Ismail Khalidi’s “Dead Are My People” is an Examination of White Supremacy, Immigration and Assimilation in America, Then and Now

Palestinian playwright Ismail Khalidi’s new play takes the early wave of Syrian migration to America as the starting point in its exploration of race, privilege, assimilation, and white supremacy.

by Sarah Moawad

Dead are my people, gone are my people,

but I exist yet, lamenting them in my solitude…

My people and your people, my Syrian

Brother, are dead … What can be

Done for those who are dying? Our

Lamentations will not satisfy their

Hunger, and our tears will not quench

Their thirst; what can we do to save

Them between the iron paws of

Hunger?

– Kahlil G…