It Could Happen Here - Food Erasure and Preserving Culture

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Shereen is joined by chef Reem Assil and filmmaker Jibrael Younes to discuss the importance of persevering Palestinian cuisine amidst an ethnic cleansing, utilizing food as resistance, and celebrating Palestinian joy and culture.  Reem Assil:www.reem-assil.com  instagram.com/reem.assil Gaza Emergency Appealhttps://www.map.org.uk/donate/donation-details/484 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hello, everybody. This is Shereen. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. Today, we're talking to two people I love and respect very much about a topic that I think is really underreported on and that's food erasure and how it's part of ethnic cleansing. And I think it's a really important topic to talk about right now, especially with the genocide happening in Palestine. So let's just jump right in. Without further ado, welcome my guests,

Reeb and Jabril. Hello. Hello, hello. Hey. Just so our audience can get to know you guys a little bit better, how about you all introduce yourselves and what you do? And yeah. Yeah, Reem, you want to go first? Sure.

My name is Reem. I am a Bay Area-based Palestinian Syrian chef. I own a restaurant called Reem's California, and our mission really is to build community across cultures and experiences through the warmth of Arab bread and hospitality. Beautiful. Wow, that was so succinct. My name is, thank you for setting me up so well, Reem. I've done it a few times, you know my name is Jabril Yunus I'm a filmmaker based in Pasadena and I am also a Palestinian artist

in general yeah no relation both of our last names are Yunus but that is how we met a white person said you guys have the same last name you should meet. And we met and now we're friends, but I really like the partnership that you guys have. And the collaboration that you guys, from my perspective have established. Can you guys talk about what you've been working on recently together? Yeah. Yeah.

So we've been working on for the past, since like 2021 or late 2020 we've been working on a documentary series that is named after reem's cookbook which is you should pick it up it's one of my favorite cookbooks that i own it's called arabia and it is a documentary series exploring the foodways and diaspora of arab people across southwest asia north africa and i think the general log line and dream can dive into a bit more of the general log line is you can tell this like through telling the story of the food you can tell the story of our people in diaspora uh and it underscores a lot of i think what we'll talk about today which is sort of food identity, identity through food, and resilience and through

food. But also, I think one thing that's always been really important to both of us is how much we see the show as like a celebration of our culture. I feel like there are so many trauma stories from not only Palestinians, but Arabs in general. And I think something that was really important to us is like, yes, let's talk about all of it. We're an extremely, I think, you know, we're extremely politicized as a people, but also very passionate. But also let's celebrate all the things we love about ourselves and love about our culture and the tastes and smells and sounds and sights. So Reem, how would you, I feel like that's sort of the setup,

but how would you describe it yeah i think um that's exactly it and and our hope is that the being able to break down the barriers or um have a lens into our world for the public is kind of a gateway to understand the context and the politics behind why things are the way they are and to really fight the dehumanization that Arabs have experienced, particularly in the West. And so, you know, while this is a show about food, it's also, While this is a show about food, it's very much a show about people and how interconnected we are. So, yeah, we're really excited to be able to break down some of those barriers of understanding in a way that could actually lead to people fighting anti-Arab sentiment in this country fighting islamophobia all of these things when they have that kind of lens or that that view into our world yeah and i mean it's been pretty interesting can i can i keep vamping a little bit uh it's been pretty interesting i mean i think the the sort of like thought that started the show really was why it's so easy. And I think we'll talk about this later too in depth,

but like, why is it so easy to find so many different cultures, food, you know, like you have, I'm going to use Asian food as an example, because I live in the San Gabriel Valley. So it's like all around me, but you have Korean food and Japanese food and so many different types of Chinese food that are all specifically called what they are and where they're from, right? They're all like identified correctly. And that can extend to the Latinx world and their food. It can extend to European food.

It's all very, you know, like people call it what it is. And then you sort of get to, you get to, you know, Southwest Asia and North Africa. And suddenly the food stops being called, you know, what it is and starts being called Mediterranean or starts being called middle Eastern.

Well, and I think that the idea was like, I had gone to Anaheim where there's a neighborhood called little arabia here and there was a palestinian restaurant i was like so excited about it was called the olive tree it's closed now but um i was like so so excited and i got i always get so so excited when i find a palestinian restaurant or a yemeni restaurant and um you know i mean many of them but i think the reason i get so excited is because it's so hard to find those places and i think there's a reason why and so you know three and a half years later the show has sort of grown from that initial thought and interest and become very

very different and it's you know effort to humanize Arabs, which is something I think is, you know, it's unfortunate that we still have to do that, but I think we kind of do, especially right now. But yeah, we've been pitching for like, you know,

we worked on it together for a while and then have just been pitching and going through pitches and talking to different companies and getting a lot of great feedback and getting some really weird feedback for the past, like few years. And we can talk about that more if you want but well oh I'd like to talk about some of the more interesting feedback I guess but I also want to ask you Reem how how did you get involved in food like what where did that passion start yeah I've I would say food has always been in the backdrop for better or for worse of my life experiences particularly when everything falls apart for me in my life um i i grew up kind of

as a whatever the the term i've heard is like the third culture kid, right? Where the Arab identity was really strong in our household, and that was particularly through food, but then also a stranger in a strange land outside of the home where it was predominantly your typical Americana suburban culture. And so I was kind of like like even though food was there i the intertwining with identity it made me like run away from it a lot because it reminds you of your otherness um and and also just the nuances of seeing my mom um being a working mom and struggling in the kitchen so i was like like, I'm never going to,

I'm going to be a feminist and I'm never going to touch food. That was like, and then every time, like, you know, and then I did like what the immigrant child does, like overachiever, like go to college, try to be the president, and then realize that's not what I want to do. And I spent many years in the nonprofit world. I was doing organizing work. And while that work was really rewarding to some extent, it was really draining and not fulfilling in a deeper spiritual level. And so every time I would burn out the food and

particularly the food of my culture would come back in some shape or form. So I just had this kind of moment in 2010 where I was in another bout of burnout and depression and really questioning everything. And it was a trip that I took to the Arab world with my father and seeing particularly bread in these street corner bakeries be the anchor for this community that I had, you know, as a kid of diaspora, like really longing to feel connected to. And it was through the food that I like felt connected once again. So my mom did something right.

I'll give her the credit for that. But I was like, I need to explore this more. I need to understand what is this. And so then food became a source of healing for me to like come back to my identity and come back to my culture but then also just the power of food as a community builder that like transcends all cultures like I really loved that as a community organizer who had been working with other communities who struggled just like my own right So that's kind of how I got into food by way of my love for wanting to belong and my love for connection of community

and then slowly became obsessed with food itself. I mean, who doesn't love food? But it is a place of both trauma and healing for me. So it became kind of a way to transcend that. No, I think it's a great thing to bring up how it's a trauma and very healing as well. To kind of talk about like the feedback, I know you've had a restaurant in the Bay Area for a while.

Was it similar when you tried to make the show come together? Did you have similar barriers and feedback? Were you familiar with some of the things that people were saying? Or was it completely like a new game? Yeah. So the context that I started my restaurant, and I want to say it was probably much different than even what it is now today, although certainly there is backlash. But I would say I was one of the first few chefs who were saying, nope, I want my food to be called Arab. And I really wanted to counter these kind of watered down labels of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean or, you know, Levantine. To me, those were all colonial terms. And it was like a bad word to say Arab.

And I wanted to reclaim that identity. I was like, if I'm going to come out, I want to come out as my whole self and not this person, this scared person that was stifled all my life. And I understand why the immigrants before me came, you know, did it that way because they needed to make a living. And, you know, there was a lot of anti-Arab sentiment, especially in the wake of 9-11 that that kind of climate here and so i had this like lovely idea that i'm like this generation where i can like break it down and make it cool i'm like i'm gonna mainstream it you know and i got pushback actually from my own family because they had those fears they were like just you know start light don't even start with like a za'atar bani ushe nobody's gonna now it's like the hot thing but so that was the context in which i was opening my business and um nobody had done it really before so i could kind of create my own rules and people like what is this and i still got like a lot of like oh is this you know um mediterranean or you know people it took a while to train people

to say arab and then put the layer of palestinian identity you know my palestinian identity at the time that i was opening my restaurant um was really important it was you know i had started my pop-ups on the in the wake of israel's second worst, now we're seeing the worst of it, incursion on Gaza in 2014, in which they killed over 3,000 Palestinians in one winter. And we were devastated by that. We were devastated about the state of organizing with Palestinians. And I really wanted to, as I opened my restaurant, not be scared to talk about my whole self.

So everything about Reims, even though we're not like pushing our politics in your face, the very act of being Palestinian was seen as political, just existing. And we had a mural of a Palestinian activist who was based in Chicago named Asmi Aruda who was deported by the government as it made a made an example of to say if you're Palestinian and you're outspoken about Palestine this is what will happen to you and I put her on

the wall to remind my community and to remind myself that we don't need to be scared. And I got a lot of backlash for that. But I think even in that time, despite the backlash, the amount of community support, amount of opportunity for people to learn was that much greater. And so I ended up getting a lot more positive attention for my bakery overall as a result of that. How many James Beard noms do you have? Just a few.

A few. It makes me happy. Every time I wake up with a nomination, I'm like, I wonder what the Zionists be thinking. Just a few James Beard noms. It just gives me a little bit of hope that our success is kind of what is threatening, because we are truth. like hope that like our success is kind of like what is threatening, you know, because we are truth. We are in the business of truth telling and we do it in a way that's very

human, you know, based in our humanity and our dignity. And our restaurant was really, I think, powerful in that way that a simple art piece or the simple act of making food and calling it Palestinian was that threatening to the powers that be.

You know, like that's such an interesting backdrop also to talk about the feedback we got from the show, because like, I think Reem's experience was so, was so visceral in that way. And I mean, what she described as well.

And I think you can look it up and there have been articles on vice and stuff about it where people can read about her experience and everything that happened and you know i think maybe we undersold your intro a little bit ream like you're a badass and you know the james beard noms and a lot of great and awesome press and but um i think what's interesting about the show is with reams with reams at the restaurant you know it's very specifically palestinian and arab food and the show while it yeah it's being made by us who are palestinian people it's not only about palestine and that's been something we've sort of had to overcome like i the show is about arabs and it's about our foods and foodways and as much as the food you know the

show as much as the show focuses on on palestine it also focuses on egypt and yemen and where you know i mean the yemeni coffee tradition is like where arab coffee kind of came from and started from and it also focuses on lebanon and morocco and algeria it's been an interesting yeah go ahead reem yeah i was just to that point like it's it's not about i mean first first of all, these states are border. Right. They're border, they're colonized states in some shape or form. And the idea is to fight the tropes of the Arab as one thing, right? Like it's showing the breadth and depth of our culture that like we're not, it's not a monolith. We're not homogenous.

We're not homogenous. And even the ethos of Reams kind of is very similar to that idea that, yes, we are Palestinian, but we're also Syrian. We're also Oakland. We're also California. Those things don't need to compete with one another. I hate my identity kind of coming on the scene. Yes, I'm Arab. And yes, I'm Palestinian. But those are political

identities the reason we call our food palestinian is to draw attention to the ethnic cleansing and erasure of our people that's why we call it palestinian but it's not there's there are certain foods that are not in here i mean they're enjoyed all over the arab world and they look different but you can't like the claiming of ownership of food is yeah so we try to i think this show is really trying to fight against that trope of the it's called arabia which is kind of like a tongue-in-cheek like what do you think of with the arab woman and it's like let me take all of those stereotypes and like turn them on their head it's the same thing with like all of our foodways in our culture there is no singular way of what an arab is we all have kind of our unique stories and

histories so when we choose to call things what they are there's a context and a history for that and that's what we're trying to share yeah exactly i think i mean i really really relate to the idea of of really wanting to be represented with food like when i find a syrian restaurant i freak out like there's one in el cajon in southern california where it's like my family and i go there every weekend when i'm down and when i'm visiting my parents it's it's just like a place where we feel like the closest we can get to home again. And I think it's a really important reminder that I don't know, food is food can be really powerful. And before I keep rambling, I'm going to take a break and we'll be right back.

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The idea of existing being already a political act. I think that is a burden for a lot of people of color and a lot of marginalized communities. And I think hand in hand with that is the fact that our food is also a political act. Making sure it's couscous, not Israeli couscous or whatever it is that we're trying to fight against. How did how do you see food? And especially now, I think people underestimate how many levels there are of ethnic cleansing because erasing food and appropriating food is a huge part of that. Right. So can i get your take

on that both of your takes you mean like beyond appropriating yeah i mean i think food food is a uh is a tool of it is weaponized historically uh against people um i mean most notably, obviously, with 75 years of occupation of Palestine, one of the many ways besides the dispossession, killing, expulsion, is to sever us from our foodways. And when you sever someone from their land that creates the foodways, you sever them from their culture, from their existence. ways you sever them from their culture from their existence um then there's just the most the more immediate way uh as we're seeing this genocide unfolds uh where you can starve a population to death um and so food then becomes kind of this powerful tool to break a people and why we see people reek like food become a form of resistance for people. But even here in our communities, I mean, this is not unfortunately unique to the Palestinians. You've seen the pillaging of indigenous folks here in this country.

The same things kind of cutting them off from their food ways their means of subsistence of supporting one another of you know being connected to their culture and now you're seeing in communities through economic policy like food deserts and people not being able to access their food or have sovereignty over their food production so it is absolutely a tool and and and something that we talk about at reams a lot that like the fight for palestine is the fight for food sovereignty everywhere and vice versa right well i i'm glad you brought up the idea of uh or just the fact that like israel and the zionist regime has like taken Palestinians from their land. And I've talked about this before on this podcast, but like the olive tree is a very

significant part of Palestinian culture. And like olive harvesting is a huge part of Palestinian life. And so when you burn down thousands of olive trees or when you kick people out of like the agriculturally rich parts of the land, you're denying them so much more than just olives. It's like very deep. And I think when people that are not as informed about Palestine question like, why is there a watermelon? Like what's this? And what's the olive about? And I think that goes to show how powerful food can be. And just for those who don't know, the watermelon became an active or a symbol of

resistance because the Palestinian flag was not allowed to be raised for a while. And it has the same colors as Palestinian flag. And so that's just like a really beautiful way that food has become this like powerful symbol. And so I just, I just trying to, I don't know, emphasize that a little bit, I guess. What's your take? Yeah. I mean, I think that I, I think just I'll speak like a little bit more domestically. I feel like Raymond's so eloquent and talking about the historic parts of

it, but I mean, even here, like domestically in Los Angeles or California, I think one of the things, and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. One of the things that's, I think one of the things,

and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. One of the things that's, one of the things that's difficult is there are so few identifying parts of, or just restaurants in general, like correctly identifying restaurants, Syrian or Lebanese or Palestinian or what have you. And they, they hide under these names,

which when I'm not going to name like specific restaurants here but like which when other restaurants open and maybe they're owned by an italian person or just other people that aren't arab and suddenly they're taking the food and misappropriating it and calling it yeah i mean israeli couscous or like an israeli salad or israeli falafel or hey here's all this food and it's shawarma and it's kebabs and it's menaish and we're we're an israeli restaurant like these are things that are really difficult because i think you know those things tend to be unfortunately just like more approachable saying mediterranean tends to be more approachable saying Mediterranean tends to be more approachable. And what you get ultimately is a population of, of I would say a larger population of non Arab people that don't really

understand what they're eating and they're not educated on where it comes from. And just the amount of people, you know, anecdotally that I personally have met who like, don't know that this food is Arab food or don't know, anecdotally that I personally have met who like, don't know that this food is Arab food or don't know like what, where the food comes from, which is so interesting to me because it's not an experience that I think many other cultures or ethnicities have. And so, yeah, I mean, I kind of always joke that I feel like a really close example is if, you know, somebody started like an American

person started making sushi and they're like, this is American food. And, um, it's just not at the same time. And so I think that the need to assimilate for generations before Reams and I, I have an empathy for the want of safety that they were doing and the want to make a living and the reasons they did it. I think Reem kind of alluded to that earlier, but where it's left us now is a population of Arabs in diaspora that I think are harmed for it. You know, like we don't have, we don't show up on the census and it's all sort of one part. It's all, they're all different parts of the one problem.

And I think that when you take the food and you don't give it its correct name and you don't, or you give it the incorrect name, it hurts all of us in ways that like, we can't even imagine whether it's at, it's at work or in diversity and belonging initiatives, not including Swannamena people, or whether it's just in foodways and not being included or not being

included in the census, which leads to us not having as much community support around our people or not knowing medical statistics. Like I think they're all, they're symptoms of a bigger issue. And I think one of the ways you combat that issue is through knowledge and shared learning and shared experience. And I think food and food ways are one of the main ways that people experience and learn about other cultures.

And I think if people look at that in their own lives, you can apply it to any culture of food that you really love. And maybe it's not your own and you've learned something about those people through that. You know, I think the, the main dishes of any culture, it says a lot about where that culture has been,

where they come from, what their history is. And I think people being able to experience those things and go to a Mexican restaurant and learn about a certain dish and where it comes from or why it's there or why it's named something is an experience that allows them to learn about a culture. And we just don't necessarily have that here. And then when you add on, you know, misnomers or incorrect labels, it becomes even more damaging and also just hurtful and very annoying.

Like it's so annoying. And I like, I don't want to go, I'm sorry. Like there are restaurants in LA that I like, just don't want to go to. And maybe the chefs are really nice and they might be allies in some ways, or maybe they're not,

but like, I would rather give, please, like, I would rather give my money to like an Arab person making our own food rather than going to experience it in a different way. You know what I mean? Like,

I don't, I don't know. So I think that's kind of like how I generally feel. And the less professional answer is I just find it like really annoying. And I'm like, come on, y'all. There are so many. Listen, like we're not, LA is not New York. We have like not as many Arab places to go.

There are sort of few. You have to seek them out a little bit more here. But I'm like, come on, y'all. We're out here. Go find us like go find give your money to like this syrian immigrant who moved here and started this place that everybody loves and you know i yeah i don't know there are a lot of big restaurants are very popular restaurants here and i'm just like nah dog i don't want to pay I don't want to pay 35 for tabooly yeah I think

I mean I I think it's twofold kind of like who has access to resources versus who doesn't right who gets highlighted you know there's there there's that piece and what's palatable to the American public and what's not right like I always say like for for instance I think like reams we kind of we do things a little bit different um obviously we honor tradition we honor the soul of Arab cuisine but we play around with it and one could argue are we is this like Americanizing the food and we're like no it's just through the lens of a diasporic palestinian syrian by way of california um but we i think when we first came on the scene i mean there there is something to be said about the privilege that i have as English speaking as this generation that can like uh what do you call it translate

the foods to a mainstream public in a way that's like really compelling like a mediator almost yeah I'm a mediator I'm like but that comes from a little bit of racism like that people don't 100% they want the food you know and so like I am this palatable character in some ways and that's a contradiction that um I'm constantly like I don't want to be uh but it's like what do you call that the Trojan horse right but then once you come into Reims it's still it's very warm I mean there's nothing we're not tricking anyone right but we're also truly ourselves and that's not for everybody so we don't want to be a gentrifying space where like if you're going to come in here you have to deal with the community that we're in just as much as the food that you are obsessed with now right because

eater wrote about it or whatever so we really and that's not for everybody, right? Like, and that just speaks to a, like, a bigger problem of, like, if you like the people as much as you like their food. Like, our food is not just for sale. You can't just take some of it and leave the rest of it. And I think that's why the American public is so comfortable with our foods being represented by people other than us. is so comfortable with our foods being represented by people other than us. We're never the tellers of our own stories because, again, this dehumanization of Palestinians. And it's particularly interesting now.

And I would say like Reams has always been transparent, but I've heard from counterparts who are now, you know, like there are other restaurants now coming out. I think there was even just an article that was released today on eater about the Palestinian category on Google and you know people are now calling their restaurants or maybe leading up to this last four months calling their restaurants Palestinian and that was palatable enough it's like cool like it's it's this culture that's really beautiful but then when it came down to it when we're experiencing a genocide it made people feel uncomfortable so it's like they want to like it doesn't stop at food you know and i think our food at least for me and i i i would say for a lot

of people who get into like expressing their food ways here in the u.s like you can't just take some of us our food and then dismiss the rest of us or dehumanize the rest of us and so i think that is the contradiction that we're always dealing with is like how can we offer this beautiful culture but not tokenize it so it becomes depoliticized because it is political um yeah and if you're engaging with palestinian cuisine and consuming it you can't just you can't do it without either you know being an active participant one way or the other right um and what is happening to Palestinians. And so we kind of pushed the envelope on that.

And, you know, for us at Reams, that has yielded a real ever-expanding community of folks who have really maybe a few years ago knew nothing about Palestine. We got to do it in a way that was right. And so we were, you know, we met people where they're at. We bring them along. It's not like we're like, you know, beating anything over people's heads, but we're like, this is what it means to be truly authentically ourselves.

This is our story. This is the history. This is the painful atrocities. And like, if you're going to eat our food, you have to engage with that in some way like it can't just be comfortable and like it's cool to eat Palestinian food I don't want to see our food as a trend right yeah so while it's while it's cool to see a lot of Palestinian restaurants now gaining popularity and hopefully you know Reams has paved some path for that we got to make sure that we're doing it in a way that's um intentional and responsible so we don't get tokenized i think

one just like piggyback on one thought one thought that you brought up ream that i thought was really interesting was like being able to tell our own stories and often we're not we're not and i think that relates to like a lot of what we've talked about today but i mean even like sharing our own experiences like you know i don't think it's necessarily a choice to be where you you know to be who you are it is what you are and i think ultimately there's this real pressure for for arabs and and palestinians as well to sort of let other people tell our story for us let other people make the food let other people photograph the traumas and the joys like if you go to any like art bookstore and try to find like an arab photographer

photographing their own people whether it's the wars or the joy or art like you'll find maybe one you know and i've been to them and said hey do you have any i'm looking for like this and i want it from an arab person and like the only one really is Shireen Nashat, who's Persian, but I don't know. I think it's, I think it's just really interesting how, uh, I think there's like a real fear about talking about for a lot of us about talking about our own experiences publicly.

And, um, I think a lot of that, a lot of that comes from just like being sort of conditioned in this country to minimize ourselves and minimize our identity. And I think essentially... Well, there are real retributions for that. We get jailed. We get deported.

We get fired from our jobs. We don't get book deals. We don't get show deals as we we're experiencing so it's like that's real like yeah and i mean a lot of the a lot of the stuff we've a lot of the feedback we've gotten on the show i mean early on a couple years ago we started getting feedback that i mean there were like two or three when we first started pitching and i won't call out names but they were like major companies and one of them was uh we already have like our minority food show like that was one of the literal pieces of feedback and another one was um and again like i just i know we've talked about palestine a lot but again like the show is not necessarily

centered around palestinians it's just us telling our own stories and um one of the pieces of feedback we got was they they were worried that reem and i like that our identities were too inherently political and it's like okay but but there's like nothing we can do about how you perceive us what we can control is saying hey we want to make an arab joy show and we want to like show off the things we love about our culture and we want to talk about how great the food tastes and talk about stories like immigrant success stories of people coming to this country and yeah we'll talk about the trauma and sure we'll talk about the politics because that's what we're passionate about but like to to get that feedback even a couple years ago when

you know it seemed like everybody was sort of every culture or people were getting their turn to sort of shine was i was like really are we still are we still here right now yeah and um yeah i mean it's gotten it's gotten weirder uh as time goes on and um you know i don't know no show exists like this in the way that probably no restaurant existed like reams did when she opened it and i think it's gonna take like someone who just really believes and is a champion for for arab people um for us to make something that just shows how much we love our own people and how excited we are to be arab and how excited we are to be palestinians and how fucking awesome

our food is and how great our culture is and how fun and exciting it is. And all these things that people love and eat, we just want to show them like where it comes from and who we are. And in addition to that, show that we're all regionally very different. Like we call in this country, every type of Arab food is called Mediterranean, whether it's Moroccan or Lebanese or Egyptian, and they're all so different. They're all wildly different. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, like the fact that we haven't been able to tell this story is wild, you know, like the fact that no one has, and we've come really close. We've gotten into deals before we've gotten into shopping agreements more recently and sort of you know the outcome felt punitive after october 7th

and um yeah i think that ultimately the fact that like we we and it doesn't i you know truly i hope it's me and reem but like the fact that no one has been able to tell this story for a group of people that is so huge in the Arab community, in the Muslim community, like that no one has been able to serve this demographic of people with a food show is wild. And there's so many of us who would be so excited i would be so excited like i would be bummed that it wasn't me but i would be thrilled that it happened for the community and um i don't know if not now when you know like the time for the time for equity and justice is always and uh i think that's generally how i sort of feel about the the show and just being able to like i just want to tell the story for my community so so badly and um yeah i mean i don't know i feel like i went on a bit of a tangent that's kind of where i am right now well in a time of in a time of genocide where literally our people,

and this is not just Palestine, it's all, you know, there's a regional, the dehumanization of Arabs is costing us lives. Yeah. So it feels that much more important to do this work now. Yeah. People are so used to seeing us seeing arabs like traumatized they're used to seeing us in pain they're used to seeing our countries destroyed and seeing our buildings turn on turn into rubble i think so much of our culture is so beautiful and

so much of it is about food and art and joy i think really, yeah, I would be so excited for that show too, because I, if I was a little kid watching that, I would have felt so much better about myself. And to, to your point a couple minutes ago, Reem, you were talking about how you're not exactly a mediator, but growing up, there's almost this like shame about having like, you're not Arab enough. You're not American enough. You have a foot in both worlds. But it's really a strength, you know, in your experience and in our experience. We can use that foot in both worlds to our advantage and try to show the American community how beautiful our community is. And I don't know, I think it's, yeah, I love you guys. That's what it comes down to. Love it. Yeah.

But I really do appreciate you both doing this work and, yeah, reminding us that Arab culture isn't something to be feared. I don't know. The dehumanization has gotten to a point that is just really terrifying. And so I think the fact that even existing is like political or scary. And yeah, Jibril, to your point,

everything is so much more digestible for people than Arab or than Muslim or whatever. Like in LA, we have a huge Armenian community and they're really embraced. And I would love that to happen for us too. The backlash of being Arab feels very real and visceral right now. It feels like we are in a time of the years after 9-11 again, and especially with this upcoming election in 2024.

and especially with this upcoming election in 2024. It's a really, I think, a scary time of censorship for Arabs in general and Muslim communities. Regardless of who the candidate who wins our political campaign it's it's quite clear that the policies towards us you know the foreign policy but also domestically how that has translated into hate crimes against arabs uh simply for being arab is is a really scary thing. And so, yeah, it's just a new thing that we're going to have to navigate in this new era. Yeah. I think on that note, community is so important and I'm really grateful to continue to foster the community around me as well. And I think with food, with Palestinian culture in general, it relies so much on us remembering and continuing to talk about it

and not letting anyone forget about it. And so I think food is the same way. It's just reminding everyone this is where it comes from. This is how important it is. This is what it means to the culture. You can't enjoy some of our culture not all of it i guess and i feel like that happens all the time i really appreciate you guys both being on the show and uh talking a little bit about your stories and yeah i can't wait to see the show happen one day because it will happen awesome thank you yeah Thanks. For the work that I'm doing, especially as it relates to food and hospitality, I was one of the founders of an effort called Hospitality for Humanity. And you can find us on at Hospitality, the number four, PAL, P-A-L. You know, we continue to do things at Reams, and you

can see us on the socials at Reams California. And then you can obviously follow my whereabouts at ream.asil A-S-S-I-L I could put all your links in the description as well. But Jabril, do you want to be found

on the internet? And if so, where? I don't know how much I want to be found on the internet? And if so, where? I don't know how much I want to be found on the internet. I will plug that I think everyone should call their senators and demand a ceasefire immediately and also consider donating to one of many non-profits, but the one that I have is Gaza Emergency Appeal. And just ask for a ceasefire as much as possible. But also if somebody gives my name, they'll find me.

Demand a ceasefire, don't ask. Don't ask. Sir, please, can I have a ceasefire? Can I have a ceasefire? But no, please, everyone that's listening keep talking about Palestine, keep sharing

info from Palestinians themselves. And yeah, free Palestine. Free Palestine. Yes, free Palestine. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

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