My Home Palestine: A Short Story

The intense heat from the mid-summer day and dryness of the air make the tear gas even worse. I can hardly see as my eyes blur and my skin starts to burn from the contact with the gas. More canisters are being launched from the jeeps, accompanied by rubber bullets that only miss me by a few inches before landing in a puff of dust at my feet. The gas fills my lungs and scorches my chest. I eagerly try to suck in air but am met only with suffocation. I can’t move. A hand breaks through the gas and forces me into a run, leading me into a parked car where I am left alone trying to catch my breath. A month before I was sitting in the crowded back seat of a white van at four in the morning, headed toward the Allenby Bridge in Jordan. The young man driving the van lit a cigarette as Quran played in the background and we made our way to the border. My excitement grew with each minute that passed, knowing that in just a few more short hours I would finally be stepping foot again in my first home- Palestine. Returning after nearly two decades away, I was ready to relive the memories of my childhood, to see Palestine in the same way that I left it. I was eager to once again get lost …show more content…
Studying at Berkeley as a Political Science major allocated a lot of free range for me to cater my many research papers to whatever topic I desired. I used the opportunities to research, analyze, learn, and write about a number of varying human rights abuses internationally such as the use of torture in Turkey, genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, and women rights abuses in Morocco. Collaborations with various social justice groups on campus connected me with local struggles for human rights- including prisoners rights, indigenous rights, campus workers rights, refugee rights, and groups fighting against gentrification in our