Here's No Place Like Home...But Where and What is Home?_x000D_ The stories of the Triangle Palestinian Community (2004)
Undergraduate: Sarah Miller
Faculty Advisor: Sarah Shields
Department: History
The Palestinian community occupies a unique niche in diasporic studies. Not even at ease in their homeland of Palestine, Palestinians throughout the world live in a constant state of concern. Often navigating between original and current national identities, Palestinian-Americans and Palestinians living in America face a complex tension in identity, particularly in light of recent domestic and international events; pride in heritage and origin begin to be tempered by concern for safety and well-being. Similar to other immigrant communities in many aspects of identity formation and maintenance, Palestinians have constructed various structures and traditions to pass down their culture and heritage to future generations. However, as a result of their unique historical situation, they face greater challenges and manifest a greater desire to ensure that the Palestinian story and identity continue than many other communities. While diverse in national origin and background, the Palestinian community is tied together by this desire and the necessity of defining a ?home.? The Palestinian experience is made unique based on the situation of repeat exile and the lack of an official homeland. Chronicling the emotional and intellectual understanding of what it means to be Palestinian and how this meaning can change over time, this paper will rely primarily on oral history interviews, primary documents, and some secondary source material such as studies of Palestinian communities in various cities across the nation. The interviews were conducted with members of the Palestinian community in the Triangle. This is arguably the largest Palestinian community in North Carolina, although substantial communities also exist in the vicinities of Charlotte and Greensboro. Thus, while discussing the uniqueness of the Palestinian immigrant experience and identity in the United States as a whole, I will concentrate on the Triangle community and their unique activities and personal identity res