Describe a setting in which you have collaborated or interacted with people whose experiences and/or beliefs differ from yours. Address your initial feelings, and how those feelings were or were not changed by this experience.
Amidst the standard, run-of-the-mill neighborhood, my house was hard to miss. The smell of traditional Mediterranean dishes cooking beside the open kitchen window would pull your nose in; the upbeat music played with instruments of the East would tempt your ears in; the colorful flower gardens planted in the front yard would entice your eyes. But, if all else fails (which rarely happened), then the hospitality of my family would leave you no room to decline. However, being the first born in the first generation of my family in the United States, the benefits of living in a Middle-Eastern family were hard to see behind the veil of conformity.
It took me a while to realize that not everyone in my first grade class knew what maashi was, or that Adel Emam was not the most well-known movie star in the country. I couldn't comprehend why they couldn't speak Arabic and English interchangeably like I could, or why they didn't know where Egypt was on the map! I mean, I liked hamburgers and baseball games just as much as the next American child, but I knew that something was different. For a good portion of my life, I tried desperately to understand how my classmates and I could live entirely different lifestyles while physically living only a few houses apart. It was when I began to think that culture, although prized to my family and I, was something more of a burden than a blessing in society that I understood. And so my assimilation began.
I decided I would live two different identities: one at home closer to my Egyptian roots, and one in public where I only ate pizza and spoke English. My ethnic curls were flattened straight every morning, while my mint tea (a staple in any Arab household) was traded for orange juice. I felt awkward and embarrassed when my mom or dad called me while I was at school, or in public, because we always greeted each other in Arabic. No matter how hard I tried to speak just English, Arabic was intertwined into the conversations. The worst part, however, was when someone wanted to come over. How could I hide my culture in the only place that it was allowed to flourish? Even more absurdly, how could I convince my family to pretend that they were normal, colorless people? My parents didn't mind me living with different ideas of life than what was customary in the Middle East-in fact they encouraged it. But it wasn't them I feared; I feared that other people would shun me for my culture.
High school began and the amount of exposure I had to people of different ways of life was astounding. There were people from every corner of the earth-Europe, Asia, Africa, South America-you name it and a representative was present. Amid these groups, lo and behold, there were other Egyptians, who flaunted their heritage. I was taken aback. Although people knew I was Egyptian, they did not know what it meant to be Egyptian other than coming from the country. However, these new people were casually telling people what words in Arabic meant and what kinds of traditional foods they brought for lunch, all while wearing jeans and t-shirts. People did not laugh, or make weird faces when they were told all the new things they learned about the Middle East-on the contrary, they were begging for more. Meanwhile, people had forgotten that I was also Egyptian; even I did for a time.
I felt it was time I shed the old skin I had been wearing since elementary school to replace with this newfound change-of-heart. Ask me about maashi now, because I'll gladly tell you that it is rice wrapped in grape leaves, kind of like an Arabic sushi. You can even come over and try some if you'd like-I'd be more than happy.
