In this episode of Learning to Listen to Palestine podcast, Mima shares her incredible journey from Gaza to California, exploring the profound impacts of her Palestinian heritage. Through powerful personal stories, we delve into themes of trauma, healing, and forgiveness. Discover how connections across cultures and resilience shape one's path to understanding and hope. 

Join us for an eye-opening conversation on identity, motherhood, and the history that ties us all together.

And I say that because Palestinians are not these people who are far removed you know, from you or from anyone. like We have the same hopes and the same dreams, we have same aspirations. So many of us want to be doctors, want to be nurses, want to be lawyers or going to school for PhDs.

We are your next door neighbors, we're your co workers and colleagues, we are your child's classmate, and childhood friend. And so, when we think of the Palestinian person or Palestinians in general, these are people that are all around you. These are your best friends, your next door neighbors. These are people that you know, people that you run into a daily basis.

Let's get started.

But first, I want to show you one other resource. This is called The Book of Forgiving by Desmond Tutu. And this is a resource that I'm going to be talking about a lot for this month. There are several books that my book uses as a foundation, and this is one of them. The Book of Forgiving is an amazing book because it gives hope it gives hope for restoration and for healing. And Mima, you and I had a conversation a while ago about healing and about trauma. And it was such an amazing conversation.

So I'm so happy to have you on today.

Lani Lanchester: So Mima, one of the things that was really interesting is your family. You have a beautiful family here in California now. Would you tell me about your family?

Mima: Of course. Interesting enough. I am not just Palestinian, I am also Irish and Native American from my mom's side. So back in the 80s, my mom and my dad met at university in the U.S. in the Midwest. And one thing led to another and they ended up getting married, and conceiving my older brother.

Lani Lanchester: Oh, and you have a daughter now too, right?

Lani Lanchester: So, you're trying to work your way through everything that you went through, your mom went through, your dad went through, in order to provide for a better life for your daughter.

Lani Lanchester: That's an amazing thing. So, tell me about your dad, and what happened in Palestine with your dad.

So the reason why I'm bringing this

Lani Lanchester: she's, she's, uh,

an American

Mima: She is

Lani Lanchester: In Palestine, pregnant,

Mima: Yes.

Lani Lanchester: and she's being shot with rubber bullets.

Mima: Yes.

Lani Lanchester: And this was before Hamas.

Like They've been happening in the 80s when I was born and even before the 80s started. And it spared no one. you know, My mom, if you looked at her, she's obviously not Palestinian, she's very light skinned, she has very red hair and green eyes. And she was very pregnant with me at the same time.

So, to answer your question, what happened to my dad? My mother, actually, when she gave birth shortly after, there was a night raid that happened and my dad had been abducted in the middle of the night, which was a very common thing. And it still is common. But even back then in the 80s before these political powers.

Mima: Taken without a charge.

Lani Lanchester: Was there a reason why? Was he targeted for any reason? Because he'd America as a student, right?

Mima: Yeah. As far as I know, there weren't any reasons. and so when I was born

and,

I should say after I was born and I'll get into this a little bit, we had a next door neighbor that my mom was living with at this time because my dad had been thrown into jail.

There was a night raid that I can recall from when I was little that this woman, the next door neighbor was holding me, and they broke into the house in the middle of the night. When I say they, I'm talking about the occupation force. Um,

Lani Lanchester: Israeli Defense Force, the IDF.

Mima: Yes Yes. And they came in and they pulled all of the male family members out of the bed in the middle of the night, and they just took them off.

And most times, people aren't charged with anything. It's just, they take it, they take a person away. and then

they, they release them when they feel like it.

So

Lani Lanchester: Yeah I don't even know what to ask with something like that. It feels so random and hopeless and helpless, you know, for your mom, especially, 'cause she is out of her own country, living with Palestinians. So, how did she manage without your dad in Palestine, in Gaza?

Mima: Yeah, it was the next door neighbor. Her name was Hidyat. So Hidyat spoke multiple languages, was very intelligent. And Hidyat kind of assumed care of me when my mom was trying to gather herself. Because my mom didn't speak Arabic. Hidyat spoke very eloquent English among a few other languages.

Lani Lanchester: I see. Yeah, that would be frightening. So, what did your mom end up doing?

Mima: So at some point, my mom had met someone, an Israeli woman who worked at the Ben Gurion Airport. And this woman had told her, you know what, I don't know when I'll be able to get you on a flight. So many flights were being canceled. So many flights were grounded. And then the flights that were leaving were pretty packed with people who are trying to escape, and those were usually Israeli citizens and not Palestinian citizens.

And when that would be, or if that would even happen anytime soon. And so,

Lani Lanchester: So things have been different back then. Because in Gaza now, people can't even get out of Gaza. So, there must not have been walled in the way they are now in the 80s. Okay.

Mima: What we call the apartheid wall did not exist at that time. There were various roadblocks and blockades, but

it was, it was nothing like what it is today. And at this time, so the timeframe that I'm explaining this part of the story was during the first intifada. I know that this is not a history lesson of a podcast, but for the first Intifada, you can imagine, it's like the first major uprising of Palestinians saying, no more. You're coming through, you're doing all this crowd control to us, you're bombing us, you're shooting at us.

yeah, oh gosh,

there's,

Mima: So, there's a few different meanings for Intifada. But the major meaning for Intifada is just uprising. It's a resistance movement.

Lani Lanchester: So, it could be like anybody, a slave who's been kept down, getting a job, and having some sort of their own means, rather than, it doesn't necessarily have to mean violence. but it

Mima: No, it could mean violence, but it's really about people trying to take back their rights, people trying to reclaim their voice, people trying to say, no more,

Lani Lanchester: like

Mima: we won't stand for this.

Lani Lanchester: I relate to that trying to find my own voice. That's, That's one of the reasons why I have a podcast and why I'm writing a book. It's so important to have your own voice. And You know,

I hear different reactions to Intifada. I see what's happening on the school campuses, and they use the word Intifada, but that was good.

Mima: Thank you.

Lani Lanchester: Oh, thank you.

Mima: Yeah And so,

at this time that the first major uprising was occurring, my mom was trapped in the middle of all of this. And I don't know specifically and exactly, how long my mom was waiting by the phone to get this phone call from this woman who worked as a flight agent at the Ben Gurion Airport.

I think, we talked about this story, but as he was driving down this small alleyway, this really tight alleyway, all of a sudden, there is these plumes of smoke. And all of these people were running in their direction. And he puts his car in reverse and just starts backing out of this tiny alleyway space. And he's just trying to get out there and just get her to the airport as fast as he can. There was active bombing and active artillery going on, at this time when he was trying to get her to the airport.

So he was able to make it in time and she was able to get on the flight. And we were able to go back to the U.S.

Lani Lanchester: She had to leave without your dad.

Lani Lanchester: I see. You said that over time, you realized that you had carried a lot of trauma from

this, time from when you were in Palestine. And your mother carried trauma from Palestine, as well. So, do you remember, when you were very young, when you came back and what that was like to the States?

Mima: Yeah. That's kind of an interesting question and I'll get into why that's interesting. So, when we came back to the States, what I do remember is two things, stability and boring.

I say, stability and boring. Stability, which was wow, there's nothing dangerous happening. And danger was what we knew. So we didn't know any better. And I say boring because things were so predictable. We didn't have to try to account for things that weren't going to happen, that, or that were maybe going to happen and maybe didn't happen.

If you know what I mean, that makes sense. So, I would say that life with my grandparents was really good, but we weren't with them for very long. My grandfather ended up passing away, and then my mom ended up taking us and fully taking over, at that point.

But the other thing of why I said this is an interesting question is, from the point of my grandfather passing away and fast forward in time to my teenage years, I have very little memory of pretty much anything.

Lani Lanchester: Oh yeah. Tell us that story. It's an amazing story.

Whatever I grab is the thing I'm going to buy. And she said, okay. And so, she opens this box and I reach in. And I pull out this crystal. And it was in a strange way, like anatomically shaped, like a human heart, with like with

the, valves coming out the sides in different angles. And like, there was a point that was kind of like an aorta. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I was just like so intrigued with this crystal.

And I was like, this is mine. And a few feet away from us was this older gentleman, white hair, and the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen. He was a little bit on the thicker side. And he's smiling in our direction. And he comes up to us. And he comes up to me and he said, Can I see that crystal?

How do you know? How do you know that? And he said, well, here, let's do an experiment. And he said, I want you to hold out your left hand and I'm going to put the crystal in your left hand. And he said, I want you to hold out your right arm like this. And he said, I'm going to push down on your right arm. And I want you to resist.

I don't want you to let me push your arm down. I said, okay. And so he's putting all his weight on my arm and it's not budging. It's not doing anything. And he said, okay, now I want you to hand me the crystal, and I want you to put your right arm out again. And I want you to resist. Don't let me push your arm down.

Lani Lanchester: huh. I see him.

Mima: because every time I tell this story, it's just, there's such a charge to it for me.

I asked him like, tell me more, I need to know more, like what is going on? And then he looks me point blank. And he says, do you remember what happened to you You went when you were 12? And I took a moment, and then I realized, no, I don't. And then he said, do you remember what your parents did to you when you were 12? And I said, no.

And then I started trailing back, okay, 11, 10, 9, 8, like just trailing back like, where do I remember? Where does this break start? Where does this break stop? And then I realized that the only instances that I could pinpoint were fragments of traumatic instances. And there wasn't anything in between those.

And I looked at him and I said, Holy crap. And I said, do you know me? And I'm quoting him exactly. He said, even if you lose this crystal, you will still remember in time. And I said, okay. And so, I tried getting more information out of him.

And he was making his way to the door, so I would intercept him and block him. I asked him, can I get your email? He said, I don't have an email. I said, okay, can I get your phone number? He said, I don't have a phone. And so I said, okay, what is your name? And he took a moment and he took a step back, and he smiled and he looked at me and he said, Hey, they call me Tom.

But because of him, I thought, okay, I have such a lapse in memory. I started fearing that maybe I had like early onset Alzheimer's or something. So I started going to specialists. Nothing was wrong with my brain. Nothing was wrong with me. Medical wise that anyone could find, therapist, psychologist, nothing was, wrong that they could find, I should say.

And at that point, I was like, okay, something is happening and I should probably get this checked out. But it was so painful that I ended up deciding, I'm going to go to the ER. And I was crawling to the ER. At one point, there was no one there to receive, anyone to the ER. So I crawled into the ER and I said, I need to be seen. And I was there for a number of hours. They did scans and blood work and tests and all of the things.

no, what's, what's your diagnosis? And he said, it's something that we'd like the specialist to talk to you about. So having worked in emergency medicine and having been in those scenarios, whenever the doctor said it that way to a patient, it almost always meant that they suspected someone had cancer. But they'll never tell you in the ER.

And we want to do surgery. And in the meantime, we suggest you do almost nothing. We don't want you to do any physical activity. We don't want you to do any strenuous, like jogging, lifting, nothing. And I was very athletic person. So that was really frustrating for me at that time.

Lani Lanchester: Were they going to remove the tumors from your ovaries, or would you have lost your ovaries for this?

so, What was reason why he was telling you not to do any strenuous anything is because the weight of those tumors with any kind of a strenuous activity, it could actually cause a very intorsion, where the fallopian tube twists on itself, and then it becomes a very serious situation. So he said, just don't move pretty much. Don't do anything.

This is happening over a series of weeks. It's not just back to back. And so as this is happening, my friend and colleague comes to me again and says, hey, there's another ceremony happening. You couldn't make the last one, but do you feel well enough to go and sit in this one. And I said, yeah, I feel well enough to go and sit this time. And I would like to.

And I had no expectations. I didn't have any research done. But I just went with an open heart and an open mind. And no real conceived ideas of, I expect X, Y, and Z to happen for me or expect healing or any of that.

And then I just felt this abject grief, like this profound grief. And it was just so overcoming. And I sobbed and sobbed and cried and like, bald. And I did this for six hours straight. I was just crying and crying. crying and crying.

And so, once about six hours rolled around and I was crying for six hours. At some point, it just let up and I just went, .And when I did that, I heard the entire room, all the people in the room were like, Oh, God.

And even the next few days after sitting in that session, I felt like I was gliding, like my feet never were really touching the floor. It felt. I felt weightless. And I had people that came up to me after the ceremony concluded asking, what were you going through? What was happening? And all I could say was the most profound grief. I couldn't explain anything other than that. And I walked away from that ceremony, thinking, what was that? Like, what, came out of me? What was that?

And so anyhow, fast forward, I am going to go get this third opinion from a new doctor. And the doctor gives me a little bit of attitude. She was like, who'd you go see? Like, Where'd you get these scans done? because

And in that moment, biggest goosebumps right now. But I was like, Oh, the grief. And I was really sold after that. And I said, there's something to this. And so it was became very dedicated to sitting with this particular medicine, and even a particular tribe, at some point in the Amazon.

And so, Yeah.

There's a fracture in the relationship or many fractures in the relationship. Or even, you know, there's mental illness that affects the relationship, anything like that, where you feel like you weren't taking care of, your mother didn't have your best interest at heart, like all of these things started coming up.

Like, Of course she wasn't thinking about you, like she was trying to survive. you know, and it, it really changed my perspective. And it really made me realize, it's not about me. There's so much more than just me in this story. continue to tie this back around to the topic of Palestine and Palestinian voices, throughout my entire life, I always questioned, why was I born in Palestine?

And so, the last time that I was sitting in the Amazon and sitting with this particular tribe with this plant medicine, that question came up. And I was really sitting with that question in ceremony. And I was in the Amazon for almost a month at that time, and I was finishing up like the final ceremonies.

I didn't want to pass that on. I didn't want her to have to compete with that in my womb space, either in a spiritual or energetic sense.

This particular night, I had actually voice recorded the whole night. so, And I've gone back and I've listened to it a few times. But if you heard the recording, what you would hear is coughing, vomiting, moaning in agony. And I'm like, you really just hear the struggle. And then you hear footsteps coming up to me, and you hear someone start singing to me.

And as he's singing this Icaro, I can feel things dislodging like, from my womb and coming up, and I'm vomiting them out. But in that moment, I'm having an experience, a very vivid experience. And I see that it's an aerial view over Gaza, in Palestine. over Gaza, as you would say it with a Western accent, And it's nighttime in this vision, and you can see like, all the lights of like, certain buildings and structures lit up. And for those who are listening that maybe don't know, there is a call to prayer that happens. It's projected out over the city and it's called the Adhan and you can hear it for miles away. And it's a call for you to stop what you're doing. Drop what you're doing and then get ready to go pray.

Why Palestine? Like, Why was I born there? And when I asked for clarity in that moment, as I'm having that experience, the answer was, you needed to be removed from the chaos, to be able to work on the healing. You needed to be removed from there to be here in the Amazon at this moment to be able to start the healing, to be able to clear the ancestral line and the familial line.

And then it made total sense to me. It was like, okay.

Lani Lanchester: It's the kind of trauma that you can understand his trauma, too.

Mima: yes.

And this is amazing because I wanted to start this podcast on the right foot. I mean, We're in the middle of horrible things happening right now. But I want to have hope. Otherwise, what's point, right? And I do, I see so much hope in your story. And The Book of Forgiving, has, I gave you this book.

Did you get a chance to get into it at all?

Mima: Not yet, because I have been reading your book, and almost through your book,

Lani Lanchester: Oh, thank you.

Mima: I started with that first.

Lani Lanchester: Oh, wonderful.

Narrator: Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss an episode show by clicking the subscribe button now. Don't forget to check out Lani's book, Learning to Listen to Palestine. Now back to the show.

But if you really look at it, you see that we are knit together. The plants, the animals, the environment. And what I do will eventually affect everything. And we want to be people who brings healing to each other. This was something Desmond Tutu wrote. He said, I would like to share with you two simple truths.

So I'm so delighted to hear your story and what you have brought and taught us in this moment. And I can see that your path is, of healing and hope that you're going to bring in, and I believe it's going to be in Gaza. I believe that you have to teach me how to pronounce Gaza right properly at some point. Because it's a different, it's a different place. Where is that? It's like, Is it back here?

Mima: Uh, It's in the throat. Gaza.

Lani Lanchester: Gaza.

Mima: We'll work on it.

Lani Lanchester: I need help. I need help with my Arabic. I can say my polite words pretty well, but it's a challenge, for sure.

Mima: It can be a strange sound if you don't practice it. like, If it's not part of your speech when you're young, I think. so,

No

Mima: Lani, do you know that the word gauze comes from Gaza, uh,

you know, to like wrap your wounds.

Lani Lanchester: No.

Mima: Comes from that name. So

Lani Lanchester: Oh, that's interesting. How did that happen? Do you know the,

Mima: No, I don't know.

Lani Lanchester: That's an interesting thing to look up or to learn somehow, if we ask for it, the information will come to us right at this point. So, are there any books or films or anything that you would like to recommend for people to learn about Gaza, and to learn about Palestine?

So, one of the books that I highly recommend would be The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, by Rashid.

This one is very popular. It's easy to find. You won't have an issue finding that one. The second one that I would highly recommend would be The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe. Ilan is I L A N.

Just in case, whoever's listening to this podcast might want to search with the name.

Lani Lanchester: That will be in the show notes. And actually, that is one of the, there are three pillars to my book. And it's Desmond Tutu's book, Ilan Pappe's book, The Ethnic Cleansing, and there's a third then. Go ahead.

And then, there is a book by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe, both of them co-wrote the book. And I think it's called On Palestine. And so that one's also pretty popular book. And it's, shorter, you know, compared to like the Hundred Year War, and all of that, it is a shorter book.

You won't get as much information as you will from the first couple of recommendations, but I do recommend that one. If you've read through some of the, first few that I've mentioned, then you can go read that one.

Now, there is one called, Five Broken Cameras.

Lani Lanchester: I was going to ask you, if you've seen Five Broken Cameras, that one made me cry. I had to watch twice. And it is available on Amazon, and Netflix, and YouTube. It's available free in several places. Excellent movie. It was amazing to watch lives get saved with a camera.

Mima: Let me see. There's one called Gaza Fights For Freedom. I'm not sure where you can watch that one. I don't, know that it's on Netflix. I can't remember where I saw it. But You know, most people have Netflix nowadays. It's not so much a documentary as it is, a depiction of someone's life during the Nakba, which is Farha, F A R H A. And that one is on Netflix. you

Lani Lanchester: And can you tell people, most of the listeners don't know what Nakba means?

Lani Lanchester: Most Americans have heard of it, but we know of it as different name. We know of as the Israeli war of independence, it is really just looking from a very narrow view. And what's so interesting about Ilan Pappe's book is, that Ilan Pappe is an Israeli citizen. And he grew up Israeli, and he grew up in Israeli schools, which as he explained later, they're segregated.

Yeah. So, There's a lot that is buried information that's really, you have to be intentional to learn to listen Palestine. And that's one of the things that I want to bring out is, we have to seek out to know somebody, to talk to somebody. And Mima, I'm so, very grateful that you were willing to meet with me and to tell me your story.

And as soon as I met you, I realized, Oh, I have a friend. And I'm so grateful for that. And that's what we need to do, is, build friendships, because we are all connected. We all do affect each other. And when somebody hurts, it hurts all of us in some way. we have to learn to listen to each other, in order to heal.

Mima: Yeah, to preface what I would like to share would be, first want to say thank you. thank you to anyone who is listening for this long and has made it to the end of the podcast. Hopefully, my story was relatable in a way that you know, you can see parts of your life, or parts of who you are as a person in parts of my own story.

And with that being said, when we talk about Palestinians, a lot of people will think, Oh, you know, those are people who are so far removed. They're in a completely different part of the world, that is nowhere close to me. you know, They have different mentalities,

Lani Lanchester: you know,

Mima: stereotypes and you know, all this stuff.

And I say that because Palestinians are not these people who are far removed you know, from you or from anyone. like We have the same hopes and the same dreams, we have same aspirations. So many of us want to be doctors, want to be nurses, want to be lawyers or going to school for PhDs.

We are your next door neighbors, we're your co workers and colleagues, like we are your child's classmate, and childhood friend. And so, when we think of the Palestinian person or Palestinians in general, these are people that are all around you. These are your best friends, your next door neighbors. These are people that you know, people that you run into on a daily basis. And so,

And what I'd also really love to say is that, with the atrocities that are happening and with everything that's going on in Palestine, it's so easy to look away. It's so easy to put blinders on. It's so easy to just log off and not have to look, or be a part of what's happening, but I mean, as you mentioned, Lani, that really affects everyone.

Lani Lanchester: And I think, that's a great place to end it. We need to ceasefire now. Thank you, Mima. This is Learning To Listen To Palestine. I'm so grateful that you're here and listened to Mima and me. And I. hope you will continue to join us and learn to listen to Palestine.

Narrator: Thank you for tuning in to this enriching episode of Learning to Listen to Palestine. I hope today's stories and insights touched your heart and opened your mind. If you found value in our conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with friends and family. Your support helps us reach more listeners and foster a global community committed to understanding and peace.

Until then, remember to listen, learn, and build bridges. Keep the conversation going and stay connected. Thank you for being part of this journey.