Almost every time someone finds out my father is Lebanese the response is something like "But you don't look Lebanese?". Is that meant to mean they think I'm adopted but I just don't know it yet?
Sometime ago while still in Yemen, I decided to give up on trying to convince people of my Lebanese heritage. I stopped arguing with them about whether my family name is really a Lebanese name or not. I stopped googling and proving that many people with my name live throughout the Arab countries. Now I accept that my appearance is a fairly even combination of my Mum's Irish/Scottish/English heritage and my Dad's northern Lebanese heritage which, several generations ago, is Turkish or Armenian.
Are people forgetting that race isn't a hard and fast border? Not long ago Lebanon was a French colony lumped together with Syria. Before that they were part of the Ottoman Empire. The names of nations we know now got set with borders after World War II and haven't really changed much since in the Middle East.
I've also started thinking I don't need to keep this blog anonymous anymore and I can put a photo of my head in the profile section.
Through meeting other students in Yemen and Syria with mixed Arab heritage and meeting new cousins that have a mix like mine, I now accept "not looking Lebanese" if that's what people choose to think. People naturally judge heritage based on simple things like nose size, skin tone, facial features, hairiness and a person's way of speaking. The other anglo/Lebanese people I've seen look about as Lebanese as I do and that's helped me to put my yin and my yangs back into balance and allowed me to mostly disregard the 5 second assessments from strangers.
So, in an attempt to be a bit scientific about this, I'm using a google feature to prove a point. I've taken a simple face shot of myself and used Google Similar Image Search to match my photo with similar faces.
Sometime ago while still in Yemen, I decided to give up on trying to convince people of my Lebanese heritage. I stopped arguing with them about whether my family name is really a Lebanese name or not. I stopped googling and proving that many people with my name live throughout the Arab countries. Now I accept that my appearance is a fairly even combination of my Mum's Irish/Scottish/English heritage and my Dad's northern Lebanese heritage which, several generations ago, is Turkish or Armenian.
Are people forgetting that race isn't a hard and fast border? Not long ago Lebanon was a French colony lumped together with Syria. Before that they were part of the Ottoman Empire. The names of nations we know now got set with borders after World War II and haven't really changed much since in the Middle East.
I've also started thinking I don't need to keep this blog anonymous anymore and I can put a photo of my head in the profile section.
Through meeting other students in Yemen and Syria with mixed Arab heritage and meeting new cousins that have a mix like mine, I now accept "not looking Lebanese" if that's what people choose to think. People naturally judge heritage based on simple things like nose size, skin tone, facial features, hairiness and a person's way of speaking. The other anglo/Lebanese people I've seen look about as Lebanese as I do and that's helped me to put my yin and my yangs back into balance and allowed me to mostly disregard the 5 second assessments from strangers.
So, in an attempt to be a bit scientific about this, I'm using a google feature to prove a point. I've taken a simple face shot of myself and used Google Similar Image Search to match my photo with similar faces.
Images like mine
Images that are similar to my all Lebanese bro-in-law
