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"Arab, huh...that's pretty exotic!"
1. “Are you sure you’re Arab? You don’t look Arab…”
2. You ALWAYS get "randomly selected" for extra screening by the TSA.
3. Who is this diet you speak of?
4. You feel obliged to give a disclaimer when you start dating someone new.
5. "Oh that’s interesting that you go to school. Your family is ok with it?"
6. When you bring friends home you have to give them a mini orientation about your family's unusual...rituals.
7. People assume you’re Muslim by default...
8. Your siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, their spouses, and offspring have the capacity to populate an entire village.
9. As an Arab girl you get categorized into one of two groups, you're either a Haifa:
Or a Nancy.
10. When your grandmother calls – you answer reluctantly.
11. We share an unspoken language with other Arab women.
12. Your parents typically have nothing nice to say about you…unless it's to other people.
13. During your college years you had the luxury of using the library as a cover for just about everything.
14. “Girl, why are you so conservative?”
15. You get called awiya for speaking up.
16. Western media has fooled the world into thinking we’re oppressed.
17. When your aunt tells you there's an '3arees', you're secretly lightweight curious.
18. But after you meet said 3arees you feel the need to pay your aunt a visit
19. Every birthday some jerk-off relative has to suggest that you're 'expired'.
20. You give people a simpler way of pronouncing your name but they insist on pronouncing it the 'ethnic way'.
21. "Speak in Arabic…it sounds so sexy!"
22. "Sooo how do you feel about America?"
23. When you attend weddings, you're hit with waves of "you're next!"
24. At any given moment a stranger will approach you and ask if you’re blah blah’s daughter
25. When you were younger, going out used to be more agonizing than going to the DMV.
26. “So when are you going to show me some belly dancing moves?”
27. "My friend is Arab — maybe you know them!"
28. Being asked our opinion on the Arab Spring, Palestine/Israel conflict, Iraq War…
29. You take advantage of people's lack of knowledge of the Middle East and tell people you’re somebody important whenever the opportunity presents itself.
30. Your mom has tricked you into revealing secret information when reading your fortune in cup of coffee.
But at the end of the day, we have our habibis and our hummus and we wouldn't trade them for the world!
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