience through life can only be understood through a purple lens, regardless of its parents living through a red or blue lens. 

In this analogy, I am the color purple—being both Mexican and Arab has made it so that I am neither. I have always been someone completely different from my peers and my parents, and have therefore had my rights violated in unique ways that only another mixed person could understand. 

I’m Human

Under my Arab features, my Hispanic language, and my brown skin exists someone that also exists in you, dear reader—a human being. As human beings, we all have the right to live our lives without feeling out of place. All my life, I’ve had to endure comments about my race. I felt less like a person and more like a mutt trying to justify its place in society. You and I both have the same right, dear reader—the right to be seen as a person. But history seems to repeat itself. Just as my father was viewed as nothing more than a Shia by Saddam Hussein’s government, I’ve been whittled down to Arab stereotypes by my family and strangers alike, despite being the same race as them. 

Therefore, dear reader, I implore you to think twice before making a comment about a person’s physical traits, name, or any other detail that can identify them as belonging to a culture unfamiliar to your own. Even seemingly harmless comments put the receiver in a position where they must acknowledge that they appear out of place—that they’re not where they “belong”. We are all human, so no matter where we go on this planet, we belong. 

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s only and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota, the Human Rights Program, or the College of Liberal Arts. As an institution of higher education that values and promotes free speech, civil discourse, and human rights we welcome a variety of perspectives and opinions from our student contributors that are consistent with these values.