June | 2016 | Cultural Glimpse

June 23, 2016

Provoking Americans to Think and Become One Team

rainbow-flower I was scheduled for a 20 minute interview at 2:30 pm by award winning talk show host Ed Tyll on Starcom Radio Network. Within a minute of our interview, I realized this was not the typical interview. It was a political rumble (one of my listeners called it egotistical bullying). I held my ground, threw my own political punches and 80 minutes later, he said, “You’re the most provocative person I’ve interviewed. You’re intelligent and brilliant and you never lost your femininity. I haven’t gone this much over an interview in 3 or 4 years.” He has been in this business for over 40 years. Oh, and he also invited me out to dinner.

Overall, the interview was fun, engaging and I saw, once again, how the lessons I’d learned from Lynn Andrews’ 4-year school about feminine power could be used as a tool to create harmony between people and in the world.

Today, I shared a recording of this through social media. Soon I discovered that, as so happened yesterday, people were having difficulty listening to it because of the aggressive way Ed Tyll started the interview. But keep this in mind: it’s important to listen to the other side in order to create the change. And in this 80 minutes, a big transformation occurs in our conversation.

Ed Tyll said that he does this to provoke Americans to think. Caring about this country, the earth, and world affairs, means that we have to do some independent thinking and open up our hearts. My teacher, Lynn Andrews, often says, “We’re all responsible for the wars in the world. How are you responsible? Because there is a war inside each and every one of us.”

If we don’t heal that war within ourselves, within our own country, it’ll always be us vs. them and we’ll never resolve our differences.

Ed asked me in the end who I believed would win the elections in November. I had difficulty answering, and he said, “What does your gut tell you?”

“My gut tells me that if the democrats don’t resolve their differences and become a team, then Trump will win.”

Link to Interview: http://theedtyllshow.podomatic.com/entry/2016-06-22T23_41_35-07_00

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June 15, 2016

A Poetic Visit

photo (71)

As he tours different parts of the country, poet and publisher Michael Czarnecki of Wheeler, New York graced our home yesterday by his lovely visit. He arrived shortly after I brought my children home from school, we had a nice lunch together, and then over cardamom tea, he spent quite some time conversing with my flamboyant children and my husband.

At night, we made a bonfire and had barbecued hamburgers. We shared childhood stories and information about our neighborhoods. We live in an Iraqi American community. He lives in an Amish community. Hours passed and before we knew it, it was too late to make S’mores. It was time for bed.

Michael is the author of nearly a dozen books and his publishing company, FootHills Publishing, has published over 500 chapbooks. I met him about 5 years ago through a wonderful instructor/friend at Oakland Community College. I followed his work ever since and was always inspired by his poetry, his interesting and authentic lifestyle, and his breathtaking photography which you can read and view by visiting his website: http://foothillspublishing.com/poetguy/

This morning Michael left after breakfast, heading to Richmond Library where he’s doing a workshop called “Palm of the Hand Memoir Writing.” In the evening, he will be doing a reading at the same library, then he’ll be driving back home to Wheeler, New York.

Michael left us with a wonderful memory – my children announced to the school that we were having an author stay at our house. He also left us with a jar of homemade maple syrup, 8 of his books to read over the summer, and this touching poem, #588 of his “daily spontaneous” poems.

Daily Spontaneous Poem #588
6/14

conversation
meaningful
literary life
spiritual life
life in Iraq
life in America
stories told
from here
from there
three generations
under one roof
night barbecue
whiskey on rocks
one more
vibrant experience
on poetic road

FootHills Publishing is currently seeking poems for an anthology to celebrate birds: their natural history, their place in nature and in the environment they share with poems. Deadline is June 30, 2016 and for more information you can visit http://www.foothillspublishing.com/birds

June 13, 2016

A Nostalgic Walk through the Arabic American National Museum

Museum

I visited the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn last week with some friends and colleagues. Although I had been to the museum many times since it opened in 2005, to attend conferences, watch movies and concerts, and to participate in forums, this was the first time I took a tour of this three-level, 40,000 square-foot building. The experience was quite nostalgic for me, especially after walking through the second floor, called Living in America.

Our tour guide, Petra Al Soofy, said that every person who took this tour, regardless of their background, at the end of the tour said, “That’s the same story my family told me.”

The land people came from is different but the story of immigration is basically the same.

“This community is a very vibrant, successful immigrant experience,” said Hassan Jaber, chief executive officer of ACCESS, a nonprofit organization which started the museum project. “Before 9/11, Arab Americans were individually successful. After 9/11, that shifted completely and a debate arose of why is this happening to us in our name and how do we correct this, how do we care for each other and deal with issues that affect us on a daily basis. It became more urgent to find our place in society and to tell our story.”

Many organizations, such as the Jewish Federation, were very supportive of the museum and helped it come to fruition. This type of support and the staff’s hard work and optimism has led the museum to recently be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, which is truly impressive since only 6 percent of the America’s 21,000 museums are accredited.

“The Japanese American museum was one of our strongest supporters,” said Petra. “They helped make this museum happen because, given what they had gone through, they saw that history was repeating itself.”

One exhibit on the second floor had various size luggage, or trunks, from different eras and personal items that people brought along like a pair of beaded shoes from 1923. Photos of people’s journey and pictures of their naturalization papers were framed on the wall. Rana Abbas, director of communications and marketing at ACCESS, pointed out a long list of names of the Arab Americans who died on the Titanic, two of whom were her relations.

We learned about the first Arabic speaking slave, captured probably in 1511 when Portugal invaded his city in Morocco. He was brought to the U.S., where he eventually became a famous healer, interpreter and explorer.

There were endless fascinating stories about this community, including on how Arabs ended up being classified as “white” but they are too many for me to recount in this post. My friends and I agreed that we needed to have a second tour to fully digest the stories available at the museum. We then took a nice stroll to Sheba restaurant where we enjoyed a delicious Yemeni cuisine.

June 4, 2016

My 3 Poems Published by The Transitional

The Transitional

The Transnational has published 3 of my poems (in German and English). This is a bilingual literary magazine which publishes authors from all around the world who offer a new approach to the political and social landscape of the 21st century. Worldwide. In English & German.

It describes itself as such: Texts which are published in the Transnational can dissolve existing boundaries or suggest new ones. They can make us question our beliefs, champion social justice and human rights, war and psychological violence, giving rise to provocative or soothing thoughts. We believe that all great literature is revolutionary and necessary. Great writers are honest. They call upon us as readers to experience the intangible.

USA: https://www.amazon.com/Transnational-Vol-bilingual-Literary-Magazine-ebook/dp/B01GIDZJQW?ie=UTF8&qid=1464934461&ref_=tmm_kin_swatch_0&sr=8-2

Germany, Europe: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transnational-Vol-4-Weam-Namou/dp/3844810412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464934474&sr=8-1&keywords=transnational+4

or Hugendubel (Thalia und Co.): http://www.hugendubel.de/de/buch/weam_namou_christian_knieps_markus_gragert_thomas_orszag_land_cassandra_ricard-the_transnational_vol_4-26232857-produkt-details.html?searchId=1070551207

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transnational-Vol-4-Weam-Namou/dp/3844810412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464934474&sr=8-1&keywords=transnational+4

June 4, 2016

Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program

Iraqi Boy

Program Description

The Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP) is a four-week summer exchange program in the United States, which brings English-speaking high school students from Iraq to explore the themes of leadership development, civic rights and responsibilities, respect for diversity, and community engagement. On the exchange funded by the U.S. Department of State, competitively selected American students join Iraqi participants in some of the U.S. based activities.

Participants are between the ages of 15 and 17 and are recruited from all provinces in Iraq. Iraqi adult chaperones/mentors will accompany the students, and are educators or community leaders who work with youth and have demonstrated an interest in promoting youth leadership and social development.

The program continues after the U.S. based exchange with follow-on activities in the participants’ home communities, including through alumni activities focused on leadership development.

Program Cycle

Students travel to the United States in July/August to spend the initial two weeks at World Learning’s Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont; followed by two-week homestays in cities across the United States (including Ann Arbor, Michigan); and conclude their program in Washington, DC.

Alumni conferences following the exchange may be held in Erbil, Iraq.

Program Goals & Objectives, as defined by the Department of State

The goals of the program are to:

Promote mutual understanding between youth in the United States and Iraq;
Enable the Iraqi participants to understand civic participation and rights and responsibilities in a democracy;
Promote community engagement among Iraqi youth;
Develop leadership skills among Iraqi and American youth; and
Foster understanding and relationships between people of different ethnic and religious groups.

Opportunities for American High School Students and their Families

Iraqi high school students will spend two weeks in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from July 9-23, 2016. The Iraqi students must stay with local families in a “home-stays” for the two-week period. Programming for the Iraqi and American students will involve leadership development training, team building, volunteering, participation in sport, music and/or arts programming and day camps, and facilitated discussions on current issues and select topics chosen by the students. There will also be optional sightseeing, shopping, museum visits, sporting events and other cultural/social outings on evenings and weekends. The American students who participate will receive certificates of completion for the leadership development and teambuilding workshops, and written acknowledgement of their 80 hours of volunteer service.

For more information about this opportunity, please refer to the following websites:

http://www.worldlearning.org/what-we-do/global-youth-programs/

http://www.isr.umich.edu/cps/M-ABLE/

http://eca.state.gov/programs-initiatives/youth-programs

Or, contact the following people:

Barbara Peitsch, Program Director, bpeitsch@umich.edu, 734/239-3513 or

Surry Scheerer, Co-Director, sscheer@umich.edu, 734/646-2885

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