ScholarWorks

Title

Al

Creator

Ameerah Summer Maher Bader, Boise State UniversityFollow

Creation Date

2019

Preview

Medium

Risograph print

Description

Dimensions: 11 x 15 inches

Artist Statement

In my father’s home (a home I did not grow up in), I happened upon some photographs. It was September of 2017 and I was in Indiana. My last two weeks were spent rummaging through all of my father’s things and putting them up for sale or finding a charity of his choice for donation. Under my sister Lillian’s bed I found several binders of photographs I had never seen before. My mother lost all the photos from my childhood, and these binders were filled with those and others. It was the photos of my father’s life that enamored me most of all. We haven’t actually spent much time together, so there are many things I still do not know and plus he would rather talk about knafeh all day than memories so seeing these photos filled a gap. Our family originates from Nablus, Palestine but was pushed out during the 1967 war. To further press down on the bruises, the Jordanian government quietly changed our family name from Al-Sheikh Yaseen to Bader-Bader. This is a longer story for another time but still necessary for you to know, sorry. My father is a first generation immigrant. He failed out of business school in Egypt and with sheer luck made it into the United States soon thereafter. His first stop was New York, and he quickly became fluent in English within six months. He is now fluent in three languages. He is the first Jordanian-American to fly an S3-Viking. He is a chef of Italian cuisine, scorpion trainer, and IRS agent- a hajji. He is an artist, my first inspiration to lead a creative life. My father is a survivor of glioblastoma, Al-ḥamdu lillāh. He is the smoothest talker I know. He is a sailor, world traveled. My father is so many different things, but to my siblings and I- he’s just the best dang dad in the whole wide world.

Rights

© Ameerah Summer Maher Bader, 2019.