my father's palestinian identity was
stripped away
when he tried to get back into palestine
when
um after university and then
they just stripped him away of his
identity they told him it was you
haven't been here for a while so
you can't come back in and that is some
relatable [ __ ]
this past year the government has
decided to
revoke that and that was only possible
because
the chief agreed to it so everyone has
turned their backs
on me the way that i've said it before
is like the carpets being like pulled
out from under my feet and there's no
net to catch me they're dropping me you
know
it's really weird it's like i have these
thoughts sometimes of like okay i'm
gonna visit i'm gonna see my family but
they're all gonna think like
oh she's she's never really experienced
the war she doesn't really know and it's
gonna feel like i
i don't belong there my mom when i was
growing up
accused me of being a witch because i
didn't want to go to church i wanted to
go to powwow
and stuff like that oh my god because i
wasn't allowed to practice my culture
because it was too much shame and too
much like it was they were too colonized
to say like there was there was only the
catholic church i was always
told like being indigenous isn't about
who you claim it's about who claims you
and right now nobody claims me doesn't
have to be
like an organization sometimes sometimes
it can just be
your ancestors who claim you it's like i
try and imagine my mom answering that
question it would
be completely different than how i would
answer that question or how my grandma
would answer that question but for me
it's like i grew up with this thought of
like
it's we're gonna get it back it's our
country our land we're gonna
we're gonna go back if it's not us it's
our next generation but it's just
it's like it's who you are first thing
that like
i noticed was like oh you left now
you're not who you are anymore because
that's exactly what happened to me it
was like
oh you left and went to ontario oops
you're not indigenous anymore
and it was like oh your parents left and
went to kuwait or wherever
yeah they're not palestinian anymore
it's like totally bananas
yeah it's like the exact same thing
it's almost as if colonization is a
systematic process
that is replicated all over the world or
something
what you're experiencing it firsthand
like i'm experiencing it
two generations down
um and it's still like a triggering
like like topic for me
so i can't really ima like i can't
imagine how you must feel
but but we do have that same
rage and here we are i'm shocked but not
surprised because this is exactly what
they wanted to happen when they did like
when they started it that long ago
was they wanted people to die off they
wanted people to not exist anymore they
wanted everyone dead
and now they're just still making sure
that that happens
that's what they wanted and that's what
they're gonna get it shocks me
to think that this has been going on for
over 70 years this war
and we're still like in the same place
as we were 50 years ago how long can
this go on for
granny amy smith