Essay #8
Although I’ve never been put on a do-not-fly list, and I’ve rarely been called a terrorist, there have been some days when I couldn’t even bear to eat lunch in my own cafeteria. One day in elementary school, I ate lunch with my regular group of friends. I was fortunate to always have a packed lunch courtesy of my mother, so each day's meal was a tasty surprise. That day, I unzipped my bag and found manousheh, a Lebanese herbed vegetable flatbread sandwich. Although I was excited by the aroma of thyme, sesame seeds, and sumac, the girl next to me took one look at it and blurted out, “Eww! Why does it smell like that?” She pinched her nose, moved to another table, and a bunch of my friends followed suit. Humiliated and on the verge of tears, I finished eating my manousheh alone.
After this unfortunate incident, I couldn’t admit to my mom that I didn’t want to bring Lebanese food to school anymore, so she kept packing manousheh. I either threw it away or figured out secret locations in which to consume it without attracting the attention of my peers. Some days, I ate it on the walk home. If I couldn’t find a private place to eat, and I got hungry during classes, I’d somehow get through the school day on fruit snacks and Oreos. I even lied to my mom one day and begged her to pack me a ham-and-cheese sandwich. “Manousheh doesn’t taste as good at school as it does at home,” I claimed. She denied my request. Once I forgot to dispose of the manousheh before walking home, and my mom found it in my lunch box. She was livid. “If you come home, and it’s not eaten, you’ll be sleeping outside,” she yelled. From then on, she ordered my twin brother to let her know if I wasn’t eating my sandwich during lunch.
Even though her disappointment devastated me, this was the beginning of my dismissal of our Middle Eastern roots. I dreaded car rides with friends because seeing my mom cranking up the Arabic music and doing her little car dance was so embarrassing. Although my appearance never used to matter to me, in my pre-teen years I began harshly critiquing my body parts that reminded me of my Middle Eastern ancestors—my big nose, thick eyebrows, and dark hair. “Why do you have a mustache?” my classmates asked. “Are you a boy?” Their questions made me so insecure that I began trying different hair-removal options, such as shaving, waxing, bleaching, epilating, and even laser-hair removal. Being me was so exhausting.
In 9th grade, I started attending my Lebanese church’s annual festival and meeting more kids at school whose heritage was similar to mine; I no longer felt like an outcast. The air was filled with the aroma of cumin and nutmeg, and kids gobbled up the same delicacies I’d been trashing. I watched as young teenagers performed the dabke, a traditional Lebanese dance, and adults frolicked to Arabic music I’d shunned. The girls around me had as much body hair as I did but didn't seem insecure about it. As I sat in the grass and soaked in the atmosphere, I felt guilty as I realized that I’d let people’s derogatory comments destroy my self-esteem.
During high school, my close friends convinced me to embrace my mom’s beloved Arabic music and her aromatic lunches. With time, I’ve learned to appreciate my distinctive features. During our junior year full of isolation, my friends and I celebrated our ethnic roots. I co-founded an Arab club at school, where we make weekly Instagram posts showcasing exotic Middle Eastern recipes, trendy musicians, and impressive architecture in Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. Nowadays, if I’m lucky enough to get a lunch of Middle Eastern treats packed with passion by my gourmet mom, I eat it with gusto.