Daily life photography in everyday scenery in the midst of New York city, “ yes the most photographed city in the world”. All the way from my flat in Brooklyn to Queens, Manhattan and even the suburbs. Fun point to start with, so if you don’t know yet, I’m Palestinian – born and raised in the old city of Jerusalem currently under Israeli occupation, previously under British Mandate (who I will sue one day) and Ottoman rule. It’s crazy, I left Palestine and then my best option for a flat was at the old Jewish psychiatric hospital of Brooklyn, lol. Shouldn’t complain as it was just next to the S, 4, 5 trains, recently gentrified neighborhood and marvelous happy hours… worth $2,000 a month for 50 square meters.
Mixed feelings of the present when one wouldn’t think of home; Jerusalem. Looking at what alternative life would have been, wondering almost everyday and facing different encounters, hundreds of thousands of diverse ethnicities, Trying yet again to establish trust with neighbors, knowing that they won’t take your home since you are finally on the other side of that ‘promised land’. Oh one more thing; its such an amazing feeling to know that your neighbors are not all soldiers and any given minute they could put on their uniform and walk over you anyway, I still laugh so hard whenever its almost Sabbath and I’m asked, in Brooklyn’s Crown-Heights, by fine biblical boys “Are you Jewish?”. Even my regular drinking buddies assuming the cute, curly haired boy with the anonymous accent was Israeli, after correcting them they would still rather hear “Pakistan” than “Palestine. Pink washing propaganda …. yet its sweet in a weird way, it reminds me of that pink matter I attempt to avoid whenever I think of home, all the sudden I’m looking and looking for visual distraction, thinking of and listening to Gill Scott Heron. Lived in other countries before, never thought of missing home. It wasn’t easy or smart, thinking to do that in such a city, looking at its intensity and volume. Sinking thoughts of others who loved and hated and lived in another time.
All of a sudden, Trump won. Leaving the city with true and champagne activists. People stuck at airports and the city moves on. Packing my stuff again… worried about more visas and how long this travel document will last.
2018 © Alaa Ghosheh
