The hard truth of being a journalist covering Palestine w/ Xelena González - Ep 160

This is Fortress On A Hill, with Henri, Danny, Kaygan,

Jo vonni, Shiloh, and Monisha

Welcome everyone to Fortress On A Hill, a podcast about U.

S.

foreign policy, anti imperialism, skepticism, and the American way of war.

I'm Jovanni, your host.

Thank you for being with us today.

I came across the Palestinian struggle by the news coverage of the Second

Intifada, which began in September 2000.

The intense media focus on the uprising exposed me to the complexity

of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

This was followed by the 9 11 attacks in 2001, and I saw how the

Israeli narrative of the Palestinian resistance became conflated with

the American narrative of Islamic terrorism and its global war on terror.

Indeed, there was a video showing Palestinians dancing and celebrating after

the attacks of 9 11, and the American media was portraying it as Palestinians

celebrating the attacks, but it wasn't.

The video circulating in mainstream media was of Palestinians celebrating

something else, and it was recorded before the 9 11 attacks.

I believe a year before.

But it didn't matter to those tasked to create a narrative.

I noticed how much effort was made by the American media to intertwine

the American and Israeli narratives.

Then I came across the book, The Passionate Attachment, America's

Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present, by George and Douglas Ball.

This book explains.

The history of the relationship between Israel and the U.

S., America's unmitigated support for Israeli policies, and how the U.

S.

often sacrifices its interest for that of Israel.

Then I read John M.

Meyers and Stephen Waltz's book, The Israeli Lobby and the U.

S.

Foreign Policy.

This book argues that the Israeli lobby wields disproportionate

power in shaping U.

S.

foreign policy toward influence in the Middle East.

But this influence Often results in policies that align more

closely with Israel's interests rather than those of the U.

S.

The lobby power comes from the ability to influence Congress, guide media

narratives, and shape public discourse.

Then I started to notice how Israeli narratives get amplified in American

media, while Palestinian narratives get downplayed, drowned, and scrutinized.

This influence has led to uncritical U.

S.

support for Israel.

Even when Israeli actions may be detrimental to U.

S.

interests, like we're witnessing now, with the ongoing genocide

and cleansing of Palestinians and American institutions, openly doing

everything possible to uncover what Israelis and give them impunity.

This uncritical support for Israel will discipline any American of power or

influence, even those without power and influence, who are critical or steps

out of line when it comes to maintaining the official narrative of Israel.

Under the misused term of anti Semitism.

We've seen how people who step out of line when it comes to

Israel get attacked and abused.

Remember journalist Mark Lamont Hill?

A veteran reporter and long serving member of the White

House Press Corps Helen Thomas?

Both got fired from their position for giving their opinion on the 76 year

old Israeli occupation in Palestine and the treatment of Palestinians.

Indeed, I recall former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney saying that as a freshman

Congresswoman, she was given a list of topics with bipartisan consensus that was

not to be touched, questioned, or debated, and that list was Israel's security.

I want to introduce you to someone who experienced this abuse

firsthand while doing her job as a journalist, Selena González.

Selena was a journalist graduating from Northwestern University with

a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Now she is an author of children's books, poet, storyteller, essayist,

and creator of the curative card deck Lotería Remedios.

She conducts workshops on radical self love in other disciplines.

Selena has received numerous awards for her books, such as the Tomás

Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, the American Indian

Youth Literature Honor Award, and the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award.

Welcome to the show, Selena.

Thank you for giving us your time.

How are you doing today?

Thank you for having me.

I'm happy that we were able to arrange this.

I know we've been talking about this for quite some time.

Yeah.

It's been a while.

And the situation doesn't seem to be getting any better.

I know when I first met you, that was, before the October

situation really escalated.

But I know that I had met you and, Some other people at the Esperanza Mercado de

Paz who are familiar, a lot of people, who surround themselves in that organization

are more aware of the struggles for peace and justice around the world.

You're a very sought after person these days.

I've seen you around, in the community.

We pretty much frequent the same places, the Marquetas, like you just mentioned.

We've chit chatted before.

We bought the lotteria card from you, we know many of the same people, we

were on the same circles, but we've never really spoken we met at the San

Antonio city council pleading, the mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nuremberg to drop

Tel Aviv as a San Antonio sister city.

Yeah.

That was about almost six months ago, right?

Yeah, it was a while ago and I regret that I've not made the time

to go back, because yeah, their stances.

Should I just launch into what I wanted to say if I have more time?

What we're talking about is that San Antonio gives,

does the City Council does this, session called People to be Heard.

Where you go to the, I believe it's every Wednesday evening, you

go to City Council and plead your case for whatever it is, right?

After the, situation in Palestine, October 7th, I believe we started

in October 18th, members of the community, organizations, we filled

the City Hall every week to plead.

The mayor to drop Tel Aviv as a sister city,

right?

He kept telling us that they can't do it because it's not

the program of sister city, it's not a political program, it's about

people to people relations, it's more about friendship and stuff like that.

It has nothing to do with geopolitics which is not true because another city

in when the Russian incursion, started in Ukraine, in 2022, they dropped a

Russian city like a bad habit quickly

so if that particular city could have done it, I don't see why San Antonio

couldn't have done the same thing.

Think we have ten city councils.

I think only three of the ten city councils stood by us.

The rest pretty much just rejected the notion and flat out ignored us.

And asking them to call for a ceasefire.

I don't know that was the group's target or goal per se, but

that's what I would love to see.

There are much bigger Chicago is the one that comes to mind, who have unanimously

said, Hey, we are not in support of this.

We demand a ceasefire.

That's the least they can do.

But, yeah.

It's not happened, and it's shameful, but yeah, that's where we met.

I met a lot of the group members there, some of whom had been familiar faces

to me from the community, and I'm very grateful to those of you who have

been, consistently, pushing our elected officials to change their views on that,

because it goes all the way up to the top.

That's why I'm here.

That's why this mentality continues, and that's why we're sending an inordinate

amount of funds we're funding a genocide

exactly.

Just to highlight this, that our mayor is Ron Nirenberg.

He's democrat.

He branded himself as one of the most progressive leaders we had.

He's with all the progressive, Things that progressives do, this is his last term.

He can't run again, right?

It shouldn't have been too much of an effort just to pause or drop

the relationship with Tel Aviv.

But we know that he has more political ambition, after being a mayor, probably he

wants to do something on a national level.

So that's probably one of his motivation of pretty much ignoring

us and looking the other way.

It's a shameful thing.

I don't understand what it's going to take for these politicians, for our

country to really shift that tide.

I don't know what exactly it'll take, but I think we're seeing the

ramifications of it, in real time, right?

Yeah.

So that's where we started speaking more in depth about the cause

and my personal knowledge of the Palestinian people and their struggles.

Did you want to get into?

I want to, what is your connection?

I know we're Palestine.

I know when we started talking that day, we shared a lot, but what

is your connection with Palestine?

I want to ask you.

So when I was younger, fresh out of college, I graduated from

the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and that's how

we started speaking about it, right?

As far as your podcast being a journalist, working for different forms of media

in some ways I still do, I have several publishing houses that I work with,

Initially, my work and training was as a journalist We were inspired by these

quotes of Joseph Medill, for whom the school was named, this idea of telling the

truth fearlessly and what is objectivity in journalism and these big questions

from day one that were tough to answer, but nonetheless, we strove to meet those

ideals And to be good objective reporters, I returned home to San Antonio, worked

for The Current for a while, and that led me in an interesting direction because

I went on a whim to try out for a play.

at Jumpstart Performance Company, which was housed at what is

now The Brick in Blue Star.

For the people in San Antonio who know that area, I tried out for a play called

Habibi, and Habibi is based off of a novel, a young adult novel, written by

one of our, probably our most beloved, which is what Habibi means, right?

Our most beloved writer in San Antonio, or one of our most

acclaimed writers, I should say.

Naomi Shihab Nye, well loved in the Palestinian American and wider Palestinian

world, a beautiful, amazing poet and activist and writer, her young adult

novel follows the journey of a young girl, Liana, who is like Naomi, from

a family that is half Palestinian, half American, and goes to visit her

Palestinian family, and encounters The Uglier Side of the Occupation.

So this novel does well.

Someone turned it into a play.

I don't know any of this background, right?

I try out for this play, thinking I'll get a little extra role.

And I got the lead.

It was fantastic.

It was this journey that I had.

You're studying this history, right?

You're studying the context of the play.

It was intense, even though it was a young adult novel, so it was watered down,

not in a bad way, just in a way that is more digestible, for a young audience.

Even that, Jovanni was just like unbelievable.

I couldn't believe that people were living in the way that they are.

I met the author.

I met some of the people who were aware of the Palestinian cause.

And this is one of the reasons they wanted to bring it to the stage, right?

They needed to get the word out.

This was way back in 2000, 2001, 2002 I started learning about the

Palestinian struggle at that time.

We staged this show, there were buses of people who came in from Houston, from

Dallas, I began to meet some of the wider, Palestinian families living in Texas,

and seeing their love for Naomi, seeing their appreciation for bringing these

struggles to light was overwhelming.

It led me to another play.

This one was more intense for an adult audience.

The play was a conglom it was, I guess a conglomeration of voices of women.

Who are currently, at that time, living in occupied Palestine, right?

In Gaza, in the West Bank, dozens of women were interviewed, we heard their

interviews, oral histories, like we heard them, we saw the raw, the raw transcripts,

these were put into, Composite.

That's the word I was looking for.

Composite voices, right?

Three different characters.

Because I had appeared in Habibi, they said, hey, will you be in this play too?

This play was called Otherwise Occupied and Diane Monroe, led that effort.

She and, Dr.

Ola, I'm trying to think of her last name.

Aldi.

Aldi.

Aldi.

I'll get the name for you because it's important.

She came back into my, radar recently because she's still currently trying

to get her family out of Gaza, dr.

Rola helped arrange some of these interviews and Diane Monroe, who

was a part of Jumpstart Performance Company, they gathered all of

these voices, they turned it into this profound, powerful play.

I had the honor of acting in it for those people who act, any of the Arts

involve moments of vessel work, right?

Where spirit or, the greater mystery just inhabits you the reality of

what the women, the men too, right?

The men and the children, but what the women are dealing with there and the

shame and the subjugation that they have to endure daily is incredible.

It's unbelievable.

But here's what happens, Jovanni, at the time that I am expanding out of writing

and into stage acting and had this opportunity of all things to be exploring

the Palestinian struggle and existence.

At this same time, my sister is on the other side of the world, she's in China

through a sister program with Incarnate Word teaching English and she meets the

man who is now her husband of 20 years.

She meets Sofian, Saqqan, who would become her husband, and he is Palestinian.

So we start talking about this, and we are very well educated women.

Our family, watches the news and we were comparing notes, like

young 20s, early 20s, right?

How is this possible?

How is this happening?

How have we not heard of this, we start comparing notes and right off

the bat, I remember this conversation with her where she said, I don't know

what to think of it all, it wasn't that she couldn't see what was right

and what was wrong, but the idea of.

There were generations now who lived in refugee camps.

His parents lived in, Jordan, right?

And Amman, where there's a very huge refugee population.

But this idea of not letting go, not forgetting that struggle.

And I said, to me, I see our people.

I see our ancestors, our parents raised us with the knowledge

of honoring and acknowledging our Indigenous heritage, right?

And then, the very little that we read in our history books growing up,

I always wondered, at what point did the Native American people give up,

at what point did they stop fighting?

And you can get into the research, see that different tribes fought longer,

and different people signed on to different agreements and were

subjugated in different ways.

That was a battle that was lost in many fronts, and in many ways,

we're still here, I told her, I said, with the Palestinians, it's

like, they haven't given up, right?

They're still going to fight, and it's a good thing that these things are being

documented, and that the word is getting out in these different art forms, What

was happening was that because my sister, married into this family, we had the

opportunity to travel to Palestine I have been three times over the years,

over the last 20 years, and that very first trip Sofian could not come with us.

My sister and I went alone because he had not yet received his American

passport, which is just insane that we, as Americans, with those privileges,

were able to cross into a territory That he, nor any of his siblings or

parents could enter, so what we were carrying with us were gifts and messages

and photos from families that had been separated since, I'm assuming 1948,

I could get the exact, dates, but The heartwarming part of it

and also heartbreaking part of it was that these families, they

knew everything about each other.

And this was before the internet was as fast as it was, right?

But even then, they knew whose children belong to who,

they marveled looking at these photos, like physical photos of their siblings or

their cousins, children and grandchildren, they cried over these things.

They were so loving and welcoming to us because we were able to.

Deliver these physical things, but also energetically, send this love

and be beloved guests in their homes the level of hospitality in that

community blows my mind every time.

In that trip, I was also able to meet some of the women whose stories

I had portrayed on stage here in Yanaguana, in San Antonio, and

that was quite profound as well.

That was and continues to be part of my education in understanding the

Palestinian existence and struggle is that I've seen it with my own eyes.

And that's the hard part, sometimes people will try to check me or correct

me and it's look, I've been there.

I've seen the IDF in action.

Please come talk to me if you've seen the same, because if not,

the propaganda is I've seen

the checkpoints, the daily humiliation and all that, right?

Horrible.

Here's what I saw, and this is something that I ended up writing

about, was yeah, daily humiliation.

The checkpoint situation is crazy.

Even us, upon entering, I'll take you back to that.

Upon entering you can opt to not have your passport stamped.

I don't know if I had told you about that, but you can ask them to not

stamp your passport, them being Israel.

And what's interesting about that is that you can't do that in any

other country in the world, right?

Say oh, hey, don't, that's cool.

I don't want you to stamp my passport.

But the reason you can get away with it is because they are an illegal

occupation and they know that.

On some level.

That's what I'm, that's what I'm assuming.

But the reason that you don't want to get it stamped is that there's a number of

countries, one, a huge number of countries that don't even recognize Israel, right?

They call it Palestine.

In China, they call it Palestine.

It's not, when they ask you even on your visa form what countries

have you visited recently?

Israel is not a box, right?

It's Palestine.

There are maps in, dozens and dozens of countries that recognize

Palestine for what it is.

But anyways, you cannot enter certain countries if you have that acknowledgement

of entering Israel, if you recognize that.

We knew this.

We asked them not to.

Automatically, they're on your ass, right?

They are monitoring you.

They want to know.

They want to know where you're going.

So we were even limited in that sense.

But here's what happens is that you enter in a completely different

way, and you are relegated to the roads that the Palestinians are.

So unless you enter the country that way, You see a completely different thing.

So I'll give you the example of my mother who went on a

quote unquote holy trip, right?

So they, she went with a church, had a beautiful time, wonderful time.

This was before meeting Sofiane, meeting the sectans who are now a part of her

extended family, essentially, right?

She will tell you it's a completely different trip.

You enter Israel as a, Christian tourist or just a tourist in general.

And honestly, any of these politicians too sometimes I wonder I don't know

what anybody's excuse is now, because there's so much through social media,

there's so much raw footage that you just cannot ignore, but when you enter

in a different way, there is, you're traveling on different roads, you are

drinking different water, you are in the hotels what you have access to, what

you are viewing is completely different.

It's absolutely an apartheid system.

And so you can visit Israel and see a very wealthy country, a very

beautiful, clean, all of that.

But the Palestinians are relegated to certain roads, to certain

cars, to certain systems, to certain water, to certain food.

And obviously

It's an apartheid state.

It absolutely is.

And they track, and they monitor, and they block they

have these checkpoints endlessly.

So it was exactly the way we had heard from these interviews.

It's exactly the way we had portrayed in these in this play.

But, a play is it's rehearsal.

It's rehearsal, and even the best acting moments where you can sympathize and

empathize, you can shake it off and cry it out and go back to your normal life.

And it's a very horrific thing to see and to know that people

live there every day like this.

Because you get sick of it after a couple of days, right?

Even a couple of hours if, should have gone.

I to pull you over and question you endlessly as they will do because they

want to and they're not checking anything.

They're people to learn 18 year old, 19 year olds.

A lot of these soldiers, they're like young and they have this power, and

they have this, this weapons on them.

And, it, because it happens to the American military as well.

You got these particularly like in the in the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan, you have these 19.

19, 18, 19, 20 year olds driving around with big guns and just

manhandling people, people older than them, just having a ball with it

because they can do it, yeah, yeah.

And these guns are massive.

To this day, I've never seen guns and they have their finger on the

trigger all the time, and they will put it in somebody's face.

Grandfathers, grandmothers they're elderly.

There's zero respect for, there's no human decency afforded

to the Palestinians there.

Two things, two things, it's funny you just mentioned that

first thing you you mentioned about the we put the American indigenous

parallel with the Arab world.

Probably with the the Palestinian indigenous people, when you made that

connection, I was speaking with a an Israeli in last episode, last couple

episodes that we're here, we interviewed an Israeli Israeli Canadian woman.

She's a filmmaker.

It's a friend of mine.

And she was telling a story how she was raised, believing in the project,

the Israeli project and everything, but it wasn't until she went to school,

In Canada, she went to the University of Canada, and then she saw, she got

involved into the, she looked into the the Canadian Indigenous situation there.

That she didn't see, she didn't make that connection.

She didn't see that parallel, the connection between the indigenous

people in the Americas versus the indigenous people where she's, where

she was coming from, and now she's a, she's in a Palestinian advocate now.

She makes films and stuff like that.

But it was interesting that you mentioned that, that parallel, that

connection, is that, I don't know if you've seen that film, it's a new

film, it's called Israelization, I believe it's called, Israelization.

They just had a, they just had a film screening a few weeks ago that I went

to, and then one of the person that was interviewed was, it was an older

Palestinian man, he was an American citizen, And he lived in the United

States for many years, I think, I don't know where, which part, but he lived

in the United States for many decades, and he moved back to Palestine, and

he was showing That there were this thing going on with with some Israeli

soldiers and some Palestinian men that were coming out of the the mosque.

There would be manhandled and brutal and, moved around and there would be,

these young Israeli soldiers and they were manhandling all these people

and whatnot and yelling at them and telling them to move and everything.

And then there was this one young Israeli soldier pointing a gun

at the person being interviewed.

And, and the Israeli soldier was giving orders.

Was giving him orders and and the Palestinian man told him,

asked him in English with no accent, where are you from?

And the Palestinian boy or the Palestinian soldier replied in

English, with no accent or anything, Chicago, he didn't say it so there was,

so the Israeli soldier answered Chicago?

Yeah.

So the Israeli soldier was an was an Israeli American and the Palestinian

man was an, was a Palestinian American,

like that would never occur here.

No, but the, what this illustrates is that the Zionist

project is pretty much is meant to draw people from all over the world to

settle, to identify with a particular religion to settle in this land

already inhabited by other people.

Yeah.

Push them out.

But I wanted to talk more on one of the reasons that I brought you to the, to this

conversation is that one of the things that you mentioned at the city council

was your experience as a journalist.

And then you're working for an outlet and you wrote a story

and then you start getting heat.

The story, can you provide some background on the story you wrote

that led to the harassment and what were the key points or criticism that

you made that led to this to, getting pretty much harassed over the story?

Yeah, so I had, I had encountered, I'd seen the seen

the way the Native people of the land live and seen that it was an apartheid

situation, but also, like you said the consistent harassment, the way the

children even are like, to say hassled, to say bullied is, when you're grown

men with guns, Kicking around little children, that's beyond that, right?

That's, that is true terrorism and that's what I witnessed.

I witnessed them just rolling a tank and having that block

off the entire neighborhood.

So there's no way in and no way out, right?

I remember one day we had plans to go see some birds.

And we couldn't leave the neighborhood because the Palestinians, the

Israeli soldiers just decided to, I don't know, they decided

there was some sort of threat.

I don't know what could these folks have nothing.

The children are educated by the United Nations and I'm not really sure what.

But what really struck me was the The water, so their water is

already a different system, right?

They don't have the rights to their own resources, like these soldiers are

cutting down their trees and I'm sure by now we've seen a lot of these horrific

things, but to see it firsthand and to see their water tanks, the limited

water supplies that they have, and they are these water tanks are on top of

the homes of the Palestinians and the number of gun holes Inside these tanks,

where it was just, it was sickening.

It makes me sick to this day.

Remembering just that again, these like kid soldiers, right?

High on power or whatever, essentially having target practice with

somebody's water supplies, right?

It was something like that, that, that really stayed with me.

And what I remember reading was one of these.

Back to the Sister City, right?

Sister City visit that our Council people had made to Israel, in quotes

and that they marveled at their water system and how wonderful it was, and

they were bringing back all of these wonderful ideas to SAWS to our water,

that's the treatment center that, That cleans and provides our water, right?

San Antonio water system, I believe it stands for.

And so there was this piece that I had read in the Express News

and it was about that, right?

Like how the sister city trip was so influential and these politicians

were giving all these great quotes on, it's a propaganda piece is what

it is, but it's also part of this whole sister city effort thing, right?

It pissed me off, right?

And so I wrote, which was essentially a guest editorial piece, but I approached

it also as a journalist, right?

Everything that I provided were facts and essentially relaying the experience that

I had, because I am still a journalist.

From the day that I learned more in depth of the Palestinian struggle, I was, I

continue to be flabbergasted at the way our mainstream media pretends as though

this is, one, a legal country, two, any kind, affords any kind of human dignity we

want to point to other countries and their treatment of human rights and whatnot,

but I, so I say what it is specifically with the water, And and so I submit this.

I wrote about it there in the Express News and then a longer piece in the Esperanza

Peace and Justice Center's media, which is called La Voz de Esperanza.

But the, in the Express, there was a there was a refute.

There was somebody else who wrote a guest column and he I just looked

up his name right before we started.

And it was something that I have not looked up in all these years.

Because it still brings me to tears because what happened was this man

refuted everything that I said.

And the same narrative of don't you know, like where Israel is full,

there's, we're constantly defending ourselves from terrorists, right?

This whole narrative that we now know is not, it's not necessarily true, right?

Or it's like questioning the term of who's the terrorist here, right?

But back then.

Back then, all you had to do was accuse someone of being an anti Semite, and

everybody looked at you ugly, right?

And that's essentially what happened, is that right away, and now we know

there's a whole playbook for this, right?

There's a whole hack that Israeli sympathizers, or I should say

Zionist sympathizers, will turn to.

But at that time, I was a young journalist, I was here's I'll tell

you my feelings on it, but what happened was, there was a, the guest

editorial that tried to refute it, but really they didn't, it was full

of propaganda, but, and accusations of anti Semitism, and I didn't know

what the hell I was talking about was essentially what it said, and I don't

know if this guy if he was responsible, all I know was that I was flooded.

With hate mail and it was one thing when it came to through the express like

on their comment board, but I started getting emails and then I had, I got

two letters in the snail mail and these were sent to my parents home and I'm

assuming this is because, these are this is the mailing address I have on record.

There are certain things that are accessible through public record.

And these included not only accusations of being an anti Semite, and that was

hard enough to hear be uneducated, you're wrong, you're this, you're that,

but there were threats of death, there were threats of, the kind of stuff on,

on, like the ugly stuff that you see on social media now like you should be

raped, you should be, like really ugly, awful shit being thrown my way, and being

written And sent to my parents home.

This is probably the first time that I'm speaking about it without just

completely melting into tears because I felt all kinds of things, right?

And I think I even cried that day at city council because it's an awful

thing to be accused of being a racist or being a hateful person in any way,

because I'm quite the opposite of that.

But I remember at that time too, feeling threatened, right?

Nobody wants to feel unsafe in their own home.

Nobody wants to bring harm to their parents home.

But also parents paid all this money, right?

We're here, we're from the West Side, we're from, we're living

on an educator's salary, right?

And all the resources and energy that they put to send me to college, and

then You know, it was like, I felt like I had failed in some way, when really

it was, I did all my due diligence.

There was nothing that I made up, there was nothing that I fabricated

and they made it seem that way.

It was such a concerted effort to smear everything that I had written.

I did not get a chance to write for the Express News again.

Nobody told me that I could, but here's what I was told.

So were you employed by the by the outlet?

I did freelance work for them, so I had done

some travel pieces for them.

So no, not, I was not on staff.

The only place I was ever on staff for was the San Antonio Current.

But I did have editors that I worked regularly with.

I did feel At that point that I had a good reputation in town for

providing columns reviews, things of that sort, travel stories.

I was occasionally asked to do these different things

for different media outlets.

But what happened in this case was that when the threats felt personal

and when they didn't feel that way they were I turned to my editors at

the time, not just the editors that I had worked with, but other writers.

And this is what surprised me even more.

It was just like salt in the wound, right?

Like salt everywhere.

What I was told over and over again was, oh yeah, no, we don't,

yeah, we can't talk about Israel.

That shocked me.

Yes.

And it was just a very basic yeah, no, don't ever do that.

Here is what I was told.

If you ever want a career, If you want to ever want to be successful in

journalism, you don't touch Israel, and the sad part was that I wasn't just

told that in my circle of journalists.

I was also told that by creative writers, right?

So at this point, I, when I was a freelancer, I had been doing work

more regularly also with Gemini Inc.

Literary Arts Center, right?

I worked there also full time and then also, part time as a creative

writing instructor over the years.

So I had friends, again, who were journalists and who were also novelists

and poets and things like that, right?

And every single person told me, if you want a successful career

as a journalist or as a, published writer, don't ever touch Israel.

Don't ever criticize them again.

And the fact that everybody just.

And I was obliged by this that everybody followed this rule.

It it shook me, and I thought I was like done as a writer.

Honestly, there was a long time when I thought that I had

effed up irrevocably, right?

Esperanza was the one who said, tell us more.

We want to hear more about what you witnessed, right?

We don't have enough voices from.

From that, your perspective, or Americans who have traveled out

there, who have been to the refugee camps, we want to hear more.

So I'll always love Esperanza, and La Voz de Esperanza for that,

but it shook me, it scared me.

I'm, was surprised that I was that I could not envision myself as a published

writer, which is what I am now.

But and really, honestly, it wasn't until recently that I felt less afraid.

To speak out about it because, over the years what I began to see was Helen

Thomas, as you spoke of earlier, right?

At first I thought oh my god, this is just you're in your own feelings, right?

But then it's seeing this most powerful woman, right?

This most powerful woman, one of the most powerful American

reporters who I had seen growing up in every press conference, right?

She was always the first one picked, right?

Those, the president's always, yeah, or that.

And then just to see her smeared in such a way, none of that was, And all of that was

hard to watch, but it also, it made sense.

It felt oh, okay, this is not just me.

And then the horrors continued.

The Al Jazeera reporter, her first name is Shirin, I can't remember her last

name and the Esperanza makes a place for her on their altar every year.

Yeah.

Was it the one that she got sniped, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and then, you lose count after October 7th we've lost count of the number of

journalists who have been assassinated.

Including staff from UNRWA, you the school that you mentioned, the

United Nations school that you mentioned that educate Palestinian children is

called, they call it UNRWA, that's the that's the acronym and a lot of UNRWA

staff members that have also been killed.

Yeah so did you continue working as a journalist after that?

How long did this harassment campaign lasted,

so that lasted for a while, and I saw the ramifications for

a while in, in a different context, and I want to say it happened maybe around

the same time, and I could get these dates, but they were, it was essentially

all in my, let's just say my 20s, right?

I'm now 45, but at one point I had I had a mentor whose name I won't mention, but was

also a very well known writer, novelist, and we had a pretty close relationship.

I was even, I had even been asked to babysit His children, and I and I remember

I went to their home for that reason and the wife liked me and everything, right?

The kids did, but I we were there to talk about that, and I think I must

have been working In the play, Otherwise Occupied, because I remember I had a DVD.

This is what dates the story, right?

I had a DVD, and it was about the Palestinian struggle, and it had

a child who was horribly, right?

The images that we're so accustomed to seeing these days, where this child is

bloodied, is there's bomb dust everywhere.

The child looks super scared and it's a photo, right?

It's a photo still.

And there's and there's these guards and it's looking up really

frightened at these IDF soldiers.

And so it's a dvd.

This is the image that's on the cover.

And they had given me this as material to study, right?

For this play that I was practicing for.

So I'm just carrying it.

I was carrying it with my books and my folders, and I walked into.

The house with this and I had put it down on the kitchen table and we're

talking about like the kids and their snack time and la and this the and

the writer my writer friend says at some point why you Why are you

bringing that propaganda into my house?

Really?

And he was a funny guy.

He was a funny guy, like very well loved guy because he was humorous, right?

And Being

serious or was he just being funny?

I thought he was being funny.

So I started laughing i'm like oh and he said no i don't know he asked me again

and i said oh yeah no i know i'm like doing this play because at this point

anybody who i had met right anybody who i had met surrounding this play

any educated person like truly educated person And I shouldn't say, because it

took, it really took what has happened recently for the majority of us to

like really understand the complexities of, because the propaganda machine so

strongly in favor of Israel, right?

And but he was a, his wife was a professor and he was a very learned guy, so I

couldn't understand what he was saying.

And I had never received that response before.

It was either like, will tell me more, right?

Or they were very aware wow, where's that play happening?

I'm glad the Palestinian voice is getting out, right?

So when he said that, I was like, I thought he was kidding.

And I started saying more about the play.

And he finally just said, I'm a Zionist, right?

And I still thought he was.

Yeah, I thought he was kidding.

I said, and he said, yeah, and I want to say he even used the words

a hardcore Zionist or a hardline Zionist, something to that effect.

And I didn't know what to say.

I don't think I even, even now, thinking back, I, because here's what happened

after, not only did was oh, it turns out we don't need a babysitter after

all I believed it back then, I was like, oh, okay okay, I thought I had this

extra source of income he revoked his.

support basically and this is somebody who had agreed to do like letters of

recommendation for a master's program he who somebody who believed in me as

a strong writer and it was it's not until now that i realized what that

moment must have meant for him be it but but no years later like i've seen

him at book festivals and he acts like he doesn't know me he won't look at me

he won't talk to me i'm sure there's other writers and editors who Don't care

for me because of my me speaking out.

I'm again.

I'm surprised that I've been able to publish in the ways that I have,

but it was a very heartbreaking thing for me because that was

someone I considered a friend.

And here's what's comical about that.

This guy is also, again, a good guy.

But a vegan, right?

And I remember going back to the office at Gemini Inc.

And and I said I just had this weird conversation, right?

With this writer and I told them what he said.

I told my boss what he said.

He said, yeah, so and so said, he made a remark about this DVD

that I had, and, told me, not to bring that kind of propaganda into

his house because he's a Zionist.

And then she said, I thought he was vegan.

And I laughed, and then, the accountant person who I worked with

same thing, because this guy's funny.

She was like, Was he kidding?

And I said, No, he said he's a hardcore Zionist.

And she said, I thought he was vegan.

And the understanding being right, like, how can you be

a compassionate human being?

Like, how can you have this greater understanding of Because he was a

vegan for heartfelt reasons, right?

He could see that there should be an end to the suffering of animals, right?

And and I think he even wrote about it, incorporated some of that into his

work, but couldn't see the humanity in

Palestinians.

And the people.

But again, to this day, if he ever spoke with me, if we ever had a conversation

I would want to know have you seen the, because I really do think that a lot

of folks who live there or have family there, they've never seen the other side.

The only Israelis or Jews who I've ever heard from or talked to who

have seen the way the refugees live changes their mind completely.

They are on the other side.

They are like your friend in Canada who are like, oh no,

we need to amplify this voice.

This is not okay.

I have yet to meet anyone who has seen the other side and not

advocated for the Palestinians.

The propaganda is strong.

Here in the United States Zionists Zionists, which is which is an ideology

that started in Europe in the 1800s.

It's akin to to colonialism and imperialism which was big.

Which was big in the late, 18 hundreds, into the mid 19 hundreds.

And it's pretty much Jewish na nationalism.

You don't have to be, and it is not akin to, it's not a religious ideology per se.

It's that of nationalism.

It's that nationalism akin to the nationalist.

Gazi that was at the time in, in, in Europe at the time with, Germany

unified Germany as a country.

Germany, we know Germany today, didn't unify until 1870.

So Germany is a relatively new country.

Italy didn't unify until 18, 1880.

So some of these countries, and then they adopted this, this identity

of nationalism, once they, all this sporadic community, this German

speaking communities all across Central Europe combined and turned

into a country, now they're they held onto this identity as a German, and

Zionists, as German nationalism, right?

Italian nationalism, and that paved the way for Italian colonialism

in Italy, and in Libya, And in Somalia, et cetera, right?

So you have this ideology.

Of Zionism, created in Europe, by a Hungarian man named Theodor Herzl.

He was in Austr he was Australian, he was Austrian, but he was Jewish.

So he, he came about to link, to create this nationality based

on a religious culture, right?

Which is Judaism.

And that's what they're portraying.

But if they here in the United States is that the majority of Zionists aren't Jews.

The majority of Zionists in the United States are non-Jews.

Here in the United, here in, in San Antonio, we have the church,

the the pastor John Hae, he runs the church what's it called?

A Cornerstone, cornerstone church.

It's a big mega church here in San Antonio.

They have tv, they have media, they have all that they, it's a huge church here and

they're a mega Zionist Christian church.

Yeah, they're a Christian church, and they're mega Zionists, right?

They have, they founded this program called this organization called CUFI,

which is Christian Christian Friends of Israel, I think it's called, Christian

Friends of Israel, and they do this fundraising, and they send money to

Israel to to fund the settlements and all that, and yada, yada, yada, right?

And they're not, yeah, so it's something that's been internalized here in the

United States, particularly a lot of people in the professional class,

like your friend, many of them have internalized this ideology, this idea,

and part of it is what you say, because Which what happens to you is that if you

want to get ahead, you have to pretty much play along with everybody else.

If, you say he was I think it was a Polish who said, if you want to get, if

you want to get ahead in your career, you don't want to rock the boat too

much, so you pretty much internalize, you pretty much adopt and internalize

and, all the, all this ideology of this people that surrounds you.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah, no, and that's the thing.

And that's been probably the most, there's been one of the other

struggles is that, in, in adopting, or not adopting, but feeling I guess

combining with this other family, right?

This Palestinian family, who I consider my family, because sometimes people will

say wait, how are you related to them?

But here's the thing.

I've known these people since before I became a mom, right?

They have welcomed me into their homes.

They've welcomed my daughter into their homes.

Like they're my family.

And so over the years, seeing them get older and get married

and whatever, and they've seen my daughter grow up and whatnot.

And over the years they'll tell me they've seen like this and I don't have a big

platform, but it's bigger than theirs.

So it's like they, they see the sort of the attention that I've gotten in these

number of followers on my social media and they'll send me these things, right?

About Palestine.

And they'll say Selly, post this Selly, you have to talk about this.

And they call me Selly.

And and it's been a really hard thing to It's not something that I feel

embarrassed about, it's something that I have felt fearful of, right?

And that, and it's something that I, it's behavior that I now

feel embarrassed about, right?

Because I, that was such a bad experience in my early 20s to be,

accused of being an anti Semite, to be afraid for my life and safety, right?

Somebody essentially saying I know where you live and I want you dead,

essentially is what they're saying, right?

By mailing a death threat to your home.

Like, all of that was it was enough to, it wasn't enough to keep me silent

completely, like I would do these things like every year I would give money to

the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and just like mentioning here and there

these things, But anything that was a little bit more incendiary like they

would want me to repost things from Al Jazeera, and it's just oh, I can't I will

be cancelled sort of thing I won't get another, I won't have my voice out there.

But it's always something that I've been able to speak about in person or challenge

people on anytime I've met someone.

Somebody who's from Israel.

It's Oh, tell me a little bit more about to the point where some of my friends

will be like, if someone said they're from Israel, they'd be like, Oh, Sally don't, I

wouldn't want to leave me alone with them.

And I wouldn't, attack them or anything.

I was just like, tell me more about your experience.

Because this is what I've seen, right?

Because I felt like it was important for people to know the other side.

So in these little ways being able to do this, but after all of this

has kicked off to have the number of writers to have Poets, for a ceasefire

kidlit authors for a ceasefire.

To have so many people within that industry say, this is

not okay, has been huge.

To have these conversations at the, we have these big awards and whatnot,

and then to sit around like at the bar afterwards and be like, How has

that, because there's people with much bigger platforms, with much more to

lose, so to speak, than me, right?

Who, we're still afraid, right?

People who are, or they feel bad, or we've had to have these like tough,

tearful conversations with editors, or with agents, because some of

them, they grew up in Israel, right?

Like they're from there, and so you don't want to, You don't want to hurt

people that you know, you don't want to hurt people that you work with,

but the tide is shifting and there's, this is a time of reckoning and people

really need to understand that whatever they've been brought up to to believe

and support, that it might be time to question those allegiances, and

that's a tough thing, it's a tough And so yeah, it's it feels a little bit

safer to speak out now, a little bit.

But yeah, some of some of what's been going on over, over the last 20

years.

What advice would you give to another American journalist writing on this

topic, looking back what happened to you?

I get back to your question.

It did honestly scare me away a little bit from journalists.

Here's what it made me think was this whole idea of this Joseph Medill

quote, which something along the lines of telling the truth fearlessly.

It made me really question what is the truth?

What is the truth?

If here I have received these skills from what was then considered the top school

in journalism, and despite all the respect that I had for that piece of paper, or

that I received for having that, those letters there were still people saying,

oh, but you can't touch this, right?

And to see how all of that those sympathies are played upon like the fact

that we all learn about the Holocaust in school and in Texas now it's law you

have to spend two, I think two weeks on it, but we don't learn about the

Native American Holocaust the Erasure of

Because it's too divisive, they say.

So they're cutting curriculum on, on Native American they're cutting

curriculum on African American slavery.

They're cutting all these curriculums Chicano, on Chicano

history because it's too divisive.

But yet, you have to learn about the Holocaust.

You have to learn about the Holocaust.

And that's the sad part, because that was a horrific point in history, right?

But it's like, why is that the one thing?

And it really makes you wonder how that plays into the propaganda machine.

And that's why it's also important to have the number of Jewish Americans

and Jews all over the world, right?

Who are like, hey, not in our name.

You're not going to do this anymore, right?

This is not okay.

Because they see.

the money that is funneled into it, right?

They see what the larger the larger they see the bigger problem.

But I think to journalists, I don't know, for me, it became a question

of what is the truth, right?

If we're going to tell the truth fearlessly, can the truth be

sought in other forms of writing?

Because at this point, I had begun to, as a student, and then later on facilitating

some of these programs, right?

Taking classes in Poetry and screenwriting and creative nonfiction those became forms

of writing that I explored just through my job and realizing the truth can be

told in many ways, or in the plays that I was a part of as a young actress the

truth can be explored in these other ways.

As a writer, I, that very much turned me off, right?

The fact that nobody had my back and instead said don't touch this.

What's the point, right?

What's the freaking point?

If one of the most, for me, this was, and it continues to be, right?

Like now I feel like, What was the feeling then is the truth for many

people now that this is a litmus test.

This is one of the most important points of our time.

This is one of the most important issues, I should say, of our time.

And that should be ignored was ridiculous to me.

So it's not oh, I never want to report again.

But it felt this is fraught.

This entire thing is fraught, right?

And that has only become more apparent As news media has become more, it's

become what it is, but no, it's not something that I had any interest in.

However, I have met some really wonderful journalists over the years that I'm

just, I'm in awe of, I'm super grateful for people like you, podcasters I'm

really grateful that you all are doing the work that are continue to seek truth

and provide historical, geographical, political context, because it is important

to know that and it is important to be to to explore the truth in various formats.

But yeah, for me, it became I have sought other forms, and.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Celine, I know we hit up our time.

I wanted to ask you, I know one of the things that fascinated me speaking

with you was, it wasn't another topic.

It was your time in China.

You said you worked in China for a bit and whatnot.

I know we're in a time crunch.

You have.

Okay.

We did some of the unpacking last night, and no, we

can go a little longer, it's okay.

Okay,

all right, so yeah I'm gonna move topics we'll move topics

toward, from Palestine to China now.

You mentioned China also earlier of how the Chinese view Palestine,

they see Palestine, not Israel.

It's fascinating, to learn when we talked that, that night at the city council

that, that you lived and you worked in China and you go frequently there.

You mentioned that your your sister lives there now?

Yeah.

And your daughter is doing a gap year there as well.

Yeah.

We're in an undeclared new Cold War against China, right?

The Center for Economic and Business Research forecasts

China will overtake the U.

S.

by, economically by 2030.

U.

S.

Citigroup predicts that the takeover will most likely occur in

2030 in the middle of the decade.

U.

S.

intelligence report predicts China will be the largest economic power by 2030.

So you have all this magic number 2030, right?

There's a RAND report, and RAND is, it's a think, the RAND, the RAND corporations,

think tech, they often write these reports that they're That military

leaders and political leaders read and base their policies and strategies on.

So they wrote a report, they estimate that the U.

S.

has a short window to close this gap and contain China, right?

And this was written back in 2016.

And they wrote a report entitled War with China, thinking through the unthinkable.

They were making the case.

That the U.

S.

and China are heading towards a collision.

It's unavailable, right?

It's unavailable.

It's going to a collision.

And they theorize how this, how this collision might occur.

Scenario might go and it gives different scenarios and how this collision between

the United States and China go on.

You've seen the rhetoric being ramped up against China and, both in both

parties, the Democrats and Republicans, you've seen right now there is there is

sanctions and there is tariffs placed on China for different different items

right now, China pretty much leads, leads the world in EVs, in electric vehicles.

However, you don't see Chinese electric vehicles here and they're

being blocked for a reason.

There is, there's corporate interests here that, that doesn't want, the Chinese

electric vehicle in this market here.

And they're leading the world also, in renewable energy as well.

And they're doing a whole bunch of fascinating things in China, they

went China in 1949, they were among the 15 poorest nations in the world.

They're doing a whole bunch of fascinating things in China, they

went China in 1949, they were among the 15 poorest nations in the world.

And in a matter of, I believe it was a matter of three decades or so they

became the second economy in the world.

Some say they're already the number one economy in the world.

I was going to say, I think that prediction

has come true already.

So based on your observations and conversations that you've had

with people in China do you feel that the Chinese have the same anxieties

towards the United States that the Americans have against China?

No, is my brief answer.

I don't I don't the people that I've met and and have talked with I don't

think that they, But I don't know, I've never felt any kind of like animosity

or any, here's the thing, the way of Chinese thinking is very different.

So I'm going to give you the example of there's a lot of proverbs, right?

They live by a lot of proverbs.

There's these saying, these little dichos, right?

That they go by and sometimes I don't understand, right?

Like I, I had my last gig in China was a two year I was a head

librarian at an international school, and a Yo was my counterpart.

She spoke, she was the Chinese librarian, and sometimes she

would give these proverbs and I would say, what does it mean, Yo?

What does it mean?

And there's this one, there's this one it has some, it has to do with,

Like Rams, like the goats, right?

That kind of play king of the mountain, right?

And idea that they, that the Chinese I don't want to say that the Chinese, but

the saying is something and I'm going to butcher this, but the saying is that you

don't want to be the goat on the top.

Why?

Because everybody's trying to knock him off of his place.

So essentially, let the US think they're number one, go for it.

You're number one.

We're fine being considered number two.

And this was something that I remember being shared with me when I lived there

25 years ago, or however long ago, that wasn't that long ago, it must have been 22

years ago, whenever I first lived there.

That was something shared with me and is something that students

will live by, artists, right?

This idea of being number one and being top, I don't want to say

it's a uniquely American thing, but it's a very, USA, right?

It's different there that, and I have heard that ram, goat, proverb or,

I'm not saying the word correctly.

Is it proverb?

The same.

Same.

Yeah.

I've heard that expressed multiple times over the years.

I can tell you, at least just by what I've seen, they're leagues ahead of us.

They just are.

The electric, and I'm glad you brought that up, the electric vehicles alone.

It's a marvel.

I've gone back and forth over the last 20 years and, a nation that

is building itself up there's going to be pollution, right?

So for a while, that was something that made, it was something that made You

know, some of that time unpleasant in a city like Guangzhou, which is their,

essentially their Chicago, right?

I want to say it's their third largest city, it's massive.

Like with the surrounding areas, I want to say it's 17 million people.

It's huge.

And, there were days where the sky was not unpleasant.

Go back this last time Giovanni was, whoo, I keep saying

Giovanni the skies were clear.

The, Street quiet, and I used to live on a very busy street.

It's peaceful, it's calm, people pull over and they will take a little

cartridge out of the back of their, they take the battery out, put it in a

charging station, take a fresh battery out of the charging station, pop it

in their car and move along and it's like Jetsons, it's incredible the way

the city has cleaned up the smell, the sight, that it's just, it's impressive.

And with the number of people that they have in their society, the way that

they are able to move forward with the available technology is just it's beyond

impressive, and yeah, this idea of they're gonna, yeah, they're ahead of us.

Not only that, but also with their built in what do you

call it, breed of built in built in road initiative, which is a massive

development project that pretty much they're expanding across the world.

They're connecting they're wanting to connect East Asia with Eurasia,

through a massive project.

Through massive, we'd call it New Silk Road, through massive networks

of roads and rail lines and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Pretty much if if you see the geography the last three, 300,

304 years, 300, 400 years, right?

The economy or the global economy has been centralized in the Atlantic, right?

In the Atlantic powers, so you have the United States, you have The

British, you have the French, you have the Spaniards, the Portuguese.

So everything, all the major traits has been occurring in the Atlantic

sector of the world in Central Asia has pretty much been, the the ca you

know, where it wasn't the case back.

Before that, now the, all the connection between East and West through the

BRII initiative and all that, and not only that, because now they're also

the initiative is also developing in Africa, developing projects in

South America, so all the developing projects to connect the world, into

this network it's quite remarkable, and this is, And that's also part of the

anxiety that the West is having because they're seeing that their influence and

power is pretty much drizzling away.

Yeah, and I guess for me, I just wonder what's wrong with that?

But really, it's because at the end of the day, there's Maybe not a handful,

but relatively relative to the greater population, there's not that many

people who have a whole lot to lose.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, when I speak of the electric vehicle situation, it's not just

wow, check them out, they're ahead.

It's also there is actually a way out of This horrible situation

we put our planet in, right?

This reliance that we have on fossil fuels, this we're creative people, but

we pretend to think we cannot there is no other way when there absolutely isn't.

For me, it's inspiring to see a society that is not only doing

it, but that is doing it quickly and for the greater good, right?

And very much.

Okay.

So who cares if we're not number one anymore?

I know the people who care are the ones who have the most to lose,

but there's not that many of them.

And yeah,

also it's an identity issue.

Also, it's also an identity issue.

It's a conflict to identity.

You're putting in question your own identity, when you're being, when you're

seeing that in front of your face, and that's what brings out the, you, the

anxiety, and and I can just relate it to transferring to the military, for

example, You see people that grew up in the military, since they were young

soldiers, they went through all the ranks, and they retire, let's say,

starting major, they did all the ranks and everything they have of this influence

over soldiers and power, and they have all this respect and this prestige, and

all of a sudden, now they're retired, now they're just average Joe's again, just

average person again, and people people walk by them and they're acknowledging

whereas before when they were walking with their uniform, people, salute or call

themselves a major and stuff like that.

But now they just walk in, so it becomes this identity issue for people,

yeah.

And that's what, that's the sad part about it, right?

That just for the sake of ego and preserving ego and this idea of being

the strongest and the best and the most powerful and the richest, for that

reason alone, they would start a war.

With Russia and China who would kick our ass and I mean they just

would like the number of people alone I shouldn't speculate on that.

But what I'm saying is that's the part that scares me I don't know who

cares who takes over economically, but the fact that they could pull our

You know, that they could pull us into a war that would devastate families

and economies and the environment.

That's the part that scares me, just for the sake of being one, just for the

sake of being the most respected it's it's shameful because Here's what China

gets like they have billions of people and everybody has enough to eat, and

everybody has a home and nobody is subject to the fear of guns and gun violence.

Alone is remarkable.

I know they want the, again, the propaganda machine wants to go

on and on about human rights.

What is a human right?

What is a human right?

Because every time I return from China and I just take a walk I want

to walk through my neighborhood.

I feel fear flood my system, right?

Like ice water in my veins.

It's a, it's an ugly feeling to live in peace and then to suddenly

re enter a where you feel fear.

And the sad part is a lot of us don't even know what that feels like to live

in safety, that community where I lived before Guangzhou, it's It's one of the

most international places, probably in the world, definitely in China.

It's a port city, right?

So it's you have the mainland, you have Hong Kong, and then you have the mainland.

So near, you have Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and these, all of these cities are

just like, oh my god, they've been blowing up over the last 20 years.

And I think, I want to say that China's trying to make it to where they are all

united in a mega city kind of thing.

And they're even building these bridges, I want to say, to Macau.

I shouldn't even speculate on all that, but I know they're wanting

to make, they're making efforts to make it like a, I don't know what

you call it, metropolis, right?

Like the way Dallas Fort Worth is, right?

And but anyways, it's like a port city so that you have a metro plan.

There you go.

And they want to make it the biggest city in the world.

And if anybody can do it, it's China.

So it's a happening spot.

And there's people from everywhere.

And and this neighborhood where I lived in when I last lived there.

I would talk to them, right?

Cause that's where all the restaurants were, all the bars.

And this was pre COVID.

And so I remember chatting with different people, and a lot more Latin Americans

than I had ever seen in years prior.

Lot, lot of Latin Americans, but also people from India, from

the Middle East from everywhere.

And I would ask them I'd say, Oh, do you whether they had been, it was

their first time or they'd been there for years or going back and forth.

Do you like it?

Oh yeah, I love it.

And what do you love?

And of course people can talk about.

Whatever, the history, the food, the this, the that, the culture, the people, but

every single time, and quite often you met men, businessmen traveling on their own or

maybe getting a start with their families, every single time, the first answer was,

and it was said with an exhale, it's safe,

right?

Bafti.

And you felt this more, you felt that exhale more and that and the gravity of

the words, you felt it most among people who were from either war torn countries

or countries where there was just more gun violence like there is in the US.

And that's huge.

That's a fundamental human right, right?

If you look at these like psychological that pyramid of psychological,

of needs, of human needs rather.

And it starts there, right?

Safety.

It's there with like food and water and shelter.

Like it's a basic human necessity.

Yeah, when anytime this rights thing is brought up I'm just

like, we don't even know.

We don't even know what that is like to be, to live in a safe way.

I don't even know if I'm answering your questions.

I'm just going, I'm just going on and on.

You are.

So I want to be respectful of your time.

I think this is a good place to stop to pause for the day.

Went from a low to a high, went from the devastating genocide that's happening

in Palestine, you're experiencing.

And trying to tell the story from your perspective, from what you experienced

and how the way you were attacked.

And we talked about how the narrative is so tightly controlled in this

country when it comes to Israel.

But that narrative is, as you see, it's falling apart.

And with all the protests that's going on and everything, they don't no longer

control the narrative through, through, through a more subtle means, they don't.

And now they're getting more, more violent with the, you saw what happened with the

the colleges this past summer, the summer, the rest, I know people personally whose

children took part in the protests in the colleges, and now they're worth, seniors,

and they're withholding their graduation, because they took part of the, in the in

the the protests, and now they're becoming more, now because they don't control the

narrative, the narrative of social media and everything, the, narrative is pretty

much going in an even playing field.

Now they're becoming more desperate.

Now they're becoming more aggressive with it.

Yeah, and then we ended up with the high with with, with the a more

optimistic note of how other societies are building themselves up and not

only building themselves up, but they're building others with them.

And in a peaceful matter, yeah, thank you so much for coming in, to show,

any, it was a pleasure having you and discussing this with you today.

Any last comments you might want to share before we depart?

Oh, I'm just I'm grateful for the conversation

and to be able to to chat.

I did want to invite folks.

I could show it, but I know it's not on video.

There's going to be a an ed talk that I'll be a part of.

This was my old editor at the current.

He was the editor that's happening at the BRIC at Blue Star, next

Wednesday, so that's something happening, but I think as far as our

audiences, right?

Go to the BRIC.

For San Antonio audiences that are listening to this podcast,

go to The Brick and see Selena.

Go to The Brick next Wednesday.

But as far as our conversation, Jovanni, I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for having me, thank you for picking my brain and

for just being, your solidarity.

It always, as I had expressed before it's, it becomes an enlightening

conversation when somebody you can provide The political, the historical,

the geographical context it, it makes the conversation more enriching for

me and hopefully for your listeners.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, where can people find your work?

People can find my work.

My website is selena.

space.

That's X as in x ray, E L E N A dot space, A CE and my picture books

and my Laia deck, which is full of affirmations and reflections those can

be purchased wherever books are sold.

I am a big fan of supporting independent bookstores, but yeah, if it's not

there, ask for it or the public library.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And for your listeners, thank you for joining us today.

Please like us, subscribe to our channel.

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