By the time you’re asked for the 10,000th time where you’re “from”, the message becomes loud and clear: whether it’s your classmate, your neighbor, your colleague or the person striking up a random conversation at an event asking the question, you’re not really from the same place.It took me a while to stop coming up with ever-so-creative retorts to see how many times they’d keep asking the same question: “I live down the street”“But where are you from?” -- “I moved here from California”“And where were you before that?”-- “In Florida”The only time the inquisition stopped is when I provided the answer they wanted to hear: from somewhere that’s foreign, far, and clearly not within the vicinity of their “from”. In case you’re wondering, my personal best is getting 5 questions deep before finally answering. After that, I learned that I’m either officially mean or just entertaining myself out of sheer boredom.And with that, you now know something that matters to me: I always tell a story to make a point. That’s pretty much the only way to communicate when you’re 100% Palestinian 100% Lebanese — and yes, 100% American. The other occupational qualification that comes from this heritage is a knack for standing up to injustice: being a child of a refugee, a child of war, and an immigrant five times over imprints a sense of personal mission:*That everyone deserves a sense of “home” and to belong — whatever shape that takes.*Being part of a diaspora dispossessed from its land, I know that true social change comes by reallocating power to marginalized groups; by figuring out pathways to effectively communicate their message at mainstream tables; and by utilizing a multimodal approach to build bridges of understanding. And I’ve been blessed to do this for more than 20 years in international business and community-based organizations, through the development of policies and programs that address economic, workforce, community and education needs.