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I’d like to thank you for inviting me here today to address a set of topics that are of grave importance — not only to me personally, but also to our modern world, assuming we wish to see it survive into the next century.

Your conference concerns people like me — immigrants, strangers in strange lands. I am a wanderer — I belong to many countries and many cultures and perhaps, ultimately, to none. I have grown accustomed to being viewed as different, as exotic, as the “Other” with a capital O. And yet I resist all attempts to define me — in the literal sense of putting boundaries around who and what I am. I am what I am, what the course of my life has made me.

Some 26 years ago in New Jersey, I was filling out the application for my marriage license. In filling out the forms with random details about myself, I came across the question, “What is your race?” Instinctively, without thinking, I wrote “human.” Now why did I do that? Did I not know what race I was? Was I ashamed of my race? Or was this simple act of defiance in fact a plea for others to look at me as a whole, complete, unfragmented being?

Perhaps a glimpse at my past will help explain my reaction to such a question at this critical juncture in my life.

I was born as a Christian Arab in the Jewish State of Israel. In other words, my religion is Melkite Catholic, my culture is Palestinian Arab, and my legal status is Israeli. I am a minority within a minority within a minority.

Belonging to different spheres of affiliation has formed the essence of my identity, shaped my outlook on life, and been a major factor in decisions I’ve made as the person I am becoming has evolved.

I grew up in a small, rural village — about 2,000 inhabitants — in a beautiful mountainous region of the Galilee. It was a homogeneous society — the other villagers were all Christian Arabs like myself. I knew who I was — the youngest of six, and a dedicated goalie on the local soccer team. My first real awareness of a world beyond the village came at the age of 14. I was enrolled in a Jewish high school in a neighboring town and suddenly everything began to change..

This was my first immigration to a foreign and unfamiliar land. The comfortable and unremarkable daily life in my village was replaced overnight with a new language, a new culture, new faces, new types of food, new social behaviors, and new political attitudes. I was exposed to many new experiences, not all of which were easy or pleasant, and some of which led to serious conflicts within myself — perhaps even to a crisis of identity. No journey before or since has shaken me so — to my very core.

What was a simple 10-mile journey in geographic terms was a journey of vast proportions in linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, and political terms. From one day to the next, I went from being taught my own religion in Arabic by the village priest to studying the Torah and the Talmud in Hebrew and Aramaic. From one day to the next, this journey took me away from the novels of Najib Mahfouz and the writings of Khalil Jibran to reading instead the writings of Yehuda Halevi and Achad Ha’am. From one day to the next, this journey took me away from memorizing the rich and evocative poetry of my Arab forefathers to memorizing instead that of Jewish national poets such as Byalik, Tshenehovsky, and Rachel.

Yet while I was enriched by my broadening horizons, I must admit that the national symbolism and the fledgling political realities that these new authors celebrated in fact ignored, indeed cast a dark shadow over, the national symbols and political realities of my own people. So, above all, this short journey brought me face to face with a new historical narrative that differed sharply from the parallel narrative told by my parents and their contemporaries. In 1948 Palestinian society as they knew it was destroyed. The year the Palestinians refer to as al-nakba, or The Disaster, marks for the Israelis their War of Independence. What represented a deep and shattering humiliation to my people was a long-awaited victory for the Jewish state, now our state. Could I ever accept, let alone adopt as my own, this new historical narrative?

I am a citizen of Israel, but have I become, can I ever become an Israeli?

I have mastered the Hebrew language and its grammar better than have many native speakers of the language. But how can I internalize new patterns of speech that often include derogatory expressions that criticize — and even demonize — my Arab culture? How can I assimilate the new social behaviors and new political outlook without erasing what is also a part of me as a member of a defeated and underdeveloped nation?

In some cases, I understand the political symbols and the cultural codes of the new culture — for example, I understand the desire of a people to live in safety and security and to break free from the yoke of oppression. In other cases, I reject them — as I do the Israelis’ attempt to suppress my Palestinian Arab identity and to replace it with a new, false identity that serves the needs of the Jewish State rather than our needs as a minority. In still other cases I assimilate, which is to say, I internalize and make these new experiences part of my identity, as has been the case with the Hebrew language.

My second immigration occurred at the age of 28. A journey of 7,000 miles, to study in an American university, brought me to yet another strange land and the birth place of modern democracy. Here I found myself in some ways at home. I was an immigrant among immigrants, in a land of immigrants. As a Christian, despite some differences in form and ritual, I was no longer in the minority. Still, linguistically, socially, and politically, this was a new and challenging experience, adding new layers to my identity.

I am now, as of 1985, a U.S. citizen enjoying all the great things this country has to offer, not only in terms of its ideals of freedom and democracy but also educationally, technologically, intellectually, and economically. Yet, have I been, will I ever be, an American?

In a sense it is easy to adapt to life in this open society. Learning English slang and mastering how to order food from a drive-through window are the least of my worries. Can I ever truly absorb and accept all the social values of this new environment? Can I accept the fact that I don’t even know the names of, much less mix with, most of my neighbors on a daily basis, even after 25 years of living in the same house? Can I accept the fact that people may feel uncomfortable talking about their personal problems, and this after coming from a place where the lives and affairs of others are always, somehow, somewhat, your own business?

Can I accept the fact that more than 40 million people don’t have health insurance in this great country? Or the fact that our public transportation system is so poor in comparison to Europe or even to Israel?

Can I ever truly accept the concept of personal freedom, such as the prevalence of pre-marital relations especially when it comes to women, a concept that entirely contradicts the social moeurs of the village I grew up in and of Arab society in general?

In some cases, I understand but cannot fully come to terms with the political symbols and cultural codes of my new society, such as the rampant individualism that acknowledges no tribe and no community —and all too frequently ends in desperate social isolation. In other cases, I reject things, such as the arrogant, cultural and economic imperialism, which sees the world as its marketplace and an endless source of cheap labor and natural resources. And yet in others, I assimilate, internalize, and identify with certain aspects of this culture that resonate so strongly with my own beliefs.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These precious rights are at least guaranteed by law in my new country, even if not always applied evenly and equitably in practice.

My third immigration was an internal one into my own culture, the Islamic civilization, as I have studied and subsequently taught it in various universities and institutions. In the course of this internal odyssey, I discovered many elements of this civilization that I could identify with, especially in its medieval manifestation. The thinkers of the scientific movement in Islam became my heroes, especially given the fact that my ancestors — eastern Christian scholars — found their place in the Islamic empire and contributed significantly to its development, as did a great many Jewish scholars, chief among them, Maimonides. These People of the Book were able to find an intellectual home in medieval Islam precisely because that civilization opened itself to non-Muslims, making them feel part of the system and allowing them to be active and productive members of the community. Their religion, their ethnicity did not threaten the Islamic empire, nor did the ideals of the Islamic empire threaten their collective identity.

Had I lived during this Golden Era, perhaps it would have been less difficult for me to merge all the distinct aspects of my identity. In an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence and mutual respect I could perhaps have been myself — without reservation. But, alas, I live in the world of today, and that is not an easy thing for people like me.

When we look at the current encounter between Islam and the West, for example, we see a very different picture. Unlike the proud medieval Islamic world, which was confident in its direction and in its achievements, the Muslim World today is searching for a definition, for an identity, and feels embattled and beset upon from all sides. In some cases, Muslims have become immigrants in countries of the Western world. In other cases the Western world has come to them in all its materialistic splendor.

In both cases many Muslims feel their way of life as they know it is being threatened. They seek to remain true to their culture and their beliefs in the face of this onslaught. Often digging in their heels and throwing out the cultural good with the bad — just because it’s Western.

And just as they reject the West, they may also be rejected by the West, or even reviled and demonized. This is something I myself have experienced — being treated differently because I am not part of the dominant culture or because my culture is at odds with the dominant one.

But does immigration necessarily involve a clash of cultures? Or is there another way to view identity?

In my earliest migrations, I was constantly comparing my new experiences to my early life in the village, with a strong sense of nostalgia. When I didn’t feel comfortable with any aspect of the new life, it was because it did not fit in with the set of values I had acquired from my mother culture and my first circle of affiliation. It was because my allegiances prior to my immigration were so closely linked in my mind to my ethnicity, my specific form of religion and upbringing. This rigid and static view of my identity was what made the encounter seem like a “clash” or “crisis.”

Yet now I begin to perceive my identity as an evolving thing capable of expanding beyond its original form, something that can be influenced by new experiences, even some of which are incompatible with one another. Now I begin to understand that my migrations represent a path to opening myself to interactions with my new environment.

With such a realization comes the beginning of a dialogue with my new surroundings. From this point on I feel I have something in common with these “strange people.” From this point on I can choose to enter into a kind of “moral contract” with my new culture. I respect your laws and your way of life, as long as I can do so without sacrificing other important or crucial aspects of my identity.

A contract, however, is a two-way street; it is reciprocal. The key term here is ‘respect’. I might have reservations about certain aspects of life in my new country but that has to be expressed through channels acceptable to that society. By the same token, the host culture must respect the culture and individuality of the immigrants, giving them the opportunity to express themselves and to contribute to the development of their new society by bringing in their individual talents, as well as aspects of their culture that might enrich their new culture, all contributing to the rich US social mosaic. The host culture must treat with respect the newcomers, regardless of their race, color, religion, and language, as long as they in turn respect its laws and spirit.

A productive dialogue with a new culture can start if, and only if, we overcome the notion that our original nationality, our religious beliefs, and our racial and ethnic affiliations are the only things that can define us as individuals and groups. The state of “us” versus “them” acquires new meaning with the realization that our identities are not fixed, not constant, not given. With that realization I acquire the right to change and alter my way of viewing the world, just as I acquire the right to criticize, preach, and try to change that world to bring it as close as possible to my original core beliefs, acquired in my previous life.

Isn’t it the case that every one of us carries within him or her components of identities that form a super-“identity”? And isn’t identity a concept that changes with experience, rather than a constant thing with which we are born? It is true that not every one is a Catholic Melkite Palestinian Arab citizen of the Jewish state who currently lives in the US and has done so for the last three decades. Nevertheless, we all have multiple experiences that add up to form our various and mutually different identities.

Does this mean we are all split personalities? Does the possession of multiple identities make it impossible to lead a “normal life”? Can we carry within us so many identities, especially when some are contradictory to each other, without suffering serious consequences?

The best of all possible worlds for those like me with multiple different components of our identities — and I would argue that we are ALL like me to some extent — is a peaceful world where diversity is celebrated; where all religions, races, and ethnicities are valued for the variety they bring to our planet. In such a world, I will not feel I have to be more Catholic, or more Palestinian, or more American than I want to be; I will feel free to be human first and foremost.

Perhaps it was the fear of being categorized and treated on the basis of one dimension of my identity, rather than the sum total of my personality that made me rebel against the question of what race I belong to. I had grown weary of hiding parts of myself as an Arab, or as a Christian, or as a Palestinian, or as a citizen of Israel. In the US, perhaps more than in any other place in the world, one can aspire to this ideal of declaring oneself a member of the “human race” rather than a specific ethnic or religious group. Yet even here we have a long way to go to achieve this ideal. The kinds of “hyphenated” Americans we have —

African-American, Asian-American, Jewish-American, Native American, Italian-American, Palestinian-American — may be an indication of how far we are from achieving this goal.

Yet perhaps those of us hyphenated individuals — who wear our multiple affiliations on our sleeves, for all the world to see — are the pioneers blazing a path to that best of all possible worlds. It is we who have the most at stake in reaching this utopian ideal, so perhaps it is we who must lead the way.

The contemporary French-Lebanese historian of ideas Amin Maalouf, addresses the issue of multiple identities in divided societies and concludes the following:

We are not dealing with a handful of marginal people. There are thousands, millions of such men and women, and there will be more and more of them. They are frontier-dwellers by birth, or through the changes and chances of life, or by deliberate choice, and they can influence events and affect their course one way or the other. Those who can accept their diversity fully will hand on the torch between communities and cultures, will be a kind of mortar joining together and strengthening the societies in which they live. On the other hand, those who cannot accept their own diversity may be among the most virulent of those prepared to kill for the sake of identity, attacking those who embody that part of themselves which they would like to see forgotten.

So, we do need to come terms with these phenomena that you have come together to discuss at this conference — immigration, assimilation, identity. If we do not learn how to eliminate the negative energy surrounding the racial, ethnic, and religious strife in our times, then we are well and truly lost.

However, we know what it is we need to do. In the face of many contrary forces, we must learn to respect and value all aspects of the diversity within ourselves and within others. We must work tirelessly to understand others, learn from others, and seek peaceful resolutions to world conflicts. In so doing we are acknowledging the scope of the human circle to which we ALL belong.

Perhaps this is what the American poet, Edwin Markham, means when he writes:

"He drew a circle that shut me out.

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win;

We drew a circle that took him in."