Sociology

The central theme of the reading is identity. The exchange between the two women who left spent their childhoods among their community in Palestine before leaving the homeland, one for Britain and the other for the United States. Years later, and having spent more years in the west than they had spent with their families in the Middle East, the two sisters find that although Palestine has not been their home for those years, the west is not home either. The situation in the Middle East remains grim and Reem and Rahab have no plans of moving back to their homeland. Yet they still identify with what happens there and are already passing that sense of identity to their young children who also identify with the grandparents back home.

The argument makes a lot of sense. Reem and Rahab actually speak for thousands of people who relocate from their homes in Latin America, Asia and Africa to the United States and Europe where they seek economic, educational or political refuge. Part of what many such people do is to work hard to adapt to the new cultures, sometimes at the expense of their own cultures. This leads to the internal struggle for identity that is evident from the conversation between Rahab and Reem.

The most interesting thing from this conversation is that even after being physically removed from the Middle East for many years, the two sisters have still not learnt to accommodate Israelis. One would expect that after spending years in the diverse west where they must have encountered Israelis in a more peaceful environment, they remain critical of Israelis. This is seen in the bickering over the naming of food, seemingly pretty issue. It is also telling that Nour (Reems son) is only four years old but is already loathe of Israelis.

This reading raises the question of whether it is really possible for individuals to change their identity. The strory of Rahab and Reem suggests that displacing children from their homes to faraway lands is not enough to erase identity. Nour however complicates the situation. The young boys hasnever been near the Middle East and depends on what he hears from his parents yet his concern for his grandfather is already evident. This would raise the question of how much, say, African-Americans identify with their ancestral land in Africa.