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Nakba's Meaning and Memories for Diaspora Palestinians

For a new generation of Palestinian descendants growing up in the diaspora, Nakba Day serves as a crucial connection to their roots.
A Palestinian boy holds up a symbolic key during a march to mark the 65th anniversary of Nakba near the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in the town of Naqoura, in southern Lebanon near the border between Lebanon and Israel, May 13, 2013. Palestinians will mark "Nakba" (Catastrophe) on May 15 to commemorate the expulsion or fleeing of hundreds of thousands of their brethren from their homes in the war that led to the founding of Israel in 1948. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho (LEBANON - Ta

I remember the scent of jasmine oil. Being propped up on my father’s shoulder and a keffiyeh being placed around my head. I remember a crowd smiling up at me and the men singing “Falasteen Arabiya, Falasteen Arabiya.” It was in Norman, Okla., and I was 5 or 6 years old. Somewhere in my grandfather’s video catalogs in Lebanon, the footage still exists.

There can be no claim that at such early childhood I grasped what was happening, what lay beneath the crooning, what sharp sentiment overwhelmed these men as they clapped around me repeating; “Falasteen, falasteen.” But that particular memory never left me, and I find that I hold on to it with a kind of stubbornness. It is an obduracy that characterizes many Palestinians living in the diaspora, as though they are clinging to every inch of land lost to our families, land that many of us have yet to revisit.

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