Lebanon, a small Middle Eastern country on the Mediterranean Sea, has gone missing. It was last seen on August 4, 2020. On that day, a deadly blast left Lebanon's capital, Beirut, in ruins, killing hundreds, and displacing hundreds of thousands. Those who remain today face total chaos. The local currency lost 95% of its value in just three years, but after decades of corruption and political agendas tearing the country apart, the explosion merely accelerated what had been years in the making. In the months that followed the blast, many Lebanese decided to leave.
With a diaspora three times the country's population, millions of Lebanese across the globe are tormented by their shattered dreams of Lebanon ever being restored. The constant mental effort to keep memories of the past clean and intact, to decontaminate them from a ravaging new reality, in an attempt to shape an identity with nowhere to call home, is the inner struggle of many immigrants.
Paula Karam is one of them.
In 2007, at only twenty-one years old, Karam fled the country for France, settling in Paris, in hopes for a better future. Sixteen years later, the now successful executive global sales director and mother of two, admits: "Part of me never left the country. In my mind, I go back there every night… I stand at the front door of my childhood house in Tripoli, [a beautiful city north of Beirut]. I can even smell the fried coriander and garlic…" Karam's mesmerizing brown eyes light up at the mention of her hometown, yet quickly fill with a piercing sadness as she continues: "Inside the house, everything looks familiar, but not quite the same. In our living room, I see people and I hear their voices, but I can't recognize them anymore. I can feel tension but can't make sense of it. Where are my parents? I can't find them. It's terrifying. I hate this feeling. It's suffocating… I take refuge in my bedroom. But it's colorless. The bed, the walls, even my old toys are gray." Karam closes her eyes tight. "I want to remember. I have to.... My bedroom is vivid again, mom is here, I missed her smile so much. Everything is just like I once knew it before." Karam opens her eyes and confesses, "It's disorienting. I don't know where, or who I am anymore."
Karam's heartache is echoed by many immigrants.
"It's disorienting. I don't know where, or who I am anymore."Paula Karam
Joseph Habib, director of a homeless shelter in Ohio, has been in the United States for more than 40 years. Speaking from behind the two-inch Lebanese flag on his desk with the subtle Lebanese accent he still has, he aches. "Sadly, not all my memories are happy ones. I have a very conflicted image of Lebanon, it's an intense dance between beauty and warmth from one side, and pain and insecurity from the other. But I want to reconnect with the Lebanon I once knew, I want to take a stroll in my school neighborhood in Zehrieh, I want to eat a falafel sandwich at Waheed restaurant, and I want to greet and be greeted by friends and acquaintances playing backgammon in the streets." Except that Habib's school no longer exists, nor does the multigenerational Waheed restaurant that once withstood a civil war. Furthermore, most of Habib's loved ones either passed away or fled the country.
Lebanon has become deserted. Ghostly even. Haunted by all the memories that wander the alleys in silence. "It's almost scary to walk and drive around and see nothing or no one you recognize," Karam says.
Manar Fleifel, researcher and consultant in migration and diasporas, explains: "Immigrants often idealize their native country. They draw a picture in their mind of the Lebanon they want it to be. They often choose to see the beauty and ignore the reasons that pushed them to leave in the first place. They do that in order not to tarnish this idealized picture in their own memories, to keep it clean and safe. They need to do so. It's almost like a survival mechanism. It's through those clean and perfect images that immigrants compensate for what they lack away from home: a sense of belonging." She also unfolds an additional layer to this romanticized picture of their native country, "The way immigrants are treated in the new country they choose to reside in, also affects their perceptions and memories of their native country. If they face hardship and regulations or policies that alienate them, they further idealize the home country." This survival mechanism is jeopardized by extreme conditions, such as the devastating explosion in Beirut. "The blast forced people to see the real reality. And without this idealized image of Lebanon, without anything to relate to anymore, some immigrants were forced out of their own identity."
Rosalie Samide, analyst at Alpha-Diver with a research background in cognitive neuroscience, explains what happens in the brain. "Memories are never remembered with 100% accuracy — they are flexible and they change. Every time a memory is triggered, it has the opportunity to be re-formed. The context of the memories, like space and time, is one feature the brain uses to categorize them and retrieve them. Immigrants who have memories attached to a positive context may find it very difficult to break that context and update the information and emotions attached to that memory."
Memories and the way they are processed impact more than perceptions at random moments in time. They affect the individual's health. "People often use emotional regulation strategies to regulate emotions when memories are triggered," says Samide. "Some people's default strategy is to suppress negative emotions or negative memories. This may mean that they don't have the opportunity to update their memory and incorporate new information. They tend to have worse mental and physical health than those who default to a more analytical strategy, or in other words, those who process the memory and the emotions associated with it."
With the complex framework of preserving and updating memories, comes the shaping of one's identity. Fleifel says many immigrants develop "hyphenated identities," and explains that some immigrants find peace in a dual — or triple — belonging, while others keep struggling.
With his dual nationality, Joseph Habib considers himself more Lebanese than American, and enjoys the best of the two worlds. "I look at Lebanon as a mother, but I look at the United States as a wife. One gave birth to me and nurtured me, and the other is my chosen partner in life," he says. Despite the destruction, the corruption, and the absolute chaos, he describes Lebanon as "the most beautiful country in the world." His wife, Danielle El Chidiac, still feels "one hundred percent Lebanese." Both of them are planning for their retirement in Lebanon.
Karam is still questioning her identity. "Of course, deep inside I am Lebanese," she says. "I will always be. But I refuse to be associated with the current image of Lebanon. So, what does this make me?" For Karam, "It's just a matter of time for this country to disappear, and part of me, of my story, along with it."
Lebanese, Canadian, and American Dory Azar, senior director of user experience at Ultimate Kronos Group in Massachusetts, has a different perspective. He sees himself as a "hummus with maple syrup and fries!" He counts the days to go back and visit Lebanon, but "as soon as I get there, I count the days to leave," he says. Azar would never consider living in Lebanon again. For him, all hope is lost.
Thousands of miles away from their native country, immigrants often still carry with them a slice of home.
Azar still has the keys to his childhood house in El Mina. Paradoxically, he also keeps his expired Lebanese passport "I hold on to it to remind myself never to renew it again." For him, "being Lebanese once meant unconditional love, today it's synonymous with filth, and in the future, this belonging will become a burden…"
The very proud Lebanese American El Chidiac keeps her Lebanese recipe notebook safe with her. "Whenever I miss someone, I just pick a dish that reminds me of them, a recipe that they would have given me for example, and I prepare it for my family here. It makes me feel closer to them." El Chidiac still doesn't feel at home in her adopted country, "It's been eight years since I first came to the United States. However, I still feel lonely in a country I know nothing about."
Fleifel explains, "the diaspora tends to create a home outside of home. There are many ways in which they do so, such as the preservation of traditions, networking within the diaspora, the preparation of Lebanese meals associated with memories, and remittances sent back home."
Maintaining a relationship with home is difficult - especially when home is no longer the home you know.
For Habib, "my biggest fear is that Lebanon is going to get extinguished with time, that it's not going to survive - and by extension, being Lebanese would mean to be without a country."
Some immigrants, like Fleifel herself, choose to "mask the good memories." "I can't allow myself to be homesick - If I am, I won't be able to help my family back home. I choose not to think about Lebanon," she says.
The guilt is another common feeling eroding immigrants' relationship with home. "It's draining. I feel guilty for all the opportunities I have that my friends and family don't have. I feel guilty that I have access to electricity and warm water 24/7. I feel guilty whenever I go out to have fun knowing that many can no longer afford that back home. I feel as if I have betrayed everyone." Karam says.
The world is full of Joseph Habibs, Danielle El Chidiacs, Paula Karams, and Dory Azars. There are 281 million immigrants across the globe and from around the world. While each have their unique experiences, most have memories to cherish, identities to preserve, and cultures to embrace.
Their resilience is unmistakable.
The struggle to remain true to themselves and to their heritage in an ever-changing environment, all while assimilating different cultures and facing the guilt of leaving their loved ones behind, is their curse. They become ambassadors of their damaged country with a self-inflicted mission to restore its beauty and convey it to the world.
Ordinary objects with extraordnary value
Produced by students at the Northeastern University School of Journalism. © 2023
