In their own words

• On major issues facing Arab Americans and British Arabs…
• On the aims of community activism…
• On identity…
• On citizenship…
• On locating 'home'…

On locating ‘home’…

The commemoration of ‘home’ is an important cultural practice of many migrant groups.  But in contexts where the loyalties and allegiances of immigrants and minorities are questioned, ideas about ‘home’ acquire a deeply political significance.  Where do Arab immigrants locate home?  Is home ‘here’ or ‘elsewhere’?  Where do they wish to ‘place’ themselves, if anywhere?    Among those interviewees for this study, a small number primary locate home in their country of origin.  Another small group see themselves as essentially rootless - that is, as able to create ‘home’ wherever they happen to be.   For most, however, ideas about home reflect the multilayered nature of their identities.  While many of our interviewees have emotional and political attachments to places of origin, and, indeed, travel frequently to between ‘here’ and ‘there’, the strength and significance of these attachments vary widely.  Interviewees tend to see themselves, for all practical purposes, as situated in the countries, cities, and neighbourhoods where they have settled.  In this way, they feel invested politically ‘here’, even as they remain deeply concerned about events in the Arab world. 

Well, with all of this propaganda on right of return and all this - I mean, right of return I want.  No one should take from me my right of return to my home in Acre.  No one should take that from me.  But if I return or not, that’s up to me.  I mean, I would never, ever say that I don’t want to go back to Palestine or my home, but this is my home…My right of return is my right.  But where do I want to spend the rest of my life.  It’s [London]. [Palestinian-born political party activist]

I really have very little connection to where I came from.  I’ve spent more of my adult life in America than elsewhere…And that’s when you realize that ‘That’s where I am’, and it takes you a moment to look back.  A person belongs to where you grow up, where you live, where you interact with people…You belong to where your kids belong; you don’t belong to where your parents belong, because your kids are what you live for…[Lebanese-born director of Islamic community advocacy organization]

Even if I tried, I couldn’t live in an Arabic country.  I find it intolerable…My grandmother once said to me, ‘Home is where you are not a foreigner’.  If I went to Iraq, I’d be the biggest foreigner.  How would I not be?  I wouldn’t blend here.  Here, I don’t look British, but once I talk to people, my looks go into the background and they tend to forget.  [British-born community youth organizer]

I’m always wondering [where home is].  I think, realistically, home is here because after 24 years of living here--my job and my home are here.  But if I went back to Lebanon for more than a month, I would probably call it home.  I think my cultural affinity with Lebanon has to do with the way I left at a young age, torn from my family, and not able to go back for over eleven years.  ..I practically cried myself to sleep every night because I was homesick and feeling a serious failure.  I think my identification with Lebanon is because I can never get over what happened…I love my life here, but there is a certain yearning to be back there…[Lebanese-born community advocate and local human rights commissioner]

When I'm far away from London, I miss it terribly.  This is home for me.  But I have such strong Arab blood in me, as well….  But I can never be away from London for a very long time. I admire this country so much, I think it's fantastic.  Sometimes I question myself, 'would I be happier if I were brought up in an Arab country,' and I don't think so.  I'm just very happy about the way things have been for me.  It's given me a view of what's outside the Arab world, and that's what I like about it. I think being from the Arab world and being from London are very equal to me.  [UK-born volunteer for Arab-based charity organizations]

Home is wherever I am.  Where I am, that will be home for me until I make a change…This is not to say that place of birth does not have sway. ..But wherever I find myself sitting an contributing, that for me is home, and I feel that I need to contribute, to change it for the better, and to challenge others around me to that same standard…I don’t think it’s a fixed location.  [Palestinian-origin academic active in global social justice movements]

I don’t believe in this located home anymore.  Home is anywhere your friends are, where your family is, where you are having a good time.  You can turn somewhere into home overnight, and you can turn it into exile overnight.  [UK-born scholar-activist]

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