Lansing State Journal · 23 June 1997

CP-1997-006

Arab Americans seek their roots

West Bank experience opens young eyes to the world of their ancestors

By Samar Assad, Associated Press, Ramallah

Transcribed from the clipping

“RAMALLAH, West Bank — Rose Haddad turned heads and triggered sarcastic remarks when she and her American friends got down on their knees in downtown Ramallah to plant flowers and pick up garbage. Haddad, an 18-year-old from Saginaw, this month was making her first visit to the homeland of her parents and grandparents, along with 13 other young Palestinian Americans… Another day, sitting with new friends from Ramallah, some of the Americans suggested a visit to Jerusalem, 15 minutes away. ‘I was surprised to hear the guys sitting with us say they could not go — they needed a permit from Israel,’ Haddad said. ‘Wow,’ I thought.’… ‘The project is an attempt to get American-born Palestinians acquainted with their roots,’ said Samir Mashni… ‘If they don’t feel part of the city, they will lose their whole culture.’ The project is similar to the hundreds of long-established programs that bring young American Jews to Israel to volunteer and study… Palestinian officials blamed the lack of investment on Israeli restrictions — including closures of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, restricted visas and border controls… ‘I plan to return and work for a couple of years in Ramallah,’ said Mashni, a distant relation of Samir Mashni. ‘Definitely.’”

Photograph caption

Far from home: Rose Haddad (center) and her colleagues, Arab Americans volunteering in “Project Hope,” speak with a disabled Palestinian recently at the Abu Rayeh rehabilitation center in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Context added by this archive

Three Americans are named in the caption. The Palestinian they have come to meet is not. The culture shock the story records is not the one its headline expects: an eighteen-year-old from Saginaw discovers that her new friends cannot travel fifteen minutes to Jerusalem.

Cite this item

"Arab Americans seek their roots," Lansing State Journal, 23 June 1997. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1997-006. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1997-006

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