Origin Stories

The Arab American community of San Luis Obispo is extremely diverse, as shown in this first collection of Mawtini interviews. Our narrators' family histories begin in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, and pass through other Arab countries like Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. They share stories of teenage ancestors boarding ships from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to sail across the world to start a new life, to stories of families scattering on foot in different directions and walking through the desert after being expelled from their homes in historic Palestine. Some of our narrators' families have lived in the United States for multiple generations. Others are first generation immigrants whose parents moved here to give their children a new life. Still others left their homelands and migrated here themselves in search of better opportunities. All our narrators, however, retain strong connections to their places of origin. They hold the stories of their parents' and grandparents' homelands close to their hearts, remembering names of towns and villages that they have had the opportunity to visit, or that they long to one day return, or that may no longer exist. Many narrators also identify with multiple homelands simultaneously, as far apart as Beirut, Lebanon and Los Angeles, California, or Yafa, Palestine and Hawalli, Kuwait. All these origin stories form the roots of the myriad identities that Arab Americans hold. They also form the foundation of the Mawtini collection.