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PREFACE

I must've been about seventeen; I can't be sure. But I do remember how insecure I felt. My mother had dragged me to a family engagement party, at which men and women were segregated, per Islamic tradition. We were in my hometown, Sidon, in South Lebanon. Mama had framed her hazel eyes with forest-green eyeliner on the planes of her eyelids and jet-black kohl along her waterlines. She reserved this look for special occasions such as weddings and visits to our home from family friends and potential suitors who wished to ask for my hand in marriage (Mama supported my refusal to engage with said suitors). I often watched her when she applied her makeup, which she did ritualistically, with great care and consideration, as if it weren't merely a beautification process but a moment of transcendence. With six children, a full-time job, and the world's weight on her shoulders—in a country continually teetering on the edge of collapse—she was surrounded by constant chaos. But her hand never wavered when she applied her eyeliner; it was as if the world had come to a standstill. Steadily, and with great precision, she would close one eye and swipe the kohl applicator along her waterlines, allowing both rims to catch the pigment. When she opened her made-up eyes, I marveled at her beauty.

At the engagement party that evening, she took off her floral hijab, volumized her highlighted hair with the tips of her fingers, kicked off her heels, and danced the night away. She encouraged me to get up and join her, extending her manicured hand, but I demurred. The entire guest list was entranced, as though she'd unintentionally upstaged the bride-to-be. I, on the other hand, was seated quietly in a corner, barefaced save my kohl, and dressed somewhat casually. When people greeted us, they commented on how much I resembled my father—which was to say, I had inherited his dark and prominent features, and looked nothing like my mother, nor did I possess her infectious energy. I could only ever dream of being so confident.

*  *  *

Before moving back to South Lebanon following the end of a fifteen-year-long civil war that had all but obliterated the country, my family lived in the UK, where my parents had sought safety and stability and where I was born during the 1980s. As a young girl with Levantine and Egyptian heritage living in a claustrophobic city in northern England, I learned that to "assimilate" or "integrate" with the majority-white community, I had to minimize every aspect of myself. This was perfectly all right with me, in theory; I'd much rather have disappeared into the background than be seen anyway, as I was naturally introverted. But as a family, we couldn't help but stand out, and not just because of how we looked. During assembly, my four brothers and I excused ourselves, as we'd been instructed by our parents to avoid singing Christian hymns; we awkwardly exited the hall daily with the school's few other Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses. (To ensure we never forgot we were Muslim, my father would sometimes wake us up at the break of dawn to pray with him. I also attended private Qur'an lessons with my Pakistani peers.) We skipped school lunch during Ramadan, and I was rarely allowed to hang out with friends. When we went swimming for our physical education classes, at my parents' request, I wore leotards and cycling shorts to cover my body, prompting stares and giggles. My mispronounced name eventually became my known name. I was once curiously asked to give my class a presentation on Islam and brought along with me a prayer carpet and Qur'an. As I shared the five pillars of the religion, my classmates mostly gawked at me, perplexed.

Even when I made a concerted effort to mingle, I was often taunted and bullied. A larger girl took great pleasure in repeatedly pushing me to the ground during recess. One afternoon when I was eleven, I came home from school with tears streaming down my face; after netball practice, I'd overheard one of my white classmates refer to my brothers and me as "weird" and call us the "P word"—a racist term used to offend people of Pakistani heritage—and two other girls had laughed in agreement. At home, I implored my mother to explain why these girls were so mean to me.

Mama was sympathetic about this predictable reaction to my being mothered. But as an immigrant who was fearful for her family's precarious situation back in Lebanon and who had experienced mothering herself along with my father in incendiary ways, one of which involved a lawsuit, she also had to contend with more serious matters. She did, however, glean that my early insecurities were exacerbated by the knowledge that I was non-white, Muslim, foreign, and consequently believed to be "strange." I was merely made to feel there was something inherently wrong with me due to the religion I was born into and my heritage, when I should have been taking pride in both, she reassured me.

One of my only genuine friends at the time was May, an Egyptian who wore bell-bottoms and scrunchies and who lived in the same building complex as us. I was twelve, she was fourteen; her parents were less strict than mine, and so she had already started to wear makeup. Unlike me, she was far from timid, but we bonded over our shared heritage and Muslim background. While hanging out after school one afternoon, she was determined to "make me over." With Ace of Base blasting in the background from her stereo, she carefully drew eyeliner onto my lids and curled my lashes with mascara. When I looked into the mirror, I was both pleased and surprised; it was as if I could finally see myself, as if I had somehow come into focus.