wonder how Baba described America all those years ago when he sweet-talked Mama into leaving her village and getting on a plane to Baltimore. “Life will be so good, Allah kareem,” he’d probably said. Maybe he’d even fed her the whole sidewalks-are-made-of-gold line. I’m just guessing. I have zero memory of Baba because I was a surprise baby, born fourteen years after Reema, and he died (probably of the shock) a couple years later. What I know for damn sure is Mama wishes she’d never left Palestine. She thinks America is one big trick that God played on her.
