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302 30 The Legacy of Exile An Excerpt Emanne Bayoumi This story exposes the multiple layers of U.S. imperialism in the Arab world as they play out in the life of a young queer Arab woman. This piece was inspired by the strength, courage, and resilience of Arab women living with the haunting legacy of exile. The Cast Yara: Eleven-year-old daughter of Yasmine Yasmine: Yara’s mother. She has been living in San Francisco for the past six years. She is a janitor downtown. She has overstayed her visa, was stopped last year on the highway for speeding, and is now on parole awaiting her hearing with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Yasmine’s mother/Yara’s grandmother Wahid I sometimes think I see God when I look in the mirror. That sounds weird, huh? If my grandma heard me saying that, I’d probably get whooped. Mamma says she’s really really strict about God and praying and things like that. Mamma always says religious stuff to her when they talk on the phone. I don’t even remember what she looks like anymore. I think she must be a little ugly ’cause her voice is really mean. But actually, Mamma is pretty, so Grandma can’t be that ugly, right? Mamma says I always look sad. And then she gets sad. I don’t like it when Mamma gets sad ’cause she locks herself up in the bathroom and I can hear her crying like she did when we first got here, through the peeling door because This piece is inspired by and dedicated to the Iraqi families in San Francisco’s Bayview district with whom I worked after September 11th. The Legacy of Exile | 303 there’s no windows in the bathroom so the humidity from the shower makes it peel all the time. I can always hear Mamma hitting her head against the wall like that wooden thing she pounds the garlic in, and at first I got kind of scared, but now it happens all the time and she doesn’t do it really hard, so I sorta got used to it. Like the loud ugly man’s voice upstairs when he’s really angry at something which is—oh my god—all the time. But I get a little uncomfortable ’cause I’m not sure what I should do, and I think she thinks I can’t hear it but I can. I’m not that dumb. Itnayn “You make us miss you, Yasmine. Why don’t you come visit us anymore? We all wish to see your daughter, Yara. She must be so big now, mash’allah.” “Mama, you know that I would if I could—it’s complicated. I’ve told you over and ov—” “I’m getting old, my daughter. I can’t walk to the market anymore. Your poor sister has to take me everywhere in the Peugeot. Everything is so expensive here now, you won’t believe it. A kilo of potatoes is three guineas now—can you imagine ? And the cost of a loaf of bread is different every day. Your brother, Khaled, doesn’t ask about me anymore. I always knew that boy was going to be difficult. From the minute he came out wrong at his birth I knew it . . .” “Mama, why don’t you come visit me here? I can work extra hours at the company—you know how they always need an extra engineer in San Jose and—” “Yeeeee, no, no, my daughter! That’s impossible. No, I like my feet firmly planted on the earth. I will go when God wishes to take me. I will be buried here in the place I was born, insha’allah. What if I die in Amreeka? Yeeeeeeeee!” Talata The clicking of Yasmine’s heels against the cement always brings with it the waves of loss more profoundly. The mundane can be dangerous that way. It is days like this Yasmine misses her mother most. She crosses the street to catch the 9:00 bus. As always, it is late. She finds a seat near the middle and rests her head against the cool pane of the window. Her makeup leaves a smudged mark where she rests her face, and somehow this fills her with satisfaction—proof that she has really been there. It is sometimes difficult to have a sense of presence when people pretend they do not see you. Nobody has ever...

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