I had always read about social class in school and learned about it from media sources; however, I never thought it was something that would be so impactful in my life until now. While I don’t see it as something that defines me, I see it as something that has become an apparent characteristic of who I am to others. My mother is originally from Lebanon, and when she came here, her family started out from scratch. When my mother was 10 years old, my grandmother was sewing all of her and her 5 siblings clothes from scratch, since fabric was cheaper than clothing. My grandmother even had to borrow ingredients from their neighbors to feed all of her children. During school hours and after bedtime, my grandmother would pick up shifts at a restaurant that was in walking distance from their house just to send them with a lunch to school.
While I had only heard these stories, and I have been fortunate enough that my siblings and I have lived comfortably for most our lives, I always thought it made my mother, my grandmother, and their entire family more resilient. I thought it was inspiring and incredible that my mother’s family had survived the war in Lebanon on scraps of food, came to a new country with a multitude of barriers they had to conquer, pursued education and business, and now they can provide a comfortable life for all of their children. Until I met my current partner, I saw nothing bad or wrong with how my aunts and uncles were raised, and I even thought it was amazing how they resisted and fought back against oppression and marginalization all these years being an Arab-American immigrant family living in poverty. Although my current partner’s family is also from Lebanon, they have a very different history.
All four of his grandparents could afford to receive an education in Lebanon, which was and is currently something only the richest families in the city of Beirut can obtain. Similarly, both sets of his grandparents could afford to send his parents and all of their siblings to college in America and Lebanon in the 80s!! That seems absurd thinking about all of the obstacles my relatives had to overcome to get their education and the jobs they have now. Not only did all of my partner’s relatives receive an education, but almost all of them became doctors or engineers- typical for a wealthy Arab family.
I didn’t realize how different this made our families until I started receiving judgement and backlash from his parents. For example, these are the first questions I remember getting asked… “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” “Why didn’t your grandparents go to school?” “What jobs do your relatives hold?” It’s almost like these questions, and more importantly my answers, make us more of people, more important, or more of a family. This was the first time I could identify feeling embarrassed or ashamed by my family’s history and it felt terrible to be experiencing this by someone who you hoped would accept you. I think it puts into perspective that social class doesn’t matter to everyone, but the people who it does matter to, are ultimately the ones that decide to keep it that way.
