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We Want the Airwaves #34: Interview with Amir Rabiyah

Amir Rabiyah: I had this whole vision of having a first book done years and years ago,
but the reality of it is that because Ive been so sick, and my energy with my pain and
everything, its slowed me down significantly. So its been really challenging.
Nia: Yeah, so why did you decide to title it Risk?
Amir: Well one of the poems in there is called Risk. I wanted to title it after that poem.
But then also just the idea of putting yourself out there, especially for me as someone
who is two-spirit and mixed and has a lot of different complicated identities, and chronic
health issues and different things like that, just existing to me is a risk. Then the fact that
my illnesses are progressive, the word risk is just something that comes into my
consciousness all the time, like Oh, if you do this, theres a higher risk of this
happening! and so that word is kind of in my mind a lot.
The positive side to it is that sometimes in order to build a connection, we have to risk
making ourselves vulnerable, or putting ourselves out there, and then thats how we can
ultimately get more connection. So its kind of this really layered word for me.
Nia: Yeah, that makes sense.
[INTRO + MUSIC]
Nia: So the first thing I wanted to talk to you about was the anthology youve been
working on, Writing Down the Walls?
Amir: Writing the Walls Down.
Nia: Writing the Walls Down. [laughing] Okay, my bad. Why did I even write it down
if I wasnt even going to look at it?
Amir: [laughing]
Nia: Can you tell me a little about well, first of all, whats the subtitle?
Amir: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices.
Nia: Cool. Whats your co-editors name?
Amir: Helen Klonaris.
Nia: And how did you two meet and come up with this project together, or did one of you
sort of come up with the idea and then brought the other one on?

Amir: We went to school, we went to New College together. We were in grad school
together getting our Masters in Creative Writing, and we became really, really good
friends. Something that we noticed, and some of the conversations that we were having at
that time, was around activism in our communities, and a lot of people doing work
against prison abolition, the wall here in the U.S./Mexico border, and in Palestine, things
of that nature, ending injustice. But at the same time, while people were looking on
bringing down these external walls, within intimate relationships or within communities,
there was a lot of behavior happening that was really problematic or harmful, or people
were really guarded in intimate relationships or causing harm basically, in different
behaviors, whether it was abusive or just not having the ability to be open and honest and
vulnerable, and to dismantle those walls within themselves and ourselves. I say
ourselves because Im constantly undergoing that process, too.
So we started getting in this conversation about that, like theres so much work that we
see happening on the outside, what are people doing, what are the conversations that
people are having that relate those things to internal work, if that makes sense.
So we started talking about that, and we thought, Wouldnt it be cool to do a show? So
in 2010, I think was the year, we did a show called The Walls Project, and it was a big
queer arts, part of the Queer Arts Festival. It was a multimedia show, so there was film,
there was some movement, and there was some theater, poetry, story-telling, all around
this theme, this conversation, around internal and external walls. And after that, we
casually talked about, Lets do a book, and really last year, it just felt like the right
time, like, Okay, were gonna do this.
Nia: How did you come into partnership with Trans-Genre Press?
Amir: I put something out, a call to friends, Do you know of any great presses that have
social justice leanings, have a political leaning, and are not racist, homophobic,
transphobic, sexist, ableist, all of those things, like, have good politics? We got a long
list of places, surprisingly, a pretty good list. So we started sending out queries and we
heard back from AJ, the publisher [at TransGenre]. It just felt like a really good
connection. AJ was really excited about our project, and really believed in the vision of
our project and it just felt like the right fit.
Nia: Yeah, thats awesome. I pitched my book to a couple publishers, not a ton, but I
definitely found that it was hard to find like more mainstream ones, or even left-leaning
mainstream ones that were interested in putting out QPOC I dont know how much of
it is because its a book of interviews, thats kind of its own thing, but yeah Im glad you
were able to find a publisher with relative ease. I know that can be a challenge.
Amir: Yeah.
Nia: So where are you at this point in the how long have you been working on this
book and where are you in the process of editing, processing and distributing?

Amir: Almost a year. So since we sent out just the first letters to publishers and then
weve been gathering submissions for a long time, probably for about six months or so.
We had two rounds because we felt like in the first round we didnt quite get everything
that we needed for the book.
Nia: What were you looking for that you didnt find?
Amir: Well, we definitely wanted a range of different kinds of stories, and we did get a
lot of poetry, which Im a poet and I was excited about but we also wanted some
different genres and some visual art as well. And we also wanted more representation by
trans women and so that was another reason we extended the call, was to make sure that
we included trans women in the anthology.
Nia: Did you find that your submissions were sort of heavily skewed in one or two
particular demographic directions?
Amir: Interestingly enough the least represented demographic, and in the submissions,
were cis men. [laughing]
Nia: I feel like thats not hugely surprising, given is your co-editor a cis woman?
Amir: Yes.
Nia: Yeah it doesnt surprise me that much at all.
[both laughing]
Nia: Well, because I feel like theres a lot of overlap between queer cis woman and queer
trans men communities, but not so much with queer cis men and queer trans women. At
least thats been my experience.
Amir: Yeah. Yeah, so that was interesting. As it stands right now, the anthology is a
majority of people of color.
Nia: Oh, I thought it was all people of color.
Amir: No.
Nia: Okay.
Amir: No, we had talked about it, and we decided to make it open. Were really
emotionally vulnerable and people really went there and it was really an honor to read all
the submissions that we got, and I think that we wanted pieces that really made us feel
really deeply because were really trying to create a community with this book and have
it be a space where people feel held, and moved, and transformed and are taken to
another place of thinking or contemplation and so I think that thats really when we put
our call out, we were like, We want to feel. We want to be moved. We want to feel if its

sad, thats fine, but we want to read this piece and we want to be having a response, an
emotional response. We want to be moved.
Those were the pieces that we were like, Okay is this moving us? Does this fit with the
vision of the anthology? Does it fit with all the themes? And also there were some pieces
that we felt like needed a little more development or editing, more than we could possibly
do. And there were other pieces that we felt like were two-thirds there, or almost there,
where we worked with the writers closely to give some feedback. It really was an
intuitive process, as well as just looking at the themes of the anthology.
Nia: Do you find it hard to tell writers that they need to change their work to fit the
anthology? Is that something that felt challenging or that you felt comfortable with?
Amir: I felt comfortable with it because I found that we were pretty explicit in our call. If
people had questions, they would email us and we would answer questions. So if
something totally didnt fit the theme, we didnt accept it. Then there were other pieces
that actually fit it pretty well, but needed a little development, which is mostly my
strategy is asking questions in certain places, things like that.
[laughing] The hardest people to work with are the poets.
Nia: Why do you think that is?
Amir: Im a poet. Because were so sensitive to every single line, I was so nervous
sending my responses to those poets because I know they probably spent hours laboring
over each line, and I really wanted to give them feedback, but be very gentle and let them
know that I knew what that felt like. And I knew that they put all this work in, that they
actually didnt have to accept my edits.
Nia: Could you give a couple examples of what kind of stories people will find inside the
book?
Amir: Yes. One of the stories that I really like in the book is by a Native woman who
lives in Canada, who talks about being a Native woman in academia, coming from a
working class background, and also facing struggles around mental health and how to be
in academia, how to navigate that world, holding part of her experience in an
environment thats not supportive to women of color from working class backgrounds.
So Im really excited that we have a lot of native folks and a lot of black folks in our
anthology. Theyre probably the most represented in our anthology so Im very, very
excited about that.
Nia: Yeah. That was one of the things I wanted to ask is like, in terms of outreach, how
you achieve sort of I feel like demographic diversity sounds very weird but I think the
fact is that if you are a trans man and youre doing outreach to your community, it tends
to be a lot of other trans men, and if youre a black woman doing outreach for a project,
you tend to have a lot of other submissions from other black women. Or at least this is

what I feel like Ive witnessed, so Im curious how you were able to, or if you feel like
youve achieved sort of the ideal demographic mix youre looking for, and how you went
about doing that?
Amir: So I want to say I identify more as two-spirit than as a trans man these days.
Nia: Oh! Okay.
Amir: In fact, I just went through a short period of time identifying the other way
because
Nia: Oh, okay.
Amir: That was a very short, brief period.
Nia: Sorry.
Amir: Thats okay. I think most of my community that I have are queer women of color.
Helen, my co-editor, knows a lot of people in a lot of different places, knows a lot of
people in the Caribbean because thats where she grew up, and I just know a lot of people
of color across the spectrum in a lot of different places. I think with both of us knowing a
lot of people in the diaspora, we were able to get some great diversity.
Nia: I want to ask you in which diaspora, but it sounds like you mean all diasporas.
[laughing]
Amir: Yeah, I mean I feel like we have a good range of people in our anthology.
Nia: Cool. Do you want to give another example of a different type of story and how it
relates to Writing the Walls Down?
Amir: Theres a really amazing visual artist who is a part of our anthology. Hes Creole,
he lives in Brooklyn, and his visual art is just absolutely stunning and beautiful. The
stories behind it relate to his relationship between Christianity and his indigenous
practices kind of a struggle of negotiating the two, losing a lover he had, and he leads a
lot of ceremonies and things, so he talks to ghosts and spirits and crosses the worlds of
the living and the dead. I was thinking that was a really beautiful and interesting theme or
idea to bring into the book, was that invisible barrier. So Im really excited that his work
will be in the anthology.
Nia: Yeah, thats a creative interpretation of writing the walls down. I feel like religion
comes up in your chapbook in the context of your relationship with your mom. Was
religion a big part of your relationship with your mom?
Amir: Yeah, my mom was Christian, and then kind of stepped away from it, and then
became very Christian later in her life. It was actually a really challenging part of our
relationship only in the sense that she had issues with me being queer, and I never came

out to her as trans, but she definitely had issues with the way I was presenting my gender,
my gender-nonconformity. So it was really hard because she just wanted Jesus to make
me into a straight cis femme woman, and Im a very genderqueer, two-spirit person. Im
definitely not straight in any way. So it was really hard, really really hard, and we never
really resolved it.
Nia: Did you grow up with her and your grandmother? It sounded like you were
primarily raised by your grandmother, is that correct?
Amir: Yeah, my grandma and kind of my dad a little bit. She and my dad got divorced
when I was like three.
Nia: But she was always part of the picture?
Amir: Kind of. We werent living in the same place for a while, so Id only see her like
once a year if I went on school break. She had moved to the South, for a while, so Id go
see her.
Nia: And you grew up in the Pacific Northwest?
Amir: No, I was in London til I was eight, then I was in Honolulu.
Nia: Oh wow.
Amir: Then I was in southern California, and then I was in the Pacific Northwest.
Nia: How long were you in Hawaii for?
Amir: About 1986 to 1992.
Nia: Oh, cool. Sorry, I was just realizing I thought we were similar in age, but I was
born in 87.
[both laughing]
Amir: No, I have a young face, but Im
[both laughing]
Nia: So I just read Ryka Aokis novel, He Mele A Hilo, which is set on the Big Island,
so now Im interested in the idea that everyone in Hawaii is mixed, which I know is not
actually
Amir: Well, a majority. I would say a majority of people [are mixed there].

Nia: You dont have to answer this if you dont want to, but what was it like growing up
mixed in Hawaii, as opposed to other places that you lived?
Amir: So something that was interesting was that, of course there are a lot of indigenous
people in Hawaii, but there werent a lot of Arabs in Hawaii.
Nia: Yeah.
Amir: In that way, I kind of passed as Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, basically. Most of the
time thats what people thought I was. So there was this way in which there was a level of
safety, but then I was also not fully being seen and people hadnt had a lot of experience
with Arab folks because there just wasnt a large community. I dont know if thats
changed since I was a kid. So it was interesting, theres this great thing about being a lot
of mixed people, but theres also a lot of really hard stuff around race and colonialism
thats still really evident there. Theres just a lot of things that are incorporated into daily
speech which involve kind of jokes about other groups of people and things; its pretty
embedded.
Nia: Yeah. I remember at the end of Rykas book theres this whole glossary of Hawaiian
terms.
Amir: Yeah.
Nia: There was a term for people of Portuguese descent that is also a synonym for
someone who talks a lot, I think.
Amir: Yeah. Also there are some not-so-nice synonyms for that, which I wont get into.
Nia: Yeah, but I think the glossary said they are called this because they are people who
talk a lot and I was like, Thats an interesting stereotype that I had never heard of.
[both laughing]
Amir: [sighing] Yeah, theres a lot of intensity there. Its a combination of intensity,
theres some hard stuff that happens amongst people of color there. Theres also the
shared experience of having a lot of mixed people.
Nia: Yeah.
Amir: I dont want to re-traumatize some people by repeating certain things.
Nia: Okay. Do you want to think about a way to articulate it that wont re-traumatize or
do you want to just move on?
Amir: Move on. [laughing]

Nia: [laughing] Okay. I also wanted to ask you what made you decide to call your
chapbook, Risk.
Amir: Oh okay.
Nia: [laughing]
Amir: Well, this chapbook is going to be part of what I hope to be my first poetry
collection, which is two-thirds of the way there right now.
Nia: This is your second chapbook?
Amir: This is my second chapbook.
Nia: Is this chapbook the first third of your forthcoming collection?
Amir: You know, I dont know, actually. I might use a few of those poems in there.
Nia: How old is your first chapbook now?
Amir: From 2008. Slong I said slong [laughing] I meant to say long and slow
Nia: [laughing] Okay, Ill cut that out.
Amir: [laughing] Thats so weird. I do that sometimes. I mix words together and then it
sounds obscene.
Nia: [laughing] Now I feel like I have to leave it in, because we talked about it so much.
You were saying its been a slow and long process of anthologizing your poetry?
Amir: Yeah. I think part of the issue is having chronic illness and stuff.
Nia: Speaking of chronic illness, your first poem is called Prayers for my 17th
Chromosome (#17). Could you tell me what the significance is of seventeen for you?
Amir: Yeah, so one of the illnesses I have is neurofibromatosis Type I, which is really
long, and which has to do with my seventeenth chromosome. Basically my seventeenth
chromosome doesnt function I dont know, I dont really like the word normal it
functions differently [laughing] than other people who dont have NF.
My cells reproduce extra fast and basically that causes me to have these lesions and
tumors and theyre usually benign usually, thankfully they have been, but they press on
nerve endings and muscles and joints and so its on the seventeenth chromosome which is
why the number seventeen comes up.
Nia: Yeah.

Amir: Yeah.
Nia: Theres something else that really struck me in this chapbook was, we were talking
earlier about your relationship with your mom, but specifically how your mom at times
identified as indigenous and at times identified as white.
Amir: Yeah.
Nia: I guess Ive been thinking a lot recently about how sometimes racial and ethnic
identity sometimes skips a generation.
Amir: Yes.
[cat meowing]
[both laughing]
Nia: I guess I wish I had something smart to say about that. In my family my mom is
Lebanese but doesnt identify as Arab, identifies as white, so I have a complicated
relationship to well am I Arab? Do I get to claim that? Am Im Middle Eastern, because
my Lebanese grandfather was Jewish and didnt consider himself Arab? Like what am I
allowed to claim as a descendant of these people who didnt claim parts of them that
actually were? It seems like thats something youre also grappling with in this book.
Amir: Yeah. I definitely grappled with it a lot. When I was younger for some reason it
was easier for me. Ironically that was most of the time I was in Hawaii.
Nia: Okay, so we were talking about how you were grappling with which identities you
could claim and which you couldnt and how you felt least challenged by that question
when you were in Hawaii?
Amir: Yeah, least challenged and even in my teens, least or less challenged, and I think
that part of that was because I was around a lot of mixed people and people of color. So it
was easier for me to feel integrated and to just accept that. Then when I moved to
Oregon, and I was around less people of color and just dealing with daily, more intense
[racism] not that racism wasnt happening before but it was a different level of
intensity. I tried to talk to my mom about it and my mom just couldnt really be
supportive of me.
Nia: Why do you think that was?
Amir: I dont know. I dont think she really knew how to respond, or she would blame
me, like Oh well if you dress differently or if you act differently, it wouldnt be
happening
Nia: You wouldnt experience racism?

Amir: [laughing] Exactly! And then she would be like, Well dont forget youre part
white, too!
Nia: Yeah, you mentioned that in the chapbook and I wasnt sure what thats supposed to
mean. Like, you arent oppressed because youre part white? Or like tell people youre
part white so theyll leave you alone?
Amir: Yeah I dont really know where she was coming from with that. I think that she,
because I really identified as a person of color while growing up, I knew of course my
mom is part white and part Native, but I always felt like I never identified as just white.
That was never my experience. I never grappled with that part, Am I white? Am I a
person of color? That was never something that I struggled with.
Nia: Mhm.
Amir: But that was what my mom struggled with, Am I white? Am I indigenous?
Nia: Was she white-passing?
Amir: Yes, and so I think that that was a big difference between us.
Nia: Because the strategies she could use to survive involved passing, whereas that
wasnt the case for you.
Amir: Right. That wasnt really an option for me, so it was intense. It was really intense.
What ended up happening was that I started to get really angry at her because I just
wanted her support and I wanted her to have my back and she just didnt really know
how, our experiences were really different. So then I started to feel like, Well maybe
youre not. I started to internalize those things, too. Maybe you are just white. Youre
just trying to claim this thing.
Nia: Did you feel that way about both your Arab and your indigenous identity or just
your indigenous identity because that was something that she at times didnt
acknowledge?
Amir: Yeah, mainly it was that was my moms identity, or my indigenous identity was
something that was a part that was harder for me because [with] my mom kind of going
back and forth and not having my back, it made me feel really hurt and so caused me to
push her away and then also be like, Oh, so then youre white because youre acting like
this, which was coming from a place of pain. I know now, now that Ive had more time
to reflect and understand what she must have gone through. I know she had a lot of pain
and a lot of trauma and that thats where it was coming from, all the societal messaging
and everything. I have a deeper understanding and compassion for that now, especially
now that shes no longer alive. In some ways its because we dont have that ongoing
clash, [that] I have been able to have that understanding, but it was really hard.

So I just, I felt like I couldnt claim that part of myself because my mom wasnt solid in it
and hasnt been until more recently that I dont feel like a whole person, I feel like threefourths or whatever I mean Im totally not going to give a number but I feel
incomplete if I dont acknowledge that part of myself, too. That is not true to my full
story and to my familys identities. So thats why Ive decided Im going to start talking
about this, and what Im calling is respectfully reintegrating because Ive been cut off a
lot from Native American folks that arent in Hawaii, that are here on the mainland.
Theres a lot of stuff I dont know. I didnt learn about that part of my history. So Im
having to reeducate and I want to do it in a respectful way. I dont want to roll in, really
self-righteous because even though thats part of who I am, I didnt grow up with a lot of
that knowledge.
Nia: Yeah. I think it can be really difficult to know its weird when trying to reclaim
your own culture comes across to others as appropriation.
Amir: Yeah.
Nia: And figuring out where that line is of, If this is my culture and I didnt grow up in
it, then whats appropriate for me to do and whats not, in terms of how I respectfully
reintegrate this into who I am?
Amir: Yeah.
Nia: I think it was last year you were crowdfunding to get to this poetry conference in
D.C. called, Split This Rock and you were part of a queer Arab contingent, like four or
five different poets. You were telling me before we started the interview about sort of a
strategy you and your co-facilitators had developed for getting better questions during the
Q&A, that I thought was really interesting.
Amir: Yes.
Nia: Could you talk a little bit about that?
Amir: Yeah, so something that happens to me, being who I am in the world, when a
Q&A happens, immediately my body seizes up and I start to break into a sweat
[laughing] because Im so horrified, or preemptively being horrified, by the possible
questions people will ask, which Im sure I dont have to go over, Im sure that the
listeners and you can understand what kind of questions people might ask.
Nia: Its very weird.
Amir: Its very weird.
Nia: Very weird when you realize they havent heard anything youve said. [laughing]

Amir: Yeah. Its like they want to hear themselves talk or something.
Nia: Or theyre more interested in what you are than what youre saying.
Amir: Yeah, than what your work is doing or saying. Right, so something that Ive found
that has worked that Ive done a lot in classes and doing workshops, is to have people
free-write, people engage in small group discussions, there be questions before anything
even starts, where people have a chance to kind of get centered and get into a more selfreflective state of mind, and also have the opportunity to talk with other people and share
different ideas. So then when its time to read, people tend to be more present and listen a
lot more, because theyve had that opportunity to be more self-reflective, and then when
the time for Q&A comes, generally questions tend to be more focused on the work. Thats
just what Ive seen because if you just get up there and read I mean sometimes youre
just at a reading its not always possible, but if its a workshop kind of panel situation, I
prefer to do a more interactive activity, just because I think its good practice, and selfreflections always good.
Nia: Yeah. In terms of advice or concrete tips that you would share with other artists that
want to figure out how to avoid getting really messed up questions, what do you suggest?
Amir: I would suggest okay, if youre doing a workshop, is start off with people being
able to do some sort of free-write based on a certain question. And then I always have
people get into small groups and either share something they wrote, keep it brief, or what
the process of writing whatever their wrote was like for them, so they never really have to
share anything they dont want to, but I think the process is just as important as what we
put on the page. So that would be something I would advise. Then moving into, once that
parts over, it might be one big groupshare where one person shares what the group talked
about, then time for the reading, then Q&A. Now if youre just doing a reading, just
straight up reading, I think its good to have a moderator.
[both laughing]
Nia: A good moderator.
Amir: A really down moderator, who will respectfully call people out if necessary, and/or
redirect.
Nia: Yeah.
Amir: Because its hard to be the person being vulnerable, putting your heart out there,
and then having to field these questions.
Nia: Yeah. I think Im learning a lot about how to be a good moderator.
[both laughing]

Nia: I like to think Im learning a lot about it. Its definitely [a skill]. Dont throw
someone in that position whos never done it before [laughing] because it really is a skill.
Amir: Yeah. [laughing]
Nia: So thats interesting. Before you even share your work, you have your audience
share, so they sort of have to be vulnerable and then are bringing that sort of empathy or
emotional understanding into listening to you talk about your work and then asking
questions. That seems like a really great strategy I hadnt thought of before.

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