Amreeka

Oh, the Immigration Story.  Is there any narrative more essential to the American Legend?  Someone hopes for a better life and comes to America.  They leave behind family, friends, careers, and ties.  The chemist becomes a cab driver.  The schoolteacher, a janitor.  The accountant, a waitress.  But they do it, and they struggle, and they face prejudice and discrimination, and they give their kids a better life. 

AMREEKA is one such story.  Nisreen Faour is Muna Farah, an Palestinian who wins the green card lottery and, along with her son, is granted entrance to the United States.  At Customs, she replies to the question “Occupation?” with, “Yes, we are occupied.”

Things do not begin well.

It’s hard to find a job or find your place in a new school in America if you’re an Arab fresh from the Levant.  People stare.  Your prior achievements don’t hold much weight.  And there’s a difference between studying a language and actually speaking its vernacular.

But Muna gives it her best shot and takes her lumps.  It isn’t easy, and AMREEKA gives us no assurances that it ever will be easy.  But, step by step, she and her son begin to get it.  And little by little, they begin to share their culture with Americans they come to know.  That’s how it works.

I hate to give the impression that AMREEKA is a Hallmark card about the Great American Melting Pot.  It’s too honest for that.  Instead, it stands as a fine retelling of the Immigration Story, one that reminds us of this crucial part of the American Experience.

Now I need to call my mother and thank her for working ‘til her fingers bled to provide my sister and me with the opportunity for a better life.  I need to thank her for coming to America.