Status/الوضع Launched! A New Bilingual Audio Platform and Issue 3.2!

Status/الوضع Launched! A New Bilingual Audio Platform and Issue 3.2!

Status/الوضع Launched! A New Bilingual Audio Platform and Issue 3.2!

By : Status/الوضع Audio-Visual Podcast Hosts

This holiday season, the Arab Studies Institute (ASI) is pleased to announce the official launch of its most ambitious project to date! Meet Status الوضغ Audio Magazine!! A bilingual Arabic and English audio site with interviews and programs about the region unrivaled in their depth and scope. This first “official” issue on our spanking new interactive and fully customizable website includes twenty interviews with forty-one guests on twenty-two topics!

But first for the backstory! For a little over a year, we have been toiling away producing the beta version of Status—a quiet avalanche of media production that goes against the grain in every conceivable way! Some of you may have come across or listened to our incredible interviews with some of the most compelling artists, musicians, activists, and academics in and on the region. These are all archived by issue and searchable by topic, theme, country, and other categories for your easy perusal on the Status website.

In the tradition of Jadaliyya, Quilting Point, The Forum on Arab and Muslim Affairs (FAMA),Tadween Publishing, the Knowledge Production Project (KPP) and many other programs of ASI, Status الوضع is a turning point in the way the Middle East and North Africa are being mediated, as well as a sophisticated challenge to the mainstreamed oversimplification, myopia, and dehistoricization of a region in turmoil. Status aims to do things differently by offering a unique model of online audio production that is decidedly analytical and markedly connected to the life experiences of communities in the Middle East and North Africa. Creative production and in-depth discussions about these locales have not been forged in such an amalgamated way before—particularly that which combines scholarly inquiry with local activism, the arts, and culture.

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A Fully Integrated Bilingual English/Arabic Website! ("مش مزح و لا لعب عيال")

With this new platform, you will have access to a fully integrated Arabic language site and content, featuring all aspects of the website. No longer is Arabic an add-on: Status/الوضع is now "بالعربي!" 

Click below and see for yourself. Or here: http://www.statushour.com/ar/home

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The Interviews

Unlike mainstream media—whose political economic structures or formats limit their local contacts and communications with publics to sound-bites—at Status we are intent on shepherding an anthropological turn that places the interview at the center of knowledge production on a region so often spoken of or for but rarely listened to. Longer form, candid, personal, reflective, and reflexive discussions about issues that affect people’s lives can, in fact, be done in a manner that introduces complexity rather than simplification. While this may seem anachronistic in an age where our consumption of information is becoming more abridged, choppy, and swift, we are convinced that there is a growing place for those who want to learn more, not “just enough.” It is on this premise that we reach out to those whose lives are touched by conditions in their milieus, are themselves affecting their locales, or are chief advocates for the plight of publics in their environs, to help us understand and inquire further. These interviews on Status, unlike those you listen to or watch on mainstream platforms, are not meant to conclude, summarize, or confirm, but rather to expand, expose, and enquire. While technically these interviews come to an end, the conversations themselves continue. The vast array of interviews on Status is truly a landmark feat (sure we are biased, but if you browse around the website you’ll see for yourself why we are so thrilled!).

Here is an outline of what we have in store for you in this Launch Issue 3.2:

In the flagship program for Status, Bassam Haddad, Adel Iskandar, and Sinan Antoon discuss (in Arabic) the interviews in this issue and grapple with the pressing struggles facing the region. In this issue’s installment, they tackle regional hotspots and the hefty cost of critiquing the sacred.

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Syria Now

With the Syrian war at a turning point and the desperate need for reasoned contextual, historicized, and localized analysis at its greatest, as we have for the past year, we continue to bring to the fore passionate and critical voices on Syria. In this issue of Status, Ibrahim Hamidi of Al-Hayat talks about the tragedy in Aleppo and, in doing so, paints a bleak picture of a city not by simplifying the dynamics, but by explaining the complexities of life there today. Yasser Munif, who discusses the state of the country’s uprising given the recent developments, as well a discussion with Evlin Salah Al Mustafa, Zaki Mehchy, and Ahmad Haj Hamdo about the economic impact of the Syrian conflict and economic journalism in response to it.

Mouin Rabbani talks about the complicated Syrian quagmire at the United Nations and the political jockeying that has been the case in the Security Council over the past four years. Mohammad Dibo, the editor-in-chief of SyriaUntold, speaks to Status about his publication’s new project “Cities in Revolution,” which investigates the history of the Syrian uprising in six different cities. Kheder Khaddour is our guest in an important conversation about the critical role that tribalism, an often-underappreciated societal component, plays in the Syrian uprising. In each issue of Status, there will be a dedicated show entitled “Syria Now” that hopes to tackle the increasingly tragic conflict in the country with complexity and sensitivity.

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Perennial Palestine

As mainstream and alternative media both succumb to pressures to focus on hotspots at the expense of the perennial struggle of the Palestinian people, Status places Palestine at the center of the regional struggle for freedom. We have a dedicated program in every issue called “On Palestine” which intends to complicate and introduce nuance to discussions about Palestine. In this issue alone we present spectacular interviews on Palestine-related matters. These include a discussion with Firas Jaber about the legal, social, and activist dimensions of the historically significant national campaign for social security in Palestine. Ben Ehrenreich talks about his new book “The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine,” in which he tackles Palestine in the US media, life under occupation, and the ceaseless struggle against this occupation. Also in this issue is an interview with Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), on the movement’s background, focus, and trajectory in the coming period. With a large proportion of the Palestinian population having been incarcerated at one point in their lives in Israeli prisons, little focus is given to the experiences of women detainees.

In this issue of Status, we speak to Rula Abo Daho who reflects on a personal account of detention from a Palestinian woman’s perspective. Tariq Dana joins us for an interview on the critical problems faced by civil society organizations in Palestine and offers an appraisal of their impact and contribution to liberal perspectives and knowledge production in Palestinian society in light of their struggle to obtain funding. Palestinian Human Rights Defenders Raji Sourani and Shawan Jabarin talk to Status about the Palestinian dossier for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and their motivations to continue to push the court on legal violations committed against Palestinians, despite the political difficulties that affect the delivery of justice. We also speak to economic researcher Raja Al-Khalidi about daily life for Palestinians and the “Ramallah Bubble” as well as the differing economic circumstances in Jerusalem and the 1948 territories. Graphic novelist Joe Sacco, the author of Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, talks about his artistic work and his focus on Palestine therein.

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Doubling on Diversity

While we have highlighted above the Syrian and Palestinian content, these are by no means the limits of our programming. Instead, we are doubling down on diversifying our content from across the region in a way that is unlike other platforms. From an interview with a Lebanese tattoo artist Taha Sammour about the restoration of calligraphy in the art of Arabic tattooing to a regular Quick Thoughts segment with Laila Shereen Sakr about what is trending in the social media in the region (e.g., Saudis on Twitter, the war on Yemen, and Trump’s election in this issue), the topics and themes covered in each issue are a testament to the diversea and contoured local perspectives through which we believe the region must be reimagined.

With Yemen on the periphery of mainstream conversations about the region, we are keen on placing the limelight on the country with as many interviews as possible per issue. In this installment of Status, we interview Sheila Carapico on the unending war on Yemen, where she discusses the conditions in the country as well as Saudi Arabia’s complicated endgame in this protracted war. Another interview with Farea al-Muslimi discusses the meaning of moving the Central Bank of Yemen from Sanaa to Aden, the continuous war there, and the effects of “accusations of neutrality” on to those facing an escalation of violence.

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At a time when microscopic analyses of human rights conditions in the region are seen as a critique of raging authoritarianism and a response to counter-revolutionary resurgence, Iran remains a blind-spot. For this reason, Status’ interview with Raha Bahraini is an important one, as it places the country’s human rights violations against activist Iranians or dual nationals at the center of any understanding of national progress. In a conversation with Reem Al-Masri and Omar Atout, we discuss a variety of issues facing Jordan. From an inquiry into Jordanian parliamentary elections and gas deals with Israel to the assassination of Nahed Hattar and the place of the monarchy in the political system, the guests offer a complex look at the country beyond the smokescreen. Rola Yasmine also joins Status for an important discussion about the patriarchal biases of the medical system in Lebanon and how they pertain to women’s health generally, and refugee women’s health specifically.

Sarah Shmaitilly and Kareem Chehayeb are guests of Status in an interview about the municipal elections in Beirut, political deadlocks, and the bewilderment of civil society. Elsewhere in Morocco, electoral politics have become much more complicated. Status presents Nabila Mounib, the only woman head of party in the country. The Secretary General of the Federation of the Democratic Left, Mounib delivers here a rousing and unique speech in a small town not far from the contested Western Sahara.

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Other interviews include one with a professor of communication, Ozge Samanci, who becomes a graphic novelist and produces “Dare to Disappoint,” a debut work that grapples with the joys and toils of growing up a woman in Turkey. Omar Dewachi, the co-director of Conflict Medicine at AUB, and Jonathan Whittall, of Médecins Sans Frontières, talk to Status about changes that are happening to the ecologies of war in the region from both academic and practitioner perspectives. In the special program “Quick Thoughts,” Adel Iskandar discusses the Trump phenomenon through the prism of a media, in which Trump capitalized on both the complicities and vulnerabilities of the private news media in the United States.

In each issue, we will be featuring interviews with authors and editors of compelling new research works, books, projects, or curated exhibitions. In this installment of Status, we speak to the editor and authors of the new book Gaza As Metaphor: Helga Tawil-Souri, Sherene Seikaly, and Said Shehadeh. Another book highlighted in this issue is The Naked Blogger of Cairo. The book’s author, Marwan Kraidy, discusses his motivations to write the book and the crux of his argument about the role of the body as a communicative object.

Your Own Private Page Login and Customization on Status!

We are very excited to announce that now you will be able to login and do multiple things such as save intereviews and share folders with friends or your students if you are an educator. The sign in process can occur through your Gmail or Facebook account, as well as generically via your own email account. All of Status content will be at yoru fingertips!

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Customize Your Page to Your Heart`s Content!

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Forthcoming Foci

In future issues of Status, you can expect that we will continue to grow our pluralistic content as we explore fault-lines across the region—including revolutionary art, sectarianism, refugee experiences, architecture, media practices, graphic novels, women’s rights movements, student organizing, underground music, conflict coverage, transnational solidarity, and much more.

Listeners can also expect a host of new shows on Status that will be local in focus, thematic, or offer a unique format. For instance, we are actively developing a satirical program that gets at the contradictions in regional dynamics using parody and humor.

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An additional area of content diversification is language. One of the important benchmarks for our content development is the expansion of our programming to include more languages, more often. In the beta version of Status, we have achieved a true feat by having our Arabic original programming match the English in volume! We consider this a testament to two priorities: 1. Expanding our communication and commitment to foregrounding experiences from the region in domestic languages, and 2. Responding to the seismic shift in the flow of information. Our next step is to make as much of our content as possible available in both languages and to expand our coverage to other regional languages.

Finally, we are unabashedly committed to making Status a platform that moves regional voices to pedagogy and connects scholarship to regional actors. The content on Status is a testament to abandoning of the “cult of expertise” and a commitment to the interchangeability of media and audience—at once, the audience produces the media and the media themselves are audiences. Academic and activist panels such as conference events, workshops, or lectures dedicated to thinking collectively about the issues that affect the peoples of the region are opportunities for immensely valuable public exchange. For this reason, Status is home to a growing database of such panels that are made available in audio and/or video formats. From academic`s role in social justice to digital activism and civil society, and from sectarianism and identity in regional conflict to decolonization, we are making these panels that take place across the world available for all to engage with.

With the platform’s home being cyberspace, Status takes advantage of the computational innovations that render the experiential multidimensional, shift epistemic centers by creating alternative archives, offer novel ways to represent the self, and expand opportunities to move beyond the normative. We are convinced this experiment we call Status will be a most remarkable, or at least unique, journey for media and the region. We invite you to join us on this journey.

Ahlan Wa Sahlan to Status الوضع !

 

Inhabiting the Possible: Pedagogy and Solidarity at Camp Ayandeh

“A decent education cannot be limited to tolerating youth accessing their ethnic and cultural history but must be about facilitating their right to do so.” — Cornel West

Globally and nationally, young people are garnering attention as historical actors and agents of social change. At the same time, federal, state, and local politicians are making drastic cuts to primary and secondary schooling, community services supportive of youth development, and higher education. These cuts coincide with a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and continued demonization of Muslim and Middle Eastern communities. They also intersect with attempts to restrict or dismantle hard-fought ethnic studies programs. These attempts reflect a movement towards narrow, test-based curricula that are more informed by what is good for private business than what is good for students.  

Such conditions threaten the existence and continued development of educational spaces that meaningfully serve young people from immigrant and diasporic backgrounds. In this piece, I describe one such program: Camp Ayandeh (ayandeh means “future” in Persian). This program seeks to realize students’ rights to access and participate in their own histories. These reflections offer pedagogical insights, explore relationships between education and social change, and argue for programs that recognize difference and hybridity as profound resources for learning. [1]

Organized by Iranian Alliances Across Borders. Camp Ayandeh provides a positive, inclusive environment where Iranian American high school students learn about their shared histories and build solidarity across differences. Through cultural, historical, and artistic workshops, as well as community-building activities and critical dialogue, Camp Ayandeh helps students identify and respond to issues they see affecting young people in the Iranian diaspora. This includes working together to deconstruct negative images, and develop more humanizing and complex narratives about their communities, families, and themselves.

Now in its seventh year, Camp Ayandeh has become a unique sociocultural experience organized by young Iranian American adults for Iranian American youth. For one week during the summer, eighty-five high school students and thirty-five collegiate staff build what many participants refer to as a family. Together, they generate the trust necessary to grapple with questions of history and identity, and thereby grow as leaders and human beings.

As the current Camp Ayandeh Director, my perspective is inevitably partial. Part of my role, then, is to seek out tensions and areas for continued growth. As with any narrative, my account is one of many possible views on the camp’s significance.

A Window into Camp Ayandeh

People, what they say and do, and how they treat one another during pedagogical activities are what make up educational environments. Given the opportunity to visit and observe interactions at Camp Ayandeh, you would likely notice the mixing of seemingly dissonant languages, genres, and cultural forms: English and Persian, affectionately referred to as “Penglish” or “Fargilisi”; popular Iranian, Middle Eastern, global, and American music and dance; traditional poetry and hip hop; vasati (Iranian dodgeball), and even spontaneous water balloon fights.

You might also sense the organic rhythm of everyday life at the camp, a marker of the community ethos that deepens as the week unfolds. Waiting for the start of morning activities transforms into an occasion for collective singing and dancing. A question about the meaning of the word “cipher” in a writing workshop that draws on Jay Z’s Decoded leads to its own cipher later that day, with a staff member free-styling over a camper’s beat box. 

A community organizing workshop that teaches campers how to strategize around an issue of concern leads one group to conduct a camp survey on the need for Middle Eastern and Global Studies at the high school level. Another group drafts and later presents a “Campers’ Bill of Rights,” including well thought-out demands, such as thirty minutes of informal time before lights out, and signatures from all fellow campers. Camp organizers publicly amend and sign the document, participating in an impromptu democratic process initiated by the campers. An evening jam session inspires a thirteen-year-old and eighteen-year-old to play guitar together for the entire camp, a performance they had humbly shied away from earlier that day. 

The following video, filmed and edited by Sophomore Leila Sadri, conveys the atmosphere created at Ayandeh.

Above all, you might notice relationships—across age, gender, language, region, first and second-generation immigrants, as well as administrators, counselors, and campers. Traversing difference, such friendships make the cliques and hierarchies of high school seem strange. Older students intentionally reach out to younger participants, sitting together during breaks or chanting one of their names at dinner. Counselors stay up late into the night to brainstorm new ways of encouraging their group members to bond, making sure no one feels left out.

Many identify these “familial” relationships as the most meaningful part of their camp experience. Sophomore Arman Sharif comments, “I literally did not dislike anyone at camp. These are all awesome people. After discussions, being together, and just hanging out, they became my family for life.” Senior Anahita Asefirad echoes, “I can’t believe I could become such good friends with people in seven days.” These comments stand in stark contrast to what many campers share as their initial reaction and hesitancy towards the idea of an Iranian American summer program; it would likely be “extremely lame” to join a camp for “a bunch of Iranian kids.” 

Seen in this light, Camp Ayandeh is an attempt by young people with shared histories and experiences of exclusion to create a space of radical inclusion. Together, they seek to resist the demonization of Iran and the Middle East and interrupt the processes of racialization that often turn inwards, compelling us to reject parts of ourselves in order to belong. To heal these splits—Iranian versus American, East versus West—camp participants call into question colonial ideologies that premise inclusion on assimilation. They imagine and inhabit alternative models of inclusion, learning to assert linguistic and cultural hybridity as a strength rather than a deficit. This, I suspect, leads to much of the joy at camp: a social and educational experience where membership is not premised on checking parts of one’s identity at the door. Camp participants are encouraged to know and be their full selves, and to try out possible selves.

At their best, spaces like Ayandeh make it safe to engage in the vulnerability necessary for any kind of real learning. Speaking beautifully-accented Persian or English becomes comfortable despite past experiences of shame or ridicule. Raising a genuine but potentially controversial question or reading a poem’s rough draft to over one hundred people becomes a daily possibility. Such risks may seem small. But in the history of American education, which often explicitly or implicitly demeans students who do not fit dominant cultural norms, they are important markers of educational dignity and change.

Pedagogical Principles

Though many of us refer to the Ayandeh experience as a “magical” one, such contexts do not emerge magically. They are intentionally organized around a number of key principles and grounded in a history and institutional memory that directly inform how participants move in the present.

First, Camp Ayandeh is organized to be a community of learners where all participants are encouraged to take on the dual roles of teacher and student. This approach is distinct from “adult-centered” or “banking” models that treat students as empty receptacles of knowledge. But it is also critical of “student-centered” models that conflate democratic pedagogy with teacher passivity. In a community of learners, all participants are active. Young professionals and graduate and undergraduate students break down interpretations of the Iranian Revolution or model how to read a Hafez poem, making their knowledge public and available for younger members to engage. At the same time, older community members recognize the depth of experience and understanding younger participants have to offer, seeking out opportunities to share responsibility (as in the case of the “Campers Bill of Rights”) and acknowledge countless lessons learned from one another.  

Learning is understood as a deeply social process that comes alive in the context of inter-generational collaboration and mentorship. In contrast to emphasizing “independent learning,” Camp Ayandeh’s approach seeks to generate a culture of assistance, trust, and community— valuable goals in and of themselves that also amplify what is pedagogically possible. Educators must therefore set the collective tone and model careful ways of being and interacting. When moments of disrespect or potential exclusion do arise, staff members are responsible for firmly but lovingly reminding participants of the community rules.  

Listen closely during camp discussions and you might notice the collective hush when each person speaks. The hush is of often a bit quieter when the speaker is a younger camper or someone who has not spoken up before among the whole group. You will hear finger snaps ripple out across the audience when a speaker strikes a collective chord or says something that resonates with an individual camper’s experience. I personally noticed few if any student comments ending without snaps of praise and support. Such moves index the trust that is continuously established, a working faith in others to responsibly hold each person’s contribution from solid assertions to tentative wonderings or doubts. They also give experiential meaning to terms like “solidarity” and “leadership development.”

Second, Camp Ayandeh situates learning in a context of play, creativity, and imagination. Music, poetry, dance, theater, hip hop, and writing provide affective and creative resources for young people to reflect on their lives and participate in cultural production. These crafts also open up new aesthetic forms that affirm the range of our bi-cultural experiences. While many participants describe the pressures they feel to be “fully” Iranian or American, art redefines the cultural borderlands as a reservoir of creativity, inviting students to render their experiences with honesty and specificity.

Drawing on the work of Brazilian educator Augosto Boal [2], Camp Ayandeh uses theater as a form of dramatic play that allows participants to take on and explore different characters, including the protagonists and antagonists of everyday life. This summer, older and younger campers worked together to develop scenes that addressed racial profiling, patriarchy, bullying, and family conflicts. Given such heavy topics, play and imagination provided spiritual nourishment and helped maintain a focus on the hopeful and possible, blending humor with social analysis and creative, non-violent resistance. As Senior Sheerin Tehrani comments, “I liked teatro because it taught us how to act in case someone was using common prejudices against us in any scenario and how to react and educate others about our culture and heritage."

One could argue that a summer camp is more conducive to such playful artistry. However, primary, secondary, and university classrooms can enable intellectual experimentation by privileging the subjunctive—what if, perhaps, could be, let’s try it out—valuing well-crafted questions over quick or easy answers. Humor and creativity can help teachers provoke genuine engagement and resist various forms of ideological rigidity.

Play is also about mastering and bending rules, offering a way to think about expanding students’ access to dominant cultural tools without promoting assimilation. Young people are often the most skilled at this type of ingenuity and more likely to learn instructions only to invent their own versions and purposes. Yet, in times of forced austerity, art, music, and even writing are the first to be pushed out the school door. Educators can help stymie the deeply troubling effects of such decisions by sneaking them back in through the window, finding opportunities to infuse traditional subjects with the artistic and creative.

Finally, learning about oneself and one’s history is fundamentally connected to building solidarity with others. At Camp Ayandeh, we emphasize the world of diversity within the terms “Iranian” and “American,” making explicit reference to the rich histories of communities of color in the United States. Many camp organizers are students of Ethnic and Women’s Studies, borrowing and refashioning tools to make sense of our experiences as Iranian Americans.

During the camp’s American history workshop, we listened to Billy Holiday’s Strange Fruit and Woody Guthrie’s Deportee, treating songwriters as historians that can help us view the past through the eyes of those pushed to society’s margins. Camp participants are often eager to talk about race and racism. Many students express frustration at the negative portrayal of Muslim and Middle Eastern communities in the media. Almost all can relay a personal experience of discrimination, from teachers mockingly mispronouncing their names to being attacked and labeled as a “terrorist.” Camp Ayandeh seeks to provide a safe space for critically analyzing and healing from these experiences.

In the process, campers often grapple with their own stereotypes and assumptions. Echoing the cultural exceptionalism espoused by some members of the older generation, students have suggested that Iranians ought to be recognized as uniquely high-achieving and successful, or as distinct from other groups in the region. In one theater scene, campers portrayed two passengers harassing an Iranian family at the airport. One actor countered the antagonists’ stereotypical generalizations by insisting: “We are Iranian, not Arab.”

In response, camp organizers urge students to consider how cultural and community pride can be developed without creating new hierarchies. This includes naming the divisive nature of “model minority” myths and working with students to recognize the complex intersections of race, class, gender, and educational access. It also means explaining how phrases such as “Persian pride”—though meant to combat discrimination—reflect a kind of ethnic chauvinism. Without opportunities to develop nuanced understandings at a younger age, unexamined reactions to discrimination can erase the ethnic and religious diversity among Iranians and contribute to divisions with other communities of color.  

Thus, a key strand of this year’s curriculum was solidarity across Iranian American and Arab American communities. Through a number of special guests and activities, we sought to highlight our shared regional histories and experiences as Middle Eastern Americans. Yousef Baker, an Iranian Iraqi sociologist, recounted his family’s migration story and posed the question “Where is home?” For those displaced by war, political and economic upheaval, Baker suggested, “Home is building a home for those who do not have a home.” Egyptian American writer and professor Moustafa Bayoumi offered narratives and reflections from his book, How Does It Feel to be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, explicating the post-September 11 context defining much of campers’ lives. [3]

Syrian American hip-hop artist, Omar Offendum, shared his experiences, music, and poetry, affirming the power of bi-cultural artists to construct bridges across borders.  

As captured in the back and forth between Offendum and the audience, solidarity lives in the establishment of a meaningful human connection, one that gives life to, as college freshman Rameen Vafa put it: “having each other’s back.” Such moments not only suggest that we are able to unlearn assumptions and connect across difference, but that we have a deep desire to do so.

Social and Educational Dreams

In the United States, education is organized such that students, if given access, must often wait until college to take courses in Ethnic Studies or Middle Eastern history and literature. This fits with assimilationist trends in American schooling that require young people to access the other from the standpoint of the dominant group, rather than from a conscious position of solidarity and identification. But it may also be premised on another set of assumptions: that immigrant students do not want to learn about their homelands and connect with their parents’ and grandparents’ experiences. Or, young people are presumably not yet capable of thinking in mature ways about the social and historical forces that shape their lives. Spaces like Camp Ayandeh directly challenge these assumptions and urge teachers, academics, artists, journalists, community leaders, and elders to continue making their insights available to youth by engaging their questions and listening to what they have to say.

Manuel Espinoza refers to programs like Camp Ayandeh as “educational sanctuaries,” local attempts, either inside or outside school, to provide the “artistic and intellectual freedom, social equity, and access to educational resources typically not enjoyed in everyday institutional settings.” [4] Such contexts stand as lived arguments for the kind of schools and social experiences we would like to bring into being. But sanctuaries, by definition, provide refuge from harm. Their existence is also a testament to the epistemic and cultural violence many immigrant and diasporic youth continue to experience. 

This reality underscores a central tension within such educational efforts; students are offered a powerful but limited encounter with a uniquely supportive, culturally relevant pedagogical setting. Such an experience can embolden participants to stand up for themselves and others, while being confident in who they are. But it can sometimes also make the relative absence of cultural recognition or community that much more pronounced. Camp staff has sought to address this tension by staying connected throughout the year and helping campers join or develop similar spaces back home. Though many successfully do so, they also frequently express the desire for an “Ayandeh High School.”

In a workshop on educational equity, Ayandeh counselor Sara Mokhtari-Fox asked participants to imagine and illustrate their ideal school. Alongside the waterslides and tree-houses, campers’ final designs included clean buildings and healthy cafeteria food, smaller classes, teachers that “promote rather than punish students,” courses on Iran and the Middle East, and a focus on learning over testing. Their basic demands echoed those of students and educators around the country and world, many of whom connect the right to a quality public education with broader struggles for economic and social change. As we support these struggles, let us also join young people in dreaming up and practicing alternatives—educational models fit for a more just and democratic future.                                                                                                                         

[1] Kris D. Gutiérrez, Patricia Baquedano-López, and Carlos Tejeda, “ Rethinking Diversity: Hybridity and Hybrid Language Practices in the Third Space,” Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal 6, no. 4 (1999), 286-304.

[2] Augosto Boal, The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy (New York: Routledge Press, 1995).

[3] Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America (New York: Penguin Press, 2008).

[4] Manuel Espinoza, “A Case Study of the Production of Educational Sanctuary in one Migrant Classroom,” Pedagogies: An International Journal 4, no. 1 (2009), 44-62.