Voices from the Palestinian Diaspora is a US-based project countering the Zionist colonialism which aims to destroy our historical legacy and silence our voices. Israel aims to destroy the evidence of their ethnic cleansing as they commit it, as evidenced by their repeated targeting of journalists, academic institutions, writers, etc. This attempt to erase the evidence of their ongoing settler-colonial project is not new. Voices from the Palestinian Diaspora aims to prove that try as Israel might to divorce us from our homelands, cultures, and histories, we will never stop speaking the truth of what Zionist colonialism has done to us and our ancestors. The more we can uplift individual’s stories and family histories, primary sources, the more we can counter Zionist propaganda that attempts to paint the Palestinian people as terrorists rather than victims. Voices from the Palestinian Diaspora highlights that despite the Zionist project’s ongoing attempt to divorce us from our Indigenous homelands via forced displacement, fear-mongering, and both cultural/physical genocides, we will not be silenced. We will never lose our connection to Palestine.

The Voices from the Palestinian Diaspora project was also born during Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. As we watch Israel’s horrors unfold on our phone screens, we must remember that this is not an isolated act by Israel. We must remember that this genocidal occupation and apartheid system has been going on since before the Nakba of 1948. The Voices from the Palestinian Diaspora project aims to highlight, through uplifting voices of Palestinians who have been displaced multi-generationally, the realities of the intergenerational trauma that Israel’s ongoing occupation has caused. Just as we must always remember Israel’s genocide in the years of 2023 and 2024, we must too remember the last 75 years, so that justice may one day be served.

The first segment of this project, completed between June and August 2024, largely focuses on diaspora Palestinians in Lima, Peru, as well as a few interviewees currently living in the United States. Some interviews, particularly in the first section of the project, were originally conducted in Spanish and have been translated to English. The bulk of the interviews will be in video format, with English subtitles in the case of the interview originally being conducted in Spanish. Some interviews have been transcribed into written form to fully maintain confidentiality. Others may include video or audio recordings without names, and some provide the names of individuals who felt comfortable attaching their names to their testimonies. While this project began as a summer endeavor, it aims to continue far into the future, giving voice to as many people as possible, depending on funding and other factors. If you would like to donate to the project, please do so here. All funds not allocated to continuing the work of this project will be donated to various funds to help Palestinians globally, especially in Gaza.