Demotix/Gianluca Grossi. All rights reserved.
I have grown accustomed to the skeptical glances and displeased faces that accompany the “othering” question, “where are you from?” Whether I’m dealing with white America in Ann Arbor or intra-Arab hierarchy and Lebanese superiority in Dearborn, I am soon aware of a hierarchical, classist, and racist mentality that is left uninterrogated by our society.
Moving through Arab Detroit as an Iraqi hijab-wearing woman refugee, I have been unwillingly placed near the lower tiers of social constructs utilized to exclude and debase already marginalized groups. I call these identities “my layers.”
