But as I approached my mid-twenties, the pressures of living at the intersection of multiple borders mattered less and less. I rebuffed them and ultimately learned that that feeling of being out of place was empowering, and more fundamentally, offered a portal toward full-fledged freedom and independence. As my friend and mentor Hisham Aidi would later tell me, "There's might at the margins!" Not having to appease an individual, placate a gatekeeper, or conform to a narrowly defined community marked the essence of liberty and the pathway toward the person I wanted to be.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 337