We Did Not Arrive on the Same Plane

This piece recounts the experiences of a Palestinian from Gaza who traveled to Japan amid the ongoing genocide. The author reflects on meeting other Palestinians from colonized historic Palestine while there, on visiting Hiroshima, and on the absurdity of settler-colonial displacement and fragmentation. She reflects on travel and memory, and on the concept of home, describing how places remain alive in human consciousness long after their destruction and regardless of physical distance. Through delicate literary prose, she captures the deep entanglement of personal identity with collective memory, and how Palestinians carry their homeland with them wherever they go.