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A L W A N  |  S P E A K I N G  U P 
A N D  S P E A K I N G  O U T 

Speaking Up and Speaking Out

Author 
DUAA H. ALWAN, Department of American Studies, IUPUI

author's disclaimer:
I omit the names of countries and cities in this piece 
to focus on the familiarity of shared experiences, and 
therefore, understand them in the context of community.

my borders are not straight 
lines
Growing up in exile is a badge I wear with pride, 
launching me into uncharted pathways that shaped my 
personal and professional life. While I continue to not 
have access to my parents’ hometown, one of the 
largest and oldest cities in the Mediterranean region, my 
community-in-exile became expansive. I was five years 
old when I woke up one day in a different country, then 
crossed continents and moved through two more 
countries that same year. With a brutal regime installed 
by a western power to dispose of a people, safety 
became a rare commodity that was more urgent than 
food or water. One of the earliest skills I had to master 
was learning to discriminate, and to be swift to judge. 
After all, discerning which strangers are the “good 
guys” and which are the “bad guys” can mean the 
difference between life and death. What I admired 
about my parents the most is that despite moving 
through five countries in three years, losing many 
family members and friends, and being financially 
ruined, they were adamant about our confidence 
knowing that we belong to millions of people around 
the world and throughout history who resisted tyranny 
and oppression. We were not alone and we were not 
special. We are as strong as the community we belong 
to. 

For the exiled, community took the place of a 
hometown, grandparents, a neighborhood park, a school 
cafeteria, and a classroom. My early reading practice 
was using literature of resistance, our games were real-
life scenarios of injustices set in different countries, 
and our bedtime stories were about dignity, agency, 
and accountability. The accumulated knowledge that 
I carried into my first official classroom got me into a 
lot of trouble. I was a nine-year-old who was placed 
arbitrarily into fifth grade in a small but intensely 
diverse town. Children in my class were from ten or 
more different countries stretching from Thailand to 
Mauritania. This only confirmed my parents' claim 
that we belonged to a global and historic community 
of those who were displaced and those who resisted. 
Consequently, I never felt like a minority even when 
I was minoritized and bluntly marginalized. From my 
vantage point, being in-community transcended labels 
and check-boxes; I could do in-community what was not 
feasible to achieve alone. 

Fast forward to my senior year of high school, it had 
been the longest I lived in any one city. 

However, due to our legal, yet illegitimate status, we 
were not allowed to attend college nor obtain a work 
permit. One by one I would witness people I knew leave, 
not anywhere familiar, but to any country that would 
allow them to work and/or study. For many, every move 
meant rebuilding life again, and for that reason, learning 
to find community made the journey meaningful. I 
moved to the U.S. at the age of seventeen and started 
my own journey learning English at an East-Coast state 



59 VO L .  4 ,  I S S U E  2

A L W A N  |  S P E A K I N G  U P  
A N D  S P E A K I N G  O U T

university. It was the first time in my life that I heard 
my experience described as “complicated.” I was only 
“complicated” to those who wanted my borders straight 
and my boxes neatly checked. Community-in-exile 
did not teach me to dissect myself into ethnicity, race, 
culture, religion, place of birth, and place of residence 
in order to be understood. I was whole. However, 
only those who dared to engage with me knew that, 
especially considering that it is impossible to grasp such 
knowledge from a textbook or an observation. There is 
so much lost by relying on someone to tell you about 
people they do not know. 

 
As we moved countries, we moved systems. The 
political climate in each country dictated what students 
must learn in order to uphold what is of value to the 
state. Hence, much of social studies under dictatorships 
was propaganda, asserting power and maintaining 
the status quo. I recall my parents and older siblings 
regularly going through my social studies content, 
sifting through disinformation. While many locals are 
socialized to not question schools and curriculum, my 
community-in-exile did not accept propaganda for 
knowledge. Keep in mind that dictatorships make no 
claim for freedom, liberty, dignity, or individual rights. 
Therefore, when I started my own family in the U.S., 
worrying about unreliable and biased education was the 
last thing on my mind. If the Constitution and the Bill 
of Rights are what distinguished America around the 
world, it can be reasonable to expect that every child 
graduating after twelve years of schooling will know 
precisely  
 
what it means to be an American and belong to a 
democratic society. 
 
Engaging with the public school system started with 
one request from a world history teacher asking my 
husband and I to present “ourselves” to tenth graders 
who were studying the chapter on Islam. At the time, 
I was working in media post-production preparing to 

continue my graduate studies in film. As more requests 
began to flow in, it became apparent that there was high 
demand with limited supply. I started inviting teachers 
to meet with me one-on-one so that I could learn from 
them how to be better equipped to meet their needs. 
Based on students' questions in the classroom, I also 
inquired about the content of textbooks being used and 
the teachers' previous knowledge about my faith-based 
community. Meanwhile, I connected with a few other 
professionals who had also been taking requests from 
various school districts. We compared notes and agreed 
that we needed to share resources for a more effective 
engagement with teachers, given that their requests 
exceeded our free-time capacity. While it was not our 
goal to be the representatives of our entire faith group 
locally or worldwide, we wanted to create a community-
based network with one goal in mind: to never turn 
away a teacher. 
 
It serves education well to connect teachers who are 
seeking information and support to the plurality of 
stories within our community. Their requests were 
diverse as well, some wanted their students to meet 
a young Muslim student their age, others wanted 
their students to hear a refugee tell their own story, 
some asked for video or book recommendations, and 
some requested help with creating class activities and 
worksheets. Teachers often cited that their primary 
reason for engaging with our community was to 
enrich their students’ learning by providing them the 
opportunity to interact with those who differ in their 
beliefs, worldview, and life journey. We developed a 
model to train community members to meet teachers' 
demands, keeping in mind the risk teachers take by 
bringing outsiders into their classrooms. Accordingly, 
we developed a 7-step certification that honored the 
teachers’ trust in our team and allowed for a more 
meaningful, yet systemic community engagement. Over 
the course of two years, our team expanded to twenty-
two certified individuals and four advisors/scholars who 
would review content and evaluate applicants. After 
I joined the human relations and equity commission 



60ENGAGE!  |  e xo d u s  &  e n t ry

A L W A N  |  S P E A K I N G  U P  
A N D  S P E A K I N G  O U T

of one of the largest school districts in the nation as a 
community liaison, the lead officer noted to the rest of 
the team that the district should use such a certification 
process for all guest speakers visiting schools in the 
district. While this testimony was flattering, it was a 
confirmation that we can do in-community what we 
cannot do alone. 
 
My experience through this community-based nonprofit 
created new uncharted pathways to consult for a couple 
of textbook publishers, conduct teachers' training for 
several districts, and work with a few local teacher 
education departments. Listening to social studies 
teachers was critical for the success of our engagement 
since teachers did not only explain what they were 
looking for but also generously evaluated what we 
offered and provided thoughtful feedback. Today, as 
a doctoral student, I build on such engagement. I seek 
to ground my work in evidence-based scholarship to 
create a more comprehensive approach to support social 
studies teachers. My research aims to fill a gap between 
what social studies teachers are expected to impart 
to their students and what they gained in their own 
education and training. Communities, as co-producers of 
knowledge, offer teachers an authentic curriculum that 
centers dialogue and values differences to provide their 
students with education fit for the twenty-first century.




