Senior Mireille Saeed learns to embrace her Egyptian culture

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Qasim Simba

DGS senior Mireille Saeed learns to embrace her Egyptian roots.

At the age of six, Senior Mireille Saeed moved to America from Egypt, and from that day she was set on a path towards embracing her Egyptian culture. Her transition into her new lifestyle had been a hard process, but Saeed was able to overcome these hardships and find acceptance with her unique identity.

Moving to a new place at such a young age was hard on Saeed, she felt lost and struggled to fit in. It was when she met her church friends at the age of seven that she felt a sense of belonging.

“I felt stupid for not knowing their language and having an accent and stuttering all the time. Once I got closer with my church friends, I realized that I can be both American and Egyptian. I can embrace it no matter who I am,” said Saeed. 

“It is part of me. I embrace my religion, I embrace my culture, the food, Arabic speaking, everything. I just noticed that people find it interesting and it is not weird to have,” Saeed said.

Saeed had strayed away from some of her Egyptian traditions after her transition to America, but something that impacted her a lot was her new source of communication. Her thick accent made it difficult to speak with others, but she gradually picked up English and became accustomed to the language. However, due to this transition, she had lost some of her fluency in her first language, Arabic.

“I slowly stopped using Arabic so now my Arabic is broken. I understand it completely fine [but] I will respond in English. My friends will sometimes speak Arabic to me and I try to respond and they don’t make fun of me because they know [my story],” said Saeed. 

“My family speaks Arabic to me and I’m just trying to get back into it, I forget the words sometimes,” Saeed said.

Although Saeed’s lifestyle significantly changed when moving to America, she respects some of the values that she gained from Egypt, including interpersonal connections. However, Saeed also appreciates the amount of acceptance that is found in America, something that she believes Egypt lacks.

“Here, we accept each other, [if] you’re Christian…  We are still friends and even if your morals don’t match up [to mine] we can still be friends. That is something I keep with me,” Saeed said.

Saeed understands that not everyone has gone through the same challenges as her, but is able to find her self-worth through her unique perspective. Her dark hair and skin tone made her feel as though she stood out from everyone else, but she hopes for others to embrace themselves in the way that she now does.

“Don’t be embarrassed by [who you are]. It is a typical answer but it’s true. [From] my accent and the way I look, I just realized that it is a cool thing to show, [that] I have two cultures,” Saeed said.