Interview with Sofia by BA ’22 and GR ’22
Sofia is a fifth generation Palestinian currently living in Washington, DC. Born in Santiago, Chile (and then living in a smaller town called Temuco), Sofia grew up in a multicultural home – her father’s family originating from Bethlehem. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Chile and moved to North Carolina to pursue a Masters degree in Global Studies and a Certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2013, Sofia traveled to the West Bank with a diverse group of Palestinians from the diaspora. Inspired by her trip and ardently pursuing volunteer work for Palestine, Sofia obtained a job at ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid), where she currently works. Here, she happily pursues her passions and goals regarding human rights and social justice. Though she wasn’t as involved with Palestinian culture as a child, she has embraced that aspect of her identity and has become an extraordinary voice for Palestinians.
Transcript:
So all my visiting was in West Bank, and seeing everyone, they looked just like me. They look like my grandfather, like my uncles; at the same time I felt that could have been me; this could have been my life — for better or for worse. So I need to honor that. So I felt a strong need to connect with them.
I’m a fifth-generation living in Chile, like who am I to speak on other people’s behalf: I can barely speak about my own experience, like who am I to speak about other people’s. So I do feel that I have a responsibility to speak of what I saw and what I live in this country, especially here. And in Chile being Palestinian is not a controversial issue. It’s a source of pride. And so I feel that here in the United States, it’s a different story. It’s hard to tell the Palestinian story. So I do feel the commitment to speak of what I’ve seen, what I’ve lived, and put Palestinian voices, or put the conversation about Palestine and Palestinians in circles that perhaps normally wouldn’t be mentioned. And some of those Palestinian voices cannot be in those rooms, but I am in those rooms.
All the aspects – cultural, political, identity issues of questioning who I am, where I am, what’s my role — are more complex forms. All of them inform who I am and how I feel. Definitely my Palestinian identity, even if it’s not my only identity, is one my main identities, and this is how I represent myself.
There were two things, or two experiences, that were really eye-opening, and one was this man living at a cave in the West Bank near Bethlehem. He had his land surrounded by settlements, and he was forbidden by Israeli law to build on his land. And he had built a door for this like little cave that he had, and for that he is being fined monthly by the state of Israel. And they are threatening to demolish the tent that he put outside the cave and the door that he had. And his brother was imprisoned; many of his family members were imprisoned, but he kept going because that was his only way to defend his land and protect what was his and to prevent more settlements being built around his family ancestor land.
And then, we met an artist that he started working on his paintings when he was in prison. He was imprisoned for 20, 22 years. His sister was born and married while he was imprisoned. They didn’t let him have pictures of both of his parents at the same time, so he had to choose if he could have a picture of his mom or his dad. And, he was now out of jail and he was painting, and he was trying to bring more people to listen and know about Palestine through his art. I think Palestinians use a lot of humor, a lot of joy, to face what they face. And both of these men were able to move all that disappointment, pain, sadness, angriness to help them cope. I was deeply touched by how these people were able to tell their stories and touch other people without showing any anger and by being humble and by using humor.
And how art saved him, and let him be saved inside of jails where everything is impossible, and humanity’s taking away from you. But they resisted. And they kept their humanity in spite of all the efforts to take that away from them. So definitely those stories come with me everywhere I go, and those are the reasons why I can’t give up.
https://soundcloud.com/nancy-kalow/real-allmendinger-final4minuteeditt-sofia-farah
