Memoir

By: Mohammed AL Hammadi

About 4 years ago, after a lengthy football match, my cousins and I were resting on the pitch and chatting. While the memory is kinda fuzzy, but I know the gist behind it. We were talking about our favorite restaurants and why and we all took our turns. When it was my turn, my cousins asked and so I replied

"Ana agol McDonalds ah'san mada'm ashan..." (I say Mcdonalds is the best restaurant because)
And then I pause. I can't seem to remember the Arabic word I wanted to use, but I knew the English word. My cousins stare at me waiting for a response, but I keep quiet. The silence then became awkward, so I excused myself to the bathroom. And in the bathroom, I took my phone out to find what the Arabic translation for "appetizing". I then went out back to my cousins and continued my sentence, explaining that McDonald's was my favorite restaurant because it was appetizing. While we shared laughs and smiles, deep down I felt ashamed. I hated myself for not knowing such a simple word. I was full-bred Arab and I didn't know my language like I should. The fluency of your home-language is a representation of your connection with your culture and tradition. And because of this, I alienated myself with the aforementioned dark thoughts, which in turn just made me worse at Arabic, which consequently is more ashamed of myself and made me very self-conscious of my Arabic Identity.

I became more isolated from my Emirati identity when I was playing Football (again). The team I was playing in was winning and I showed great skills in the match, so I was congratulated by one of my cousins by calling me:

"Messi el amerecey" (The American Messi)

Do you know how much it hurt to be called an American by your own family? It hurt a lot. But all I did was smile-- what a facade.

I kept this facade for a year or two. As the months passed, the hate within me grew and grew. They were like hell.

Until,

After a tiring, but fun, Football match, one of my cousins would come up to me and ask me for help.

"Emh'amad, tara inta mouh'taraf ef loughat el engelezeya, a'adi eta'lamney?" (Mohammed, because you're an expert in the English langauge, can you teach me?)

"Daba'an!" (Of course!)

My cousin already knew the basics of English and could speak small sentences, so it was fairly easy to teach him what was required. After this small tutoring session, my cousin would often commend me in front of our other cousins and tell them how smart I am in English. And from then on, all my cousins would come to me and ask for my help in English and see me as a very intelligent person.

Because of that small transaction between my cousin, my confidence grew because now that everyone admired me I didn't feel ashamed. I felt proud. While at first, I looked at how I was bad at Arabic, I now look at how good I am in English. I just had to change my mindset and changed my viewpoint on these things.

And because of this newfound optimism, I started to refine my Arabic, so I can easily communicate with everyone (especially my family and friends). And soon enough, I became very proficient in both English and Arabic. And this subsequently created a new identity. A powerful identity. A confident identity. An identity that is proud of itself. An identity that was bilingual.