I was protected behind the walls of my house, the walls of the mosque and later, walls of my school. I didn't know that I was Palestinian. I knew that I was a girl, but the identity issues came later when I was 12 or 13 - then, they came in a very strong way.

I hope there's a window that opens in American television where the rest of the world is viewed in a less censored light. There is something about the world outside the United States that is not understood here - that seems threatening to Americans.

You can come from China, Russia, any place, and you can be a New Yorker. You can say what you want to say here, really express yourself.

I was protected behind the walls of my house, the walls of the mosque and later, walls of my school. I didn't know that I was Palestinian. I knew that I was a girl, but the identity issues came later when I was 12 or 13 - then, they came in a very strong way.

My father was my mother's home, the one place that she knew she could be safe. It was all a journey of faith for him, and I think he felt like if you don't find more love and understanding at the end of a journey like that, then you are lost - and if you only find hate and resentment, it will destroy you. I believe that.

My first memory as a child growing up is of playing in the gardens, the mosque is really a gigantic garden, probably the biggest in all of East Jerusalem. Our house was about 100 meters from the mosque.

There's something that scares me. It's the way media in the United States presents the rest of the world. I feel like people in America are getting a completely different picture of what's going on in other countries than what is reality.