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Independence or Catastrophe?

Teaching Palestine through multiple narratives By Samia Shoman This article first appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine, summer 2014. Introduction Long before I was born in 1975, the course of my life had been drastically altered by history. When David Ben-Gurion declared the creation and independence of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, my identity as a Palestinian was shaped, along with the history of this region. Throughout my life, I have borne witness to and experienced the ways this day in history changed not only my life, but also the lives of millions of Palestinians and Jews all over the world. My most recent trip to the region was in…

Advocating for Arabic: An interview with Lara Kiswani

By Jody Sokolower An earlier version of this article appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine, spring 2017. A few years ago, the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), the Vietnamese Youth Development Center, and Arabic- and Vietnamese-speaking families in San Francisco organized a successful campaign to add Arabic and Vietnamese to the many languages taught in the city’s public schools. Despite unanimous school board approval of the resolution, for three years implementation met obstacle after obstacle In fall 2018 Lara Kiswani, executive director of AROC, talked with Jody Sokolower about the successful organizing effort and the ways that racism and xenophobia kept the Arabic and Vietnamese language pathways from being rolled out. Arabic is…