Rose Nader Award Acceptance Speech
On March 2, 2019, I was deeply honored to be the recipient of the Rose Nader Award, which is given every year by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) to “an individual with unwavering dedication and commitment to values of equality and justice.” The Rose Nader award is presented by Ralph and Claire Nader in honor of their mother. The award ceremony took place in Washington DC, at the ADC annual gala and conference.
TEXT of SPEECH:
Thank you so much to the ADC, to Nabil Mohamad and Samer Khalaf, and especially to the Nader family. What a beautiful tribute to the work of Rose Nader, a woman who modeled activism for her own children and her community. I’m so honored to be the recipient of this award in her name by your family.
I’d like to dedicate it, in that vein, to my own mother, Alice Muaddi. She is my role model. I have three children of my own, and if I can be half as good as mother as she is, I’ll be doing a great job.
I just want to recognize all the Arab mothers in this audience. They are some of the strongest people I know. When you’re a young person growing up between two cultures, some people in your life can help you by building a bridge. But there are other people in your life who become the bridge. It’s been my experience that Arab moms become the bridge: they stretch as far as they need to stretch, they work as hard as they need to work, so we can reach the other side.
Rose Nader did this with her children, my mother did it for me, and I know so many of you are the ones who make sure that your children feel proud of their Arab heritage — and you do it in a society that, while it’s getting better, is still a hostile environment for Arab Americans.
If you’re like me in that you grew up in America, you probably have a story you can tell about confronting racism. And it’s so hard… I think about how I often felt immediately defensive when someone wanted to know my ethnicity — as a kid, and as a teenager, I got ready for the questions, and I braced myself to hear and to correct a lot of stereotypes. I know them all, and I’m sure you do too.
But like many of you and like the ADC’s theme this year, I am working to seize the narrative, to reclaim the narrative, because too many times, our stories have been written by others.
For example, recently, we launched the #tweetyourthobe campaign. I know many of the people here participated in that campaign. It was a lot of fun, like a big online fashion show of thobes. It was important to support Congresswoman Tlaib and other women in Congress by telling that story of our culture ourselves.
By the way, our campaign is partnering with the Museum of the Palestinian People, which opens in May, to hold an annual celebration, an International Day of Palestinian tatreez and culture. Save the date — April 30th. We’re going to take over social media on that day every year and tweet Palestinian culture all over the world.
Social media can provide us with so many new ways to seize the narrative. And it’s especially important that we do it for our children. As Rose said, I’m currently writing a children’s book series, Farah Rocks, for elementary and middle school children, that stars a Palestinian American girl. I was inspired to write it because my daughter wondered one day why there were so few books that featured Palestinian girls. And I said, “When I was your age, I asked the same question!” That’s too long.
There is a “mirror and window” theory that we talk about in children’s literature. Kids books serve as both a mirror and a window. They provide children a window into another culture, but for readers who are from that culture, the books serve as a mirror. It’s important that children see themselves in books, but our children don’t see themselves often. We’re going to change that, and I’m excited to be part of that effort.
Thank you again for this award. I’m deeply honored. I look forward to working with all of you, with ADC, together, to continue to change the way our people are represented in this country.
