Becoming a US citizen was a long time coming... going to American schools as a kid, and making US my home (now for the last 15+ years). As a writer, it made practical sense to leave my homeland in Egypt and live in America, since I only write in English. Plus, that's where my college sweetheart lived...
Being naturalized five years into living in the US, I vowed to become a good American, while remaining a global citizen. I hoped to uphold the values that made America great, while also remaining capable of self-critique—recognizing the power that this country wields and its role throughout the world.
Obviously, there's much to admire in the US (otherwise, so many immigrants, such as myself, would not flock, there). But, there's also work to be done - as there is in my motherland & globally.
I remember it was a quietly moving ceremony, taking my oath to become a US citizen, in Baltimore—with all those people from all over the world, congratulating one another with great big grins at the end... Ah, Humanity! It felt inspiring, to partake in the collective Hopes/Dreams of others.
Living in America, as an immigrant and Muslim, for years I was spared the ugly face of hatred, mercifully, and would even go so far as to declare that it was really a non-issue/minimize its threat...
Until, that is, Islamophobia came knocking on my door and, sadly, I've come to realize that the system in the US, ultimately, is just as cracked as the one that I fled back home, in Egypt.
Justice, Truth, Mercy... in the next world, I hope!
So, on the 10th anniversary of my becoming a US citizen, below is a poem that I wrote, featured on PBS NewsHour:
Speaking American
O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength,
But it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
—Shakespeare
I'm learning to speak American
(I thought I had it, ages ago)
but the dialects throw me off
each like a language in itself
There's the official tongue:
addressed to the better angels
of our nature, the huddled masses
all yearning to breathe free
But no one speaks such Shakespearean English
in the streets, there you are treated
to a more familiar manner of speech
the unguarded snarl known as slang
Unlike that poetic flourish on its tiptoes,
this dialect is flat-footed and suspicious
of the very tired and poor that it invites
preferring the right to bear arms in bars
Stray violence or casual hate of shifting shapes:
racial slur, ethnic insult or what specialists term
linguistic xenophobia…
you fill in the blanks, I'd rather not
I'm learning this fickle colossus
and the Big Friendly Giant are one
so, if you want to run with either
best to watch both don't squash you
Having made a show of separating
church and state, they still Bless you
at every turn, but will also curse you
if you do not bless their troops, in return.
—©Y. Lababidi
You can listen to a recording of my reading, here
