A collection of photographs.
Grainy, from the perspective of my eyes at eleven.
Bahrain and Kuwait in my blood. Cousins who share my name. All legs at the sofreh.
Salty water and Vimto. Palm trees and humid curly hair air. The grave of a 400-year past Qarooni.
To understand being Arab and Iranian. The whole of me.
The next generation will know.
Nawal Qarooni is an Arab and Iranian mother scholar, educator and writer whose first book, Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations: Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care, is forthcoming with Stenhouse. She and her team of coaches at NQC Literacy support a holistic approach to literacy instruction in dozens of schools across the country. Nawal is on the board of Book Love Foundation for community engagement, the Library of Congress Literacy Awards advisory board, and NCTE’s Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English. She can be found at @NQCLiteracy on Twitter and @nqarooni on Instagram.
This photo essay is part of #30DaysArabVoices, an initiative to amplify the nuanced voices of Arabs from all walks of life. Please read the collection here and check out yesterday’s piece by Muna Saleh titled, “My Culture is Not a Slur.”
To further study the telling of stories via photograph and teaching students to do the same, please spend time with this gorgeous series of mentor texts, Photo Essays from The American South, Shawna Coppola’s Writing Redefined, and this post with some good ideas with immediate applications for kids.
Love this.