PJPP to share Handmade Palestine at Asian Celebration July 18

Presenter: Where can Eugenians find Handmade Palestine? Well, online of course, at HandmadePalestine.com, but also at the Asian Celebration at Alton Baker Park July 18. Here with all the details is Mi-ye Sakamoto:

Mi-ye Sakamoto: Morgan Totah will be bringing Handmade Palestine to the Asian Celebration in Alton Baker Park on Saturday July 18, presented by the Eugene organization, People for Justice and Peace in Palestine. 

She’ll go on to explain why it’s become so fought over and all they want to do is steward their land and go on doing what they’ve always done culturally to keep their culture.

So, it’s been that, and that’s where I came when I thought ‘Asian Celebration.’  Here she explains why it’s important to consider Palestine as taking its rightful place as part of West Asia. Morgan Totah:

Morgan Totah: These two women were talking. One was interviewing the other, and the interviewer said, ‘Use the words Middle East.’

And the woman who was being interviewed stopped her and said, ‘No, no, no. We have to talk about that.’

And the interviewer said, ‘Okay, well, let me just finish my question.’

And the interviewee said, ‘No, no, no, we are going to talk about that now.’ And it was so powerful. And she said like, ‘You don’t let your colonizer name you. Middle of what? We are the middle of what, exactly? The middle of east to whom?’

And it was the colonial British and French who named that part of the world as the ‘Middle East,’ you know, east of colonial Europe—colonizers—east of them, and we were the middle of the east of them. And that is so insane that we are still using that language today. 

And so calling it Western Asia feels so much more appropriate because it is on the Asian continent. Right? Like, this construct of ‘Middle East’ is someone saying—and even people use the word Levant. The Levant? The Levant, and this is also colonial language.

So people think, ‘Okay, well I’m not going to say the Middle East. I’m going to talk about this little region of, you know, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine, and call that the Levant.’  Well, that’s also colonial language that the French brought in.

So what kind of language can you use? Of course there’s SWANA—South West Asia North Africa. This is kind of a group, but it depends on where exactly you’re talking about. 

And so in the case of Palestine, yeah—Western Asia. So when we were invited to participate, I was so excited. I was like, ‘Yes! We do need to make that connection and not always see the relationship of Palestine to Europe or the relationship of Palestine to America and that that’s your market, that’s your audience. No. We are part of a bigger world.’

And to locate Palestine as Western Asia for me was, it was really a beautiful moment of acknowledging, ‘Yes, we can move past this colonial language and this colonial identification.’ 

Presenter: With more details about Handmade Palestine at the Asian Celebration, Mi-ye Sakamoto: 

Mi-ye Sakamoto: When I talked to Morgan, she said, ‘Thank you so much for not referring to it as Middle Eastern. Thank you for saying West Asia.’ 

And I said, ‘Oh yeah, no, it’s West Asian.’ Bottom line is: It is their right to be recognized as part of West Asia. They have their rightful place as a West Asian country to be part of the Asian Celebration.

So that is the connection to the Asian Celebration, is the emphasis on the West Asia. I mean, we’re there to be visible, we’re there to welcome people, but it’s also turning their heads.

The whole point is to just come celebrate. That’s what we want to do. There’s so much other stuff that is happening. We all feel so helpless. And our main thing is educate, advocate, and donate. And the way I put it to the group is, ‘And now we get to celebrate.’

And it’s a concept that doesn’t quite go with the situation that we see in Gaza, it almost seems like, ‘Oh gosh, how are you celebrating when there’s all this suffering?’—Come and see. Come and see the rich cultural heritage of Palestine.  

Presenter: People for Justice and Peace in Palestine will sponsor Handmade Palestine at the Asian Celebration Saturday, July 18, at Alton Baker Park. For more information, email PJPPConnect@gmail.com, or see the websites HandmadePalestine.com and AsianCelebration.org.