Draft #2

What makes a person leave their life, family, and friends behind? What may cause them to

go somewhere largely unfamiliar to them? Some people ‘choose’ to immigrate because of

several reasons: a subpar living situation, a lack of job opportunities, a desire for a finer life;

however, some people are forced to leave everything they know behind, to put it in better words,

they are forcibly wrenched out of their lives because of an ongoing war in their country or an

occupation. When one hears the word ‘occupation’ the first country that may pass through their

mind is Palestine. Palestine, middle- eastern country known for its awe inciting historical

landmarks and its vivacious nature, has been occupied for 50 years. It is estimated that more than

5 million Palestinians live in a global diaspora because of the ongoing occupation and the

authoritarian living conditions. Some Palestinians do not have the privilege to immigrate and yet

those who do immigrate still do not have it easy, quite the opposite actually. The movie

“Amreeka” markedly captures the struggle of immigrant Palestinians.

The movie “Amreeka” narrates the lives of a single Palestinian mother, Muna, and her

teenaged son, Fadi, who were granted the chance to immigrate to America. Muna was

apprehensive of the move at first but seems to reach a conclusion to move mainly for the sake

and safety of her son, Fadi. At the beginning the movie aimed to portray the rigorous daily lives

of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestine but mainly “Amreeka” seeks to project the

struggles of Palestinians and Arabs who move to America in general through the two main

characters: Muna and Fadi. Via the characters, the audience get to experience the home-sickness,
fear, and confusion that every immigrant usually goes through; however, the audience also get to

witness the courage and resonation expressed by Palestinian immigrants. The movie is meant to

resonate with actual immigrants and to raise the awareness of people who were fortunate enough

to never go through this harrowing experience. The movie, Amreeka, cleverly depicted the range

of emotions felt by Palestinian immigrants by telling a story which represents them and narrates

the struggles they went through and will likely continue to go through.

The makers of the movie “Amreeka” strived to accurately and truthfully recount the life of

Palestinian immigrants and they seem to have succeeded telling by the amount of awards the

movie won and was nominated to. They tried to make the movie itself as believable as possible

to the audience by employing several factors. They hired Arab looking actor and actresses which

makes the story easily palpable to the audience; it puts the audience in a state where they feel

like those actors and actresses are actual Palestinians going through this struggle in real life. The

actors and actresses’ Arab accent when speaking English and their somewhat broken English

really contributed to the overall atmosphere of the movie. The storyline of the movie itself is

believable to a large extent; in fact, it is not just believable, it is real. “Amreeka” is not

conveying a realistic story that only exists in the pages of the movie’s screenplay; it is relaying a

story that happened so many times in the past, which is happening in the present, and that will

likely continue to happen in the future. The movie is recounting the story of the Palestinian

immigrants; however, the strength of the story is correlated to the reliability of the narrator and

in this movie’s case, the narrator is exhaustively reliable. Amreeka is written and directed by

Cherin Dabis. Being the daughter of a Palestinian refugee and a Palestinian-American herself,

Cherin is superbly fit to tell the story.

immigrants precisely, and for that reason, the movie is a roller coaster of emotions. The movie

could be divided into two parts: when Muna and Fadi were still in Palestine and when they

immigrated to America. In the first part of the movie, when Muna and Fadi were still living in

Palestine, there were three prevailing emotions: despondency, chagrin, and overall discontent.

The main character, Muna, is portrayed to have a tiresome morning routine. The audience can

clearly observe a mixture of the aforementioned emotions as she goes by her day. However,

those emotions make themselves remarkably visible in two scenes. The first scene is when she

spots her ex-husbands significant other in the grocery store and her chagrin was almost tangible

as she stormed to her car, it was also clear that she was hurt. The second scene is when she was

stopped at a military checkpoint, her despondency was evident. Throughout the first part of the

movie, there was an underlying sense of fear on Muna’s part and it reached its peak when

Muna’s son, Fadi, was harassed at a military checkpoint, its at this point that Muna finally

resolved to move to America. After the move, Muna and Fadi experienced several emotions all

of which fit the emotional spectrum of culture shock. At the first stage, which could be identified

as the honey moon stage, they were feeling buoyant and optimistic; which was clearly

manifested in several scenes, for example, it showed in the way Fadi was talking almost

gleefully with his teenaged relatives about the move. it also showed in Muna’s overall

demeanour; she was jovial in most of the social interactions she went through, even if the other

party weren’t being particularly genial. But most importantly, the characters seemed to

indiscriminately idealise America; they perceived America as a promise land where no

misfortune could befall them and this is a tell-tale characteristic of the first stage of culture
shock. At the second stage, the characters are, as the name ‘culture shock’ suggests, thoroughly

shocked. Its at this stage where the characters’ extremely high expectations clash with their less

than ideal reality. They come to feel ashamed of their differences and exasperated at their

inability to adapt to their new environment. This emotion is most clearly evident when Fadi, after

a dispute that landed him in jail, professed to his mom that he wishes to return to his home

country. The audience could sense that Muna also felt as if she was out of her element; however,

Muna emotions are not manifested as clear as Fadi’s emotions are in the scenes. It could be

inferred that Muna was too focused on making ends meet to properly asses or display her

emotions. In the last stage however, things change for Muna and Fadi. This is the stage where

Muna and Fadi start to find a rhythm and feel accepted or at the least begin to feel accepted into

the new environment they ventured into. Those emotions are most perceptible in Muna when she

gives Fadi a speech about self -love and confidence. It is also largely evident at the last scene of

the movie when they all gather for dinner at an Arab restaurant.

What was Cherin trying to communicate to the Audience? Why did she invest so much time

into bringing the details and the emotions shown on screen to life? Well, director Cherin Dabis

intended to raise awareness or perhaps give a more honest representation of two crucial issues in

today’s world: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the struggles of immigrants. Through out the

movie, the pain and calamity brought on by the Israeli conflict was presented discreetly and

mostly through black comedy