#and he would always correct me 😭😭 he’d be like no!! it’s jidoo!!!

[stuckinapril]

this is a bit of a weird or maybe personal question but. okay so my baba (ik baba means dad, hes my grandpa but irl i call him "baba [name]" so) is from iraq. he wanted to raise his kids (my mom + aunts) as american as possible. because of that me and my mom have always been seperated from our culture. do you know how i can start reconnecting with that? if there are any authors or movies or anything to help me connect?

hii not weird!! glad to see you trying to reconnect. tbh my story is similar to yours. my mom did live in iraq for a good portion of her life before immigrating here, but she never put effort into teaching us the culture (which i don’t blame her for!! she was a busy single mother of two, so i get it). my bibi also didn’t really try to teach us much, aside from cooking iraqi cuisine haha (i will always die by that iraqi cuisine is the best cuisine). i’m basically hopeless when it comes to iraqi media. i literally only know about kadim al-sahir (famous iraqi singer, would absolutely recommend him) bc my mom probably continues to have a crush on him to this day.

what got me to reconnect was visiting baghdad last summer by myself. i just made the spontaneous decision and went w it, rather than get pushed by anyone to do it. i still have relatives in iraq, so that’s why it was feasible for me to actually go (i kind of hopped between jordan and iraq bc i have family in both countries). it was a magical experience honestly, still super surreal to me. people speaking arabic on the streets, arabic music playing in restaurants, even got to see so many iconic landmarks… actual dream come true. but i haven’t put much effort into exposing myself to iraqi media yet, so that’s the next step. i think im just gonna start w a history fiction novel or nonfiction history book of some sort tbh. i’m more interested in iraqi culture beyond islam than i am in the religion, so im probably not a good reference if you wanna know more about the religion too.

w all that said!! i’ll ask my mom/bibi and let you know if they have any movie recs :) my bibi is a literal cinephile, so i’m sure she’ll have many actors/singers up her sleeve lmao. so cool of you to be putting effort into this 💕