I grew up a child of many cultures. My mother's Filipino parents moved to the west coast of the United States in search for a better life. My Palestinian grandmother was displaced to Jordan from the old city of Jerusalem in search for a safer life. I was a son of the children of immigrants and refugees. My four sisters and I grew up to be Palestinian-Jordanian-Filipino-American Muslims moving between the United States and Jordan.

I can barely even say that I grew up in the United States. The mosque in Portland, Oregon saw more of me than my own home. It was my center. My youth sculpted me into the picture of humility. The vibrancy of my character —that adulthood unfolds everyday— was veiled under the teachings of a cloister of pious women. In a crowd, you would never spot me, and you certainly wouldn't hear me. My youth would not predict that I could become an artist, but there I was, quietly watching the world, unnoticed. 

When my family uprooted to Jordan, the change asked me: what part of me came with, and what part of me was left behind? I had to contend with who I was at the core, like my grandmother had, when she left Jerusalem in 1948. I defined myself by my humility and my desire to serve others. You could describe me as unobjectionable, which became especially complicated when I picked up a camera.

In Jordan, I lived the life of my grandparents. Being less than an hour’s way from Palestine, I realized that the Palestinian land that I could never touch was an extension of the land that I stood on in Jordan. I ate the land’s fruits and vegetables. I waited for the red cherries to be in season in the spring, for the apricots in the summer, for the persimmons in the fall, and the pomelos in the winter. I felt the gentle winds coming from the Mediterranean Sea and felt the warm summer sun on my skin. I’ve seen the mountains and rocks ranging from volcanic black to chalk white, camel colored yellow to terracotta red. I floated in the Dead Sea and dived between the corals of the Red Sea. I felt the humidity of the Jordan Valley and the heat of the southern deserts. I climbed the trees of the north and breathed in the pine’s refreshing scent – the same scent that the Romans and Umayyads smelled. I stood high in the medieval castles of Karak and Ajloun, always looking west to see the land I could never touch.

With my camera, I met farmers, bedouins, shepherds and city men all around Jordan. Each one having a special and close relationship to the land they roam. My travels have offered me a visual survey of the country, and I do not intend on stopping.

My travels have uncovered in me a burning curiosity about our relationship to land and how it inspires us. From the earth’s natural shapes and colors to how we use our soil to feed ourselves, the land we have our sheep and camels walk on is the same land our ancestors protected from others wanting to take it.

Wherever I go, I hope to remain grounded through the conversations that my camera gives me the privilege to have.

I look forward to sharing my photographic journey with you.