Free Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah Page A

pretending to be half an identity irritate you?
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    OK, I’m ready to share my list with you now.
TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT ME
I was born and raised in Oz but people still assume I was born under a camel in a cave in a desert in the Middle East to parents who belong to a tribe with Osama bin Laden’s genealogy.
As a Lebanese Muslim, we’re only always randomly held up at airports (it’s randomly happened to my dad and me every single time we’ve flown to Perth to visit my uncle).
The only introduction most people have to my LM culture is through headlines about terrorists under pictures of men with unibrows, missing teeth, back hair, and guns.
I want the right to apply for a pilot’s license or own fertilizer or have a non-mainstream opinion without being blacklisted. (This is all theoretical. I actually want to be a dentist or elementary school teacher when I grow up.)
I’m one person at school and another person at home (the kind of split personality that would make a Gemini look stable).
I’m pathetic enough to be embarrassed to be seen with my sister at school because she wears the hijab.
A charter of curfew rights is stuck on our fridge door.
I’m treated differently from my brother.
I’m attracted to a jerk at school because I want to be popular.
I have brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, and curly hair. Totally boring.
    So to answer your question: Yes, pretending to be half an identity irritates me A LOT.
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    This is what I have to say about your Ten Things.
    You’re setting yourself up for disaster. Sooner or later the curfew rules and taxi license and hijab and bleached hair and bilingualism are going to reveal themselves. They’re going to crumple up at your feet and your friends will demand an explanation.
    You’re going to have to make a decision.
    Will Jamilah finally get a chance to say something?
    I feel like I have finally made a true friend.
    Keeping your distance from your friends is exhausting. It means you’re constantly acting, constantly choosing your words, and thinking about ways to avoid exposing yourself. I can’t afford to show them the real me. They wouldn’t understand my culture or my religion. I’ve done everything I can to disassociate myself from being identified as a wog. Amy likes me as Jamie. She doesn’t know about Jamilah who speaks Arabic and goes to madrasa and celebrates Ramadan and plays the darabuka and can cook Lebanese food and has a strict dad.
    I wish I could talk in capital letters at school. Use exclamation marks and highlighter pens on all my sentences. Stand out bold, italicized, and underlined. At the moment I’m a rarely used font in microscopic size with no shading or emphasis.
    But at least I’ve started on a new page with John. The honesty of our friendship is so raw and real that sometimes I can’twait to open my in-box and step into a world where being Jamilah comes naturally.
    Miss Sajda pulls me aside after class. I’m prepared for a lecture about the poor quality of my translation into Arabic of an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. To my surprise, however, she gives me a warm smile.
    “He agreed,” she tells me.
    “No way!”
    She grins back. “There was a fifteen-minute interrogation session, but I passed with flying colors. Of course, whenever we get an offer to play you will have to get his permission. That goes for Mustafa, Samira, and Hasan, too. Parental consent is imperative.”
    I jump up and down in delight. “I can’t believe it! You’re a miracle worker! He’s the strictest parent on the planet!”
    Miss Sajda shakes her head. “My mother, God rest her soul, would have taken that title. She was a very religious Catholic. My collars always had to be high, my skirts down to my ankles, my sleeves long. I had to come home directly from school. She even