The Lightning Room With Alia Hamada

From the September issue, Alia Hamada’s “Moustache Girl.”

1. In what ways is the razor a rebellion?

The razor is a tool for adolescent rebellion: becoming a woman too soon, at least sooner than a mother wants. All hairy women I know wanted to shave their legs, faces, arms, armpits, chests, as soon as possible, including me, and this character. Not only to be “purified” and “white-like”, but also that shaving is a way to act out against the mother. To shave, in this voice, is freedom.

But, as the poem continues: this freedom (bleaching, shaving) is shown to be a guise for ethnic erasure. The young woman in this poem wants to be grown-up, just as all young people do at some point in their youth. Grown-ups get to eat dessert before dinner, stay up late, shave, be beautiful, wear whatever they want. This can also be a false freedom.

2. This poem tackles a mass of definitional issues: about gender, nationality, sexuality. At what point is identity subsumed by cultural pressure?

At birth. Once a baby is born with dark curly hair, wearing blue or pink, that baby’s guardian is asked about all three of those issues. Throughout life, identity is being built and pulled, pushed in & out- but it is felt (painfully, most of the time) internally during adolescence.

This poem is about a brown girl in a white neighborhood, whose mama is also white. Raise your hand if you’ve been made fun of because of your appearance, especially from 5th-9th grade. Right? How torturous, being a brown girl, being asked where she’s from, where she’s from. I remember writing a poem as a middle-schooler that stated: “they’re trying to shape me / re-arrange me”. I believe the last line to this poem was “fucking popularity.” Ha! This character would write that same poem. Unfortunately for this character, she thought the razor would change something inside her, more than it actually did. She realizes she’s got to take on pressure from all sides- the brown side, the white side, America, gender binary structure, pop culture, music.

3. I love these lines: “A baby duck can’t find its mother / if you touch it.” After you’ve shaved away the down, by whom do you fear to be acknowledged? Acknowledged as what?

I have a fear of being or perceived as motherless. Or, in other words, not American. Or, in other words, a lone duck. Or, in other words, a biracial Arab-American woman. And then there’s the “Why?”- and that’s where this poem comes from.

4. Who does America sing for, in this case? (This is probably a question about nationalism.)

America sings, and the song has complicated lyrics. Sometimes, we make up the words because we can’t hear it the way the words were sung. It’s like a faith-based text where everyone reads it differently. When the speaker of this poem says, “Even my father” — it’s like he fell for it. America is a siren of the sea. She twitters about, hypno-like, for no one in particular.

5. This poem feels so aware of the possibilities and fluctuations of the body. Where do you suppose this awareness comes from?

I’ve been uncomfortable in my skin for so long. I really got to know it- the thickness of it all- by meditating, processing through writing. I still don’t know myself entirely, but I love learning who I am, and who I can be.

There’s a book I read in college called Food for Our Grandmothers published by South End Press- it was the first book I ever read with stories, poems, recipes, and nonfiction texts written by Arab-American (and Canadian) feminists. After I read it, I remember my body quivering in joy, anger, reflection. It was like I heard America sing, finally, directly to me. There is a quote I remember: “Sisterhood is out there. Reach out for it.” And, I no longer felt alone.

6. What else can you kill right at the roots?

At first, I read this question as “What else can kill you right at the roots?” The answers might be the same. Insecurity. Bigotry. We’re living in a time of gay rights, women’s rights, persistent racism, ignorance, and greed. I want to avoid this “bleached” version of ourselves, this poisoned version. I will continue to reach out for that.