Stitching Identity: Thobes & Resistance with Nada

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Mahama and welcome to Sitti Stories, a podcast dedicated to amplifying the voices and highlighting the achievements of Palestinian women. I'm your host, Leila, and today we're diving into a story stitched in thread, memory, and resistance. Our guest today is Neda, the founder of Teta's Legacy, a movement dedicated to honoring our Tetas through the art of Thaws, Tatris, and the history it teaches us. Neda, it's so nice to have you here. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Thank you. I'm Kud Alhamdulillah. I'm struggling with uh jet lag from my recent trip to Jordan. And I'm so happy to be on your podcast and talk about the stories I learned in thobs.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Thank you. Alhamdulillah Salama, I'm glad you're back in the States, and I can't wait to hear what you were doing there and what stories you uncovered while you were there. I'm really excited because thobs are so near and dear to my heart and to my connection with my cities. I was so excited to talk to you. So before we get started into your story, we love starting off with a city-inspired question. Is there a tea or a coffee memory that you have with your citi?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

So the city that uh we'll talk about is actually my maternal uh grandmother. I have never met my paternal grandmother. She passed away uh at a young age. But uh my teta, my mom's mom, she liked tea with the Meramiya. They actually call it Shijere. I remember that. And we used to have it in the afternoon. So after lunch, they would have a nap, and then when they wake up, and everyone's supposed to nap, and then we all have tea uh when we uh wake up. But yeah, she preferred tea with Meramiya.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I love that. And so where did you grow up? Where were you raised?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So both sets of my parents, they were refugees to Kuwait. And after the Gulf War, we moved to Jordan, and then I grew up in Jordan, and I've been in the state. I came to the states for college right after high school.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Okay, nice. So, yeah, that's why you were able to kind of take those afternoons off and drink Maramia with your grandma. That's so special. I wish we can adopt more of that in the States. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I go by Nadawe. Nadawe is a name that my teta gave me actually, because she didn't like the common nickname of Nada, which is Nadoosh. She's like, no, I'm gonna call you Nadawe. So, and I I kind of like picked that name up after they passed away more in a way to honor her and to honor uh their memory. So I was born in Kuwait. My uh mom and her older sister, they uh were both born in a small village in Tulkarem. It's called Datil. And then my grandfather went to Kuwait through Iraq. I actually need to interview my mom about his uh his journey. It's an interesting one. So he went there first and then they followed, and then the rest of her siblings were born in Kuwait. My paternal uh grandparents, they're from a village in Jinin called Kufurrae. I actually realized that a lot of the people in the north, Jinin, Tulkarim, Anables, a lot of them went to the Gulf. Yeah. And then the people in Ramallah, the people in like Wasat Palestine, uh, they went to the West, and then you have a lot of Palestinians in Latin America. A lot of people from Betlahem and Beijala ended up going to uh Chile, Honduras. I have met a lot of uh people on not this trip, but the trip before. I met a lot of people who hold like Latin American citizenships in uh Beijala. But yeah, that's that's my background. I went to Jordan. I grew up in Jordan, I finished high school and then I came to the States and I've been here ever since.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Nice. So let's dive into hearing more about Ditto's legacy. It's such a powerful name. What inspired you to start this movement? Can you share a little bit about like what it is and what it means to you?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yes. It took me about a year actually to come up with uh with the name. But I started my mission a few years ago. Probably the idea was in my head for eight, ten years, but then I acted on it uh in 2022. That was my first um that was the first trip dedicated to just go and uh rediscover thobes and meet thobe collectors, go to museums in uh Palestine and Jordan. That's how I met my mentor and she's the one who encouraged me to just stick to it. Fun fact actually, uh I did not grow up with thobes. I didn't grow up with tatri. I never saw my mom or my grandmother or my aunt wear uh anything embroidered or wear anything that had tatriz on it.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

I grew up in America. My one city, she lived in Palestine, but when she would come visit, she didn't have any other clothes except for a thweb. Like that was the only thing she wore. And then my citi, the one that was living in America, that wasn't her day-to-day, but she wore it anytime there was a hidna, anytime there was a wedding, anytime there was any type of party and stuff. So that was something that was so prevalent in my life. That's so interesting. It's probably something that's so common overseas that people don't pick it back up again, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

I know, you'd be surprised. Even like from my recent trip, we had a show in uh Jordan, we had an exhibit, and I we we had a good traction. But in New York, it was like I got 300 people to come to the first show. That was our first ever, and they're like, when is the next one? But yeah, I don't know why. Eat Tatris in general, it just picked up in the past 10 years, I would say. In the past couple of years, we see a lot of workshops and we see a lot of people trying to learn Tatris and picking it up and kudos all the Tatris teachers and instructors that are trying to revive this. I have so much respect for them. When I was growing up, we we didn't have Tatris But we had uh we had a neighbor, she needed uh she needed to sell a soap, and my mom bought it from her and she's like, we don't wear it, so what am I gonna do with it? She took it and it was so beautiful. It it was passed on to my uncle actually, and it's in his house. I I every time I go to Jordan I get to see it. So she cut it and she made different uh decorations in the house. She made a mirror, she made a key hanger, and she made um a wall clocker. Uh that was the only that was the only memory of anything embroidered. Fast forward, I grew up uh and after colleges where I started uh daydreaming about these stubs. I was exposed to them. I I just love the embroidery. I love I love anything handmade. Actually, whenever I travel, I try to get a handmade piece from the locals as a souvenir no matter what. I feel it's the question that every Palestinian asks themselves, what connects me to the land? No matter where you go, you have something that connects you back home and you try to discover it. Is it the music? Is it the the terwida? Is it the day-to-day practices? Is it the Zeran Zatar? I found my connection to Palestine through the thobes and through the villages that got displaced actually, and I started reading and studying and getting all these books about the Nakba and about what happened. And then as I was going through, I started learning more about thobes and how thobs were also a crucial part in our displacement and how women, how they picked them up when they were uh leaving, just like when they picked up their kids to run away, they picked up their thobes. So what is this piece of garment that this woman at a time at this time she goes and picks it up? Well the thob takes years to make actually. A lot of the stories that I um I came across back in the day they would start embroidering the different parts of the soap, and then they would actually save it till she gets married, and then she would put it back together into one thob as part of her trousseau. And uh one older guy in uh Khalil, he told me sometimes you'll find like the badan, the fabric on the body of the thob a little different than the fabric where it was embroidered. That's because like seven, ten years or twelve years have passed between the time she embroidered it and the time she put it together when she got married.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, it's like their baby, really. They like it, you know, from like such a young age and it takes so much work. It's beautiful to see it come to life.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yeah, and they took so much pride into it to the point that they took it with them through a refuge, and that's how actually we got our hands on these thobes, and that's how the collectors got their hands on these thobes, and a lot of thobes remained back in their homes, and they went into the wrong hands. But that's what got me into thobes, and then uh the more and more I uh went back and I uh visited collectors and learned more about the stories. I I read Miss Uh Wadat Kawar's uh book and uh I love the way that she lists the stories about these women and she says that whenever she uh would go and get a thob from a woman, she would actually sit with her and ask her, What is a beautiful memory? Or tell me about the thob and then these women they would lighten up when they would talk about the thob because it brings back so many beautiful memories. It was their wedding thob, it was for a special occasion she embroidered it. Temporarily it was a way to get them out of the sadness and the that they they were the sorrows that they were going through in the refugee camps. But then it um it picked up and I uh I have my mentor, she uh she encourages me all the time. Her name is Naamat Saleh. And here we are. I'm copying the thobes, I'm trying to collect uh the old thobes, uh, and I'm trying to bring them to the Palestinian generation here in the diaspora. I'm trying to also show this part of Palestine to non-Palestinians. Palestine is beautiful in every aspect. Palestinians and women were so talented. If you look how complicated and how uh beautiful these thobes, these these are paintings. Back in the day, uh 70, 100 years ago, they didn't have Paris Fashion Week, they didn't have any uh designers. They came up with the color combinations, they came up with these beautiful pieces from their surroundings, from their day-to-day. If you look at a thope, you could tell so much about this woman just by looking at what she's wearing. So a thhope is not just a piece of garment, it tells a social status, tells everything about the woman. Yeah. So that's how I was drawn, and I'm on a mission now.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

I love it because I was telling you earlier, I'm not a Tatrizer. I really, really wish I was because of how much I love Ithwab and I have such a strong passion up for them, and they really connected me to my cities, but I don't have the patience for it and I'm not good at it. Okay. And so I love that you Yeah, and I love that you are giving another avenue to loving Ithw and Tatris. You're like a historian for Ithweb, you're a collector of Ithweb. And I I find myself to be a collector. I my husband calls them my little Pokemon cards because I literally collect the thweb from my grandmas that were passed down to me. And I have all these books about the different motifs and patterns and what that means and where it comes from. And it's so beautiful and in Falcine culture, so much is passed down orally through stories. But thobs, like you said, they're a language of their own, and every stitch, every motif has a meaning, and some represent fertility, some protection. What's your method of interpreting thobs and what do you do with the information?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

So I am slow with with publishing because I don't just get it. Like you said, it's passed on orally. We don't have like uh we have Miss Hananim Nayer and we have Miss Widazgawar, God bless their hearts. These are the two big names that have collected these thobes and studied them, and they they have so many stories about them and the technicalities behind the motifs and what they mean. So if I see a thob, I'm studying uh region by region. We're studying the villages. First of all, the thobs, they they were done by the by the falahi women, they were made by the falahi women. And the women in the city, they I actually interviewed a couple of women. They're here in uh in New York, they're Nakba survivors, published their uh interviews soon, inshallah. And I asked them, do you have any memories of thobes, of tatri's growing up? And they're like, no, we never wore thobes, we never saw our tatas wear thobes. It's it wasn't a thing. It's the falahat were the women that did the tatriz, they were the women that they were also farmers, they traded their eggs with silk threads. They would go at the market, and one of the stories in Miss Wudakawar's book is that one of the first pieces she acquired, she looked at a woman sitting and selling uh food or something, and she had this beautiful piece next to her and she's like, What is this? She said, This is my uh taksiro or my top. She was able to get it from her. I tried to triple check my uh my information um from whether from George, uh Maha Abushushin, Ahmad Saleh, all the big names. But then I try to read up more about it. I try to confirm orally with people from those places and then I share the information. But what I'm trying to do is honor Palestinians in the diaspora, honor Palestinian women and have them wear the thobes and have them display the thobes. And even non-Palestinians that are standing up for Palestinian rights and they're standing up for Palestine. I actually, on my recent trip to Jordan, I met this lady, she came to our show. She's American, but she's studying in Sweden, and she's um she's doing a degree, and her focus is actually on thobes. The people that fell in love with thobes are not just Palestinians. Went all the way to Sweden. That's amazing. I also recently learned that one of the biggest thap collectors is in South Africa, and he's not even Arab, he's not Palestinian, and he had had an exhibit with his pieces. He has a huge collection. Maybe I'll visit him and meet him one day. So that would be amazing. Yeah, can you share a little bit more about what you know? Why does he collect? I have no idea. A lot of people just collect vintage pieces, and a lot of people used to travel back in the day and buy these pieces and collect them. If you if you go on Itsey or eBay, you'll see a lot of Western-sounding names selling pieces for Yemen, Falostri in Afghanistan. They're just collectors. But this guy in particular, I don't know his story. One of my uh mentors uh who's also collected, I was talking to him about his collection. He's like, oh, wait till you see so-and-so's collection, and he's a South African. So maybe.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

That's so interesting. I gotta look into that a little bit more. I'm sure it's the connection about apartheid, yeah, because of South Africa being in apartheid state. So maybe it's that connection. I gotta learn more about that. That's really interesting. But as you said, it's how they hold a person's identity, what village they come from, and the person's history in general. It's really a way of storytelling without words. What does storytelling mean to you and how important is it in the work that you do and the mission that you are trying to accomplish with Teta's legacy?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

I love storytelling. I love personalizing because that's the only way we connect to each other as humans. If you have a story to tell, it's easier to listen to, uh, easier to connect with you than just listing some random facts. So every thob has a story, every motive, every pattern has a story. At the show in New York, I picked these models. Lulu was one of them. Yeah, I saw. She modeled one of she modeled uh thope uh for uh Tupas. And I tried to match the models with uh where they come from with uh thope bus uh as as much as I could. But I didn't just talk about the thob. It was really important to me to talk about the model that was wearing the thobe because she's also a Palestinian in the diaspora. She has a story, her Teta has a story. I talked about every one of them and their Teta. I asked them, tell me a little bit about your Teta because I want to mention her at the show. They all had some interesting stories about their Thetas. Stata was a doula, someone's Teta someone's Teta was a badass who uh traveled between villages and she did like some exchanges. Someone else's Teta, she wanted to be different and she had she embroidered the back of the bottom back of the dress in in a different way than they're used to it in her uh village because she didn't want to confirm. Like that's what she thought was beautiful. So I love stories. I what drew me to toobs was actually the stories behind them and the stories behind the people. And I don't only study the thob, I study the village where the thob came from, and I try to find out where its people are now. There is a group in uh in Jerusalem, Kazain. They're uh they're working on the archival history of of Palestine as well. And recently I was gifted uh a huge encyclopedia, it's called Palestinica, and uh I'm reading a lot about uh Palestine. I think it's from 1516 to 1716, uh, and it covers the entire history, it covers every aspect, covers birds, religion, religions, families, and you have the deeds of the houses, and you have the researcher who wrote this or historian, Daksir Rosh. It took him about 12 years of going to Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, and getting all this information documented. So this is how I gather my information, and I and I hope that I am delivering it to the people in the diaspora and benefiting them. So where I want to go with these thobes, I'm not just collecting thobes, it's very expensive actually, because right now it's very rarely that you find uh you can get a thob from its owner or from Danny L grandchildren. The thobes now are in the hands of just people trying to make a profit, unfortunately, trying to sell them and make a profit. I'm trying to hit two birds with uh one stone. One is to keep these thobs alive, the traditional thobs, the traditional way the thob is with all its factors, the qabbe, the banayik, the dan, everything and all the original uh that they had. And this is why I get along with my mentor because she also thinks as long as we're refugees, we need to honor these thobs and we need to keep the thobes as they are, as they were. And we need to keep them because this is I try to study these thobs as they were originally. I work with women back in the West Bank and in refugee camps in Jordan to embroider the new copies of the original soaps. So I so every year I go once or twice to Falustin and Jordan, and I have all these fabrics. We cut it and we make copies of the original soaps. I don't have the original soaps, but I actually go to uh museums. I go to Birzeit, I saw their uh collection, I go to Dartufel, and um then of course, first and foremost, my mentor, Miss Nemat, she uh she goes with me because she went through this, she named the thob thob alhaya because she and I agree with her on this. The thob doesn't belong in a closet, the thob doesn't belong in a museum, it belongs on our bodies. We have to wait it, we have to take it out with us, we have to show, we have to showcase the thob. We're adept and wear it so proudly.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

I love that this is something that you're passionate about. I was so blessed and so lucky to have my grandmother's their thwab. I have some from the 1950s that she handmade herself. I my maternal grandmother, she made a thwab to actually be able to come to America. So she would make and sell her swab, but obviously she kept some for herself. And so as a teenager, she knew that it was something that I was really loving. So she gave it to me, and she continuously over the years has been giving me so many thwab. And it they're so near and dear to my heart. You've done so much research and looked into the symbolism of Tatris. Can you share with us what is the most powerful thing you learned about the different symbols? Or is there a story that you have of a specific thob that feels really powerful to share?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

All the stories are powerful, and like every story I learn is just so I get so emotional about it. And these women, they wouldn't give up their thobes if they didn't need to. And some women, while in refuge, they would they had to sell their thobes because either they needed the money to survive, or they were too colorful and they just couldn't wear them in a new place in the refugee camps because they're n they were not in their villages. So they didn't wanna wear something too colorful, too brightful. Third, these thobes were you know how we make the thobes, we make them for a celebration, we make them for a special occasion, we make them for a wedding, for a sabahiyev, most mostly for a henna, mostly for something they're happy about. But they they were they had soreness and sadness, and they they didn't have these memories anymore. So this is the theme of the stories of the old thobes and uh most of the stories. But one thob in particular I saw in Miss Widat Karwar's uh book, and uh and then I was like, oh, this is beautiful, Ariel. It was for a Village called Kbeba. So I saw that thob and I was like I commissioned uh a local business in uh Falostian to make that thob. So that thob took a year, but fast forward while I was in uh Hebron, I was looking for women to do more embroidery. I ended up in a village called Dura. There was another suburb of Dura. It's called Dircemet. I go and visit this lady, she sells old thobes and she's like, uh we have our neighbor. He's he has like a he's been collecting thobes and he's been collecting old pieces about Philistine for a very long time. Would you like to meet him? So we went there after lunch and he showed us around. I showed I showed him I'm copying these uh pretty nakba thobes. Here is one that we're working on. I think we were like halfway done. I showed them the picture and it was actually his mother that the thob belonged to. Oh his mom, I was like, how come? The the woman in the book was uh she she was a refugee in Jordan and Ms. Kawar acquired the thob from her in Jordan. But you're here in their summit. But they were refugees, they went to Jordan in the 60s. They allowed them to come back to their summit. So but originally they were from Kuba. I interviewed him and I have the interview on my page, and I was like, Do you remember what happened in 1948? He's like, Yes, I remember, and uh he tells a story. He tells us, and he I think he was out of school for four or five years and then he went back. But yeah, subhanAllah.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Wow, subhanAllah, that gave me chills. That's so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

I am not a historian, not a like a lot of ladies have been studying this for much longer than me here. But I go back to my mentors and I always check with them. I I I feel like I'm more doing anthropology and social studies because I'm more behind the stories. Why one of the stories is um it's a bride's thob. It wasn't worn. It like she never wore it. And when the Nakbah happened and they had to leave, it turns out that she lived in the house. She didn't take it with her. So fast forward, uh, an Israeli guy put it on an auction and he sold it and he said, I got this from my father, and then the guy that saw the thob, he ended up doing an exhibit, and I think he called it broken wedding. He expressed the thob and the story behind the thob and how it was not worn and it wasn't you. And and I saw a lot of thobes that they were uh in mint condition. Imagine having a thobe from 1930 or 1940 till this day, it's in mint condition. Wow. Is there a process?

SPEAKER_00 24:42

How do you guys get it? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Well, these thobes are worth thousands of dollars now. I I'm actually bidding on a thob. That thobe is not brandy new, it was actually restored at the at the museum in Jersey.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

And these are all like pre-Nekba Swab.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Wow. That's that's the power of Geswab is that they carry, like you said, stories, history, and it's also a way to show resistance. Is there a a symbol or motif that women used to stitch like specifically about resistance?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I came across too. So during the Intifada, they were not allowed to raise the Palestinian flag. So the women, they embroidered the Palestinian flag on their thobes, and that was their way of showing we're standing up against us. And um recently I've also seen um the Babat and soldiers embroidered on uh thobs. So women were not, you know, just embroidering birds and embroidering flowers and the star of Betlehem. They had a say and they put their what they were thinking in their thobes and to showcase the personality of this woman. Back in the day, every woman was the one that embroidered her thobes. So you could see their personality actually is reflected on the thob.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah. It's a true reflection of the phrase to wear your heart on your sleeve. Literally everything about them was stitched onto their sleeve. Yeah, that's so special.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah, even like Ashaq's mom, the one I told you we had her thob done and I ended up meeting him, her thob, she added a circle on top of the of the Tatris, and this is not very typical of that region's soaps. Like I I've seen the kebbe, the sides, and uh Badan, they were so typical of that region. But that circle, the irahaik, it was the first time I saw it, and I asked around and then mm I showed it to Miss Maha, and she's like, this was our personal preference. It doesn't necessarily have to be the same. And a lot of women, um, a lot of women added their personal touch. And remember I told you about the show, uh, that lady's Taita. Her name is actually Hindi, Taita Hindi. On the bottom, she had the T. And that was the first time I saw that for something from Ramallah on the on the bottom back of the thob. So they they added their own character somehow. You could see it in the in the thobs. You could see the resistance or you could see these motives or symbols in the thobes that were after the necqbeh. Before the nekbe, these women were happy, these women were um they had their households, they had their they had everything together, they were happy in their homeland, they were happy in their homes. So and Tatriz was something happy. Tatriz was something joyful to do, something that they all would sit around, uh laser. And remember back in the day they didn't have uh the marka, uh they didn't have the canvas that nowadays they put on top of the thobs and they uh count how many uh squares and they stitch on top. They would do it by eye, even the patterns, they didn't have any books, they didn't have any uh anything online. They would just sit next to each other and they would share stories, share tales, and they would share tatris and they would share motifs as well.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, that was their community bonding time. I'm sure they're sure the swab from pre-Nekba till after looked completely different due to, like you said, the different emotions and uh the political aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

The state of mind.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yeah, and the state of mind. I think what I thought was so cool, you are more on, like you said, the anthropology, the sociology side of things, the story of why and where, and I think especially to note the fact that you are so specific and intentional about pre-nekba earth web because look at the things that we these women took time to stitch and embroider, and they told their stories through the earth web, and so that's all pre-nekbah, like nobody can deny that we didn't exist before.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Exactly. Yeah, that's the time period that matters, and um I'm not against modern embroidery, but that's the time period that matters. As long as we're refugees, that's the time period that matters.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Neda, your platform, Teta's Legacy, is a way to really preserve stories and honor your teta in I was gonna say siti, but you like to call her teta. The way to really honor your teta, and it's so deeply personal to you. Can you share a little bit about your teta and her story?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

The only Teta I remember is Teta Rushdiya, and uh she's my mom's uh mom. Besides uh forcing us to nap after lunch, drinking tea with Meramiye, I remember that she was a fierce, strong woman, just like all other Palestinian Tetas. She couldn't read uh read and write in one of the stories that sticks to me right now. She would count the money by the color of the money. The one is green. It was so interesting the way she did it. That's like one of the stories that sticks out to me. She um she liked to feed us knaffe in uh a samoon in a bun. And that's actually how the original Nabil sea way is. So you go to Nablis at 9 a.m. and they put the knafe in uh in a sandwich and they eat it in the morning. And that's how she liked to eat it. What were what were the things that you and her bonded over? We bonded over a lot of things. I liked her cooking. I liked my my aunt also, my mom's uh older sister. I I liked going there because I feel like we were their favorite grandchildren. When uh we used to run away um like after school, my mom would have the food ready and like, no, we don't like this, we're going to Teta's. Um and um I would say it was food. Most of them is like food.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah, I can relate to that. That's so typical to find that warmth and comfort with food at your Teta's house. That's so special. I feel like everyone has a story like that. Was there a story that your Teta shared with you that has always stuck out to you?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

She was such a strong woman and she uh she gave birth to seven children and had a couple. A couple die actually. I I learned later on that my paternal grandmother, same thing, that uh they they would either deliver them through a doula or the midwives. Mm-hmm. Day, yeah. How they would uh just uh deliver them themselves at home with the with the jarat, with the neighbors. I admired her and they had their certain way of doing things and everything has to be done the right way. I am so lucky that I had my Teta in my life. At least I had one of my Teta's. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah, their strength and resilience were unmatched, and I don't know how like they did it all, honestly. Mashallah. Um, so your movement is called Teta's legacy. So how do you continue to honor your Teta's legacy in your day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_01 31:57

People think that it's just my Theta, but it's actually Teta's. It's all of our Tetas, all of our Tetat. Because every one of them has their own story and every one of them contributed to this, this part of our culture. The thaubes are the way to um to showcase the strength and resilience of our Tetas and um how beautiful our culture is. So I would like to continue on and and honor them by continuing their work, making more copies of these thobs and let them live on. I don't want these thobes to just okay, if you wanna see an original Palestinian thob, how it looked like before the 1950s, go to this museum. No, I I really wanna showcase these and I wanna go as many places as possible and show them to as many people as possible, and not just to Palestinians, to everyone. And uh while we're talking about the thobes, we'll talk about the food, we'll talk about the other traditions, we'll talk about the shayyud made, we'll talk about our taitas. Um and that's a lovely experience to share. It's not just me, a lot of girls actually they didn't get thobs from their taitas, unfortunately, for whatever reason. So a lot of girls can live through that can experience through Teta's legacy. And I got this fe this emotional feedback from one of the girls, and she's like, you made me connect with my Teta in so many ways through this project. And um, even non-Palestinians, I am interviewing this lady soon, and uh she's Turkish, and I am excited about her and her Tata's story. I feel like they are the the core or the essence of the family. I feel like once we lost uh our Teta, um Zayel Misbaha Wan Far Tatiani, the head of the Misbaha, and like all of us are like lost now. So I hope what I'm doing here and I hope and I'm I'm so happy that now you see in Chicago, Texas, California, see Tatris is spreading so virally. You see all these tatries workshops and it's lit by Palestinian women. Like you have no space to claim anything because it was passed on and we grew up with it. We saw Tatris, it was like a second nature. Yes, I didn't grow up with tatriz around me, but most Palestinian girls did. They either saw it in the on their tetah, they either saw their teta doing tatris uh around them. It's my nature. Alhamdulillah, I'm so happy.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

I I think what you are able to do is so special, like you said, for the ones who didn't even get that opportunity with their tetas, but even the ones who did get the opportunity and now maybe their tetas have passed on. Like myself, I think it's so special to be able to share within that connection again, especially as Palestinians within the diaspora. The work you're doing is so powerful. I'm so excited to see what you're up to in the future and hear more interviews from people. Where can everyone keep up with you and learn more about your journey?

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Right now, I only have my Instagram page. I'm so happy to share it with you guys. So it's Tata's Legacy on Instagram. If you want to get in touch with me, Tata's Legacy at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Before we wrap up, we like to finish our conversation with the way that we started off, always with a city or teta-inspired question. So if your Teta was here with us in our conversation today, you know, drinking her shag with Miramiya in our thobes, what do you think she would be most proud of?

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I think she would be most proud of how far I uh have come because when I left, I I am the youngest, I am the baby, and I was spoiled as a child. So when I left Jordan after high school, she said um I wouldn't last more than two months outside. And I left actually without my mom. I I came right away to college. My mom joined later on. So that was like my first trip uh overseas, new culture, new language, everything. But I think uh she'd be proud of where I am today and how far I've come. And uh yeah, I think she'll change her mind about the two months.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah, I think you carried your data's fierceness and you know their ability to adapt to things even when the struggle gets hard. You know, you carried that torch on, and I'm sure she's really proud of you. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, passion, and your data with us today. I really appreciate you taking the time, and I'm so excited to keep up with you and also to now start thinking about my grandma's thobs more intentionally and really look back at their meanings.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Yes, yeah. Thank you for doing this, and thank you for uh giving us a platform to share our uh datas and stories. Yeah, it's so awesome. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Thank you for listening to this episode of Siddhi's stories. I hope Nada's words reminded you that thobs are more than fabric. They are living stories stitched with love, memory, and resistance. We're so lucky to have women like Nada carrying this legacy forward, and women like Wedad Kawar who have inspired her to preserve the history of Thobs and Dadriz. If today's episode sparks something in you, I encourage you to explore their work, read their books, and dive deeper into the stories that live in our threads. Check out and support Neda's special work on her Instagram, Teta's Legacy. I've included a link to Wedad Kawar's book Threads of Identity in the show notes. Until next time, stay rooted, stay resilient, and keep sharing your stories. Mahasalama.