Jess

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HAVENT POSTED IN A HOT MINUTE!

been enjoying my winter break, along with getting used to new classes :,)

here’s a couple of photos that sum up what I’ve been doing! as well as two photos that sum up my feelings this past week…

will try to post more :)

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SKULL PANDA! I swear, these figures make my inner-child so excited :)

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Last Day of Fall Quarter Vent!

Finished the first quarter of my first year in college! Felt kind of weird since it’s not like high school where I had a day of all my classes to experience the farewell of my professors. That feeling lingered throughout the last two weeks. It started with one class I didn’t have to attend, two classes, to four. So, I guess I hadn’t realized it ended until the very last class, which is the class that made me start this blog account! That sad feeling finally came to me, that I probably won't have the same professors later in my college life, but I guess that's how life goes.

While I might not be posting so much about Islam and The West anymore (or hopefully pick it up occasionally), I’ll still try to post some things about my life and what I’ll be taking interest in. I have a feeling my adventurous life won’t end here. I also want to use this post to appreciate all my professors I’ve had. Despite showing up to class late and not paying too much attention in class, I still hope they get to teach other students about the same topics I was taught and be given the same opportunity to start blogs and to go out and experience life more. Thank you. 

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Notable Palestinian Art and My Thoughts

Mansour 

Camel of Heavy Burdens, The Struggle Goes On, Al Amal, The Future, Palestinian Motherhood 

Zurob 

Excuse Me Peter Doig: This is a Sea Canoe, Excuse me Mr. Kiefer: This is Our Grief 

Halaby 

Helical Drawing, Slicer Waves, Still from Irw0 and Branching 

Silman Mansour’s work, along with Hani Zurob’s paintings and Samia Halaby’s abstract art, all make me feel lost and somewhat miserable. It could be that I don’t entirely understand the feelings that are made to be felt when looking at these pieces. But I do know the connection these pieces have with Palestine. I do see the frustration and burden that comes with wanting to find freedom in one’s homeland. A lot of Mansour’s listed pieces portrayed a sense of responsibility in carrying on generations of struggle as they fight for Palestine. But there is also hope. When children are depicted in his artwork, there’s a kind of innocence and potential. Potential, the path destined for the children is the path their ancestors followed because of unfortunate circumstances that were placed on them. Circumstances which created burden among Palestinians and people who called Palestine their home. Halaby focuses mainly on abstract art, a kind of art that I don’t particularly understand. But after watching an interview of her and her art, I realized that her creations are a message. Messages that are meant to be hidden from those that don’t care to look deeper than the surface. The same people that don’t care about freedom and peace of society. There is so much meaning to the art they’ve made, so much emotion too. It’s hard to miss such significance unless you choose to turn a blind eye to it.  

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Decorated some petri dishes as Christmas ornaments! They turned out so cute!

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The Time that Remains, my thoughts

The Time that Remains reminds me of a Wes Anderson film. It was like a silent film, where there wasn’t much dialogue and had more scenes depicted by actors. We aren’t given any background on the story other than what is happening in the film, and I kind of like that. One scene that caught my eye the most was when the ambulance showed up at the hospital, and the military men shortly arrived afterward. The men wanted to bring in the injured suspect for questioning. This scene involved the military men to reel in the injured person away from their family, and the family then taking them back. It ended with the men pulling their guns on the family. It was funny, like most of the scenes in the film. The difference is that when watching the movie, this was the part that made me realize another element of the film that I hadn’t noticed before. While the picture focused on the story of Suleiman’s life, it also involved short scenes of what happened around him. The description of the video mentions “Palestine’s encounter with Zionism” which I want to say is a constant message presented throughout the movie. While Suleiman himself never took part in the protests or riots, he was still affected by Zionism and lived his whole life knowing that. With constant events happening like his neighbor spewing nonsense about winning the war and the cars of Israeli military men telling everyone about the imposed curfew. It’s a story of someone’s personal life as they live through Palestine's encounter with Zionism. It shows what they go through, probably a similar life among Palestinians.  

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CARMELO’S TACOS!!!

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Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's Water & Salt: Grandmothering

Grandmothering by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha in Water & Salt resonates with me the most as of now. Tuffaha writes this piece in second person, where she addresses the main character as her grandmother. She starts off with four items that are used to help braid a young girl’s hair, assuming that the young girl is Lena. She recalls the process of her grandmother braiding her hair. While it seems simple, it’s such a detailed poem that portrays the process of braiding. Noting the fact that she was a young girl then, it must have been an important memory for her. An even more important memory since it involved her grandmother.  

I resonate with this poem because my grandmother recently passed. Our relationship wasn’t the strongest because she moved back to her hometown in the Philippines, and I stayed on Hawai’i, but I still feel a sense of loss. She was an important part of my childhood. Like Lena’s experience with her hair being braided, my grandmother always used to put coconut oil in my hair while I sat on the floor of her bedroom. This interaction was unique, only she would care for my hair in such ways. And it’s a bit haunting knowing that my bedroom used to be hers. So, when I go back home, I’ll be reminded of her. I called her my Inang, meaning “mother”. She was my Inang, someone who loved and cared for me, and I’m glad I get to associate a wholesome and kind memory with her.  

Just an old picture of us. Pretty sure I was mad at my brother in this!

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Project 2025 - Truth in Reliable Sources

Let’s talk about Project 2025’s official website page. The webpage itself tries to portray Project 2025’s policies and ideologies as a “historic movement,” a project that will benefit the American people and “put America back on track” (Project 2025). They call for goals and persuade readers to think that making America better or greater started with conservative viewpoints. I’ve known from the start that referencing a source that is too politically biased is never a good decision, so it’s always best to find other websites that see Project 2025 in another light. ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, is a publication website that goes into depth about pressing civil liberties issues. They created a page explaining Project 2025, as well as their stance on it. ACLU recognizes “that the re-election of Donald Trump as president will have immense implications for the future of our democratic norms, institutions, and processes” (ACLU, 2024). They immediately state their views, which has a more left leaning bias, but as we dig more into the article, they state important issues about Project 2025 that affects minorities. The conservative think tank “opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity” (ACLU, 2024). I appreciate that this source recognizes both conservative and liberal views and states the facts plainly instead of favoring either side. The official Project 2025 website sugarcoats what plans are included and dances around their ideas instead of stating them clearly. While Project 2025’s website does include the truth, it’s not the full and simple truth. It takes a ton of research to find out what proposals are included in project 2025 and what they really mean for the American people, not just a single website.  

American Civil Liberties Union. “Project 2025, Explained.” American Civil Liberties Union, 14 Nov. 2024, www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained. Accessed 01 Dec. 2024.  

The Heritage Foundation. “Project 2025 | Presidential Transition Project.” Project 2025, 2024, www.project2025.org/. Accessed 02 Dec. 2024. 

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HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING!! (thankful that KFC was not taking online orders so I got to try Halal Burgers instead!!!)

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went Black Friday shopping! did more gift shopping and than shopping for myself… my poor bank account 😢. took these photos in case I would look back at them and have the same desire to buy them, and I do. will be going back!

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Content break! Just making sure my blogs aren’t entirely filled with assignments and boring (no offense, they are thought provoking) paragraphs. I want to take the time to be appreciative and thankful of the accomplishments I’ve made, as well as the people in my life that have helped me through tough times. I wouldn’t have been here without the motivation and support that my friends and family have provided, all love for them <3

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Al-Nakba Documentary Thoughts

Noted Sources/Facts from Episode 1:

Napoleon’s offer to make Palestine as a Homeland for Jews

Egyptian Governor, Muhammed Ali and the hate he received by the British 

Jewish Immigration to Palestine Increased 

Zionism, the term 

The Jewish State, a book written by Hungarian Journalist Theodore Herzel

I wanted to focus on how Palestine got chosen to be colonized by these oppressors. I always wondered, why Palestine? Why these people? So, to answer my curiosity, I gathered sources that pointed toward that very first decision that made Palestine a candidate as a Homeland for Jewish people. It was Napolean’s desperate need for allies that made him promise to protect the Jews under the French army. I did a bit of research to find out why he wanted an alliance with the Jewish community, and in essence, it would have greatly benefited his military campaigns, the French society (more so the destruction of Jews), economy, and his own egotistical values. I find it amusing that Napoleon was going to turn his Frenchmen against the Jewish community and do what the British did to Palestinians. As for the rest of the sources, it kind of plays out once we realize that the British’ motivation to block Muhammed Ali’s power or expansion was in interest toward the Ottoman Empire. It was the political power and restoring balance of said power between Ali and Ottoman. The British saw Ali as a threat to the Ottoman Empire. I want to assume that such selfishness and distrust toward Muhammad Ali is what created this need to control Egypt. This then led to the control of people and favoring European allies. This entire thing is like a domino effect, and it plays too well...  

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Rashid Khalid's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine Notable Sources

Upon gathering sources from Rashid Khalidi’s “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine”, and connecting their significance to the chapter, I realized that Palestine was doomed from the start. No matter how many pledges or promises that were made to preserve the Palestine culture and land, it never really followed through. The chapter made an amazing point toward the Alexandria Protocol, in which five Arab countries gathered and “stressed the importance of the cause of Arabs of Palestine,” and regretted what the Jews of Europe inflicted on the country (62). They stated this under the section “Special Resolution Concerning Palestine”, which at the time these five countries were not fully independent of their “previous colonial masters” (62). How could they have pledged for the preservation of Palestine when they themselves are not free of destruction from colonialism? They work so hard on supporting each other as a whole, that they cannot stand as an individual country.  

This brings on another piece of evidence from the book. Yusif Sayigh, a Palestinian politician, wrote in his excerpts of how ill-fated the Arab High Committee had been once its leaders had been sent to prison or exiled. Sayigh quoted that “the Arab Higher Committee realized it didn’t have the intellectual skills among its members. Indeed it had no structure at all” (65). The committee had been disbanded by the British a year after being formed. It was also the British’ doing that chased the leaders into jail and out of the country. If its leaders had taught other members such intellectual skills, then maybe there would still be hope that the AHC would come back again. Like all concepts, they don’t die. This is especially true when Palestine was first brought up as a country to house Jewish people. 

Like the Alexandria Protocol, we have President Roosevelt’s letter confirming pledges to place the American Government as a respectable country toward Palestine. The letter was made for King Ibn Saud, in which Roosevelt confirms the continuing interest and concern toward Palestine and Arabs (70). However, President Roosevelt did not account for his successor, Harry Truman, to disregard such promises, and the King knew this. He knew, yet him and his six sons who succeeded him did not speak out against it as Saudi Arabia heavily depended on the United States for its economy and military. The message that good things never last have a consistency in Palestine’s history.  

To top it off, Palestinians were furious about the lack of assertiveness the Arab countries and its leaders had toward the mistreatment from Britain, as they continued to be “the primary enabler of Zionism” (81). The Palestinians saw failure and fault within the Arab states. This anger created a sort of opportunity for artists and poets to express their feelings. Khalid included a poem about Arab rulers from Palestinian poet ‘Isa al-’Isa, which read: 

Oh little kings of Arabs, by the grace of God 

Enough feebleness and infighting 

Once upon a time our hopes were on you 

But all our hopes were dashed. 

The term “little kings” refer the height of the Arab kings. Along with the mention of weak stances in political activities and false hope, it brings about how deeply they have failed Palestine and its people.  

Resources 

13. “The Alexandria Protocol,” October 7, 1944, Department of State Bulletin, XVI, 411, May 1947, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/alex.asp. 

23. Sayigh, “Desperately Nationalist,” 69–70. 

33. For Roosevelt’s letter confirming these pledges, dated April 5, 1945, see United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers [hereafter FRUS], 1945. The Near East and Africa, vol. 8 (1945), http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decad161.asp. 

56. The poem is reproduced in Ya’qub ‘Awadat, Min a‘lam al-fikr wal-adab fi Filastin [Leading literary and intellectual figures in Palestine], 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Dar al-Isra’, 1992). 

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Ludi’s Restaurant! I was surprised at how long the line was- my friend and I waited an hour to actually order and be seated, but IMO it was worth the wait.

it was the taste of home I never knew I needed.

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went to watch Avatar the Last Airbender the previous Sunday- let’s just say I cried 3 times and cheered more times that I can count! it was an amazing performance!