"I haven't seen my dad in ElevenYears"

Hi, my name is Aya and I am a Lebanese born woman who has lived in America for the last twenty years. I am a playwright. I produced two plays about my immigrant experience, pointing out the stereotypes and realities of what it is like growing up within two cultures in America.

The term "immigrant" has never been something that I identify with. But I also am not an American woman- not by blood or paperwork. So, what am I? And who can I identify with?

Before I can even answer that question, I have to get something off my chest-something I have carries silently for years.

I have not seen my dad in eleven years.

Not by choice

Not because we are estranged.

I haven't seen my dad in eleven years because for better or worse our immigration situations do not allow us to travel to see each other. So I have lived with this silent heartbreak for almost half my life.

My father was in my life physically for 14 years. And for the last eleven, his right to raise me in the way most fathers get to was taken away.

But please don't misunderstand, my father is one of the most present parents any child could have.

We speak every day, he is my confidante and he feels present in every way but one. It's a gift to have my father be the man the who raised me. It's also one of the most painful aspects of my life.

I can't run to my father's house on a Tuesday to watch a movie.

We can't have dinner at our favorite sushi place.

We can't drive around spotting every Mercedes Benz on the street.

So instead, I hang on to the moments we do have. The hour long conversations about my latest play or the new podcast episode I am recording.

His recipe for a perfect oven baked salmon or his version of riz a3 djaj (chicken with rice) that I cannot perfect.

Sometimes our calls last 4 minutes. Sometimes there's only silence between us because we are having yet another bad day.

We are in living grief.

We're waiting. Just waiting for the day that this ends.

But in the waiting, I've chosen to create something out of my pain.

Not in haste or rage.

Not out of bitterness for what I've lost.

After twenty years, this is what I have learned so far;

The sun does come up in the morning no matter how dark the night before.

And most incredible of all, you still get to dream.

You get to dream of better days, or new things you are excited about.

Or a restaurant you want to try, or a movie that just came out at the cinema.

You dream, and when you dream you get to believe in something beyond the pain to believe in.

Something else that I took away is that immigrants are extraordinary.

I grew up all around them.

These are the same people who picked their young children up, left amazing jobs with six figure salaries, left their parents and best friends since childhood and just started over.

They did all of that because they dreamed and they dreamed of something better for themselves.

They did not just start over, they thrived.

They are magical.

They are resilient.

They are the living, breathing embodiment of the "American Dream".

"The American Dream is the belief that every person has the freedom and opportunity to achieve a better life through hard work and determination, leading to prosperity and success"

For the Dreamers: The Podcast

Which brings me to this.

This blog and podcast I have created in honor of the dreamers I grew up with. In honor of my ability to dream even when justice and fairness feels impossibly far away.

So I made a podcast or a place where those stories can live and be told.

I am creating a space for dreams that have come true and those that have yet to come true. It's about immigrants in their pursuit for the "American Dream"....whatever that means.

Aya Nassif inspiring others at a motivational event