Part 3: The Threat of Dhaqan Celis
The more Ismail tried to connect with his Somali roots, the more he felt the pressure of impossibility. He knew his parents’ expectations were growing heavier with each passing day. He struggled with the language, and the Somali music he tried to appreciate, and his inability to fit in with his Somali peers at school meant that he continued to feel like an outsider.
At home, the tension was even worse. His parents noticed how much more English he spoke, and every meal turned into a battlefield, especially with his father, whose disappointment had become impossible to hide. “Maxaad rabtaa inaad noqoto, wiilkaygiiyow?” his father would ask him, the frustration evident in his voice. “What do you want to become, my son? Maxaad ku hadlaysaa, Miyaanad Soomaali aqoon? Soomaali ma tihid miyaa?”
Ismail could never muster a proper response. His head would drop in shame, and his father’s voice would only rise in frustration. “Isma’il, waxaad halkaan u timid inaad waddankaaga ku faanto, waxaad lumisay luuqadii iyo dhaqankaagii! Waxaad rabtaa inaad iska dhigto qof kale!”
His father’s accusations sting. You’ve come here to be proud of your country, but now you’re losing your language and culture! You want to become someone else! The words pierced his identity, reinforcing how much of a failure he felt in trying to meet his parents’ cultural expectations. His mother, once the peacemaker, now chimed in with disapproval.
“Haddii aad sidaan ku socoto, waxaan kuu diraynaa Dhaqan Celis!” his father snapped one evening, unable to contain his anger any longer.
Ismail froze. The dreaded Dhaqan Celis—the phrase every first-generation Somali kid feared. It was a threat of being sent back to Somalia to learn the “proper” ways of being Somali, where extended family would strip away any traces of American influence and force them to conform to Somali traditions.
“Haddii aad sidaan ku socoto, waxaan kuu diraynaa Dhaqan Celis!” his father snapped one evening, unable to contain his anger any longer.
Ismail, The forgotten ones
He had heard the stories from other Somali kids who had returned from their Dhaqan Celis. They had come back hardened, distant, and often more confused than before. It was meant to fix them. but more often than not, it left scars—both visible and hidden. The thought of being sent away, stripped of the comforts of home, terrified Ismail.
His mother added fuel to the fire. “Haddii aad noocan u hadasho, waxba ma noqon doontid. Dhaqan xumo weeye inaad ku dhex lunto Soomaali iyo Ingiriis!”
If you keep speaking like this, you won’t become anyone. It’s shameful to be lost between Somali and English!
The weight of their words crushed him. His parents weren’t just disappointed in his lack of academic or social success; they believed he was losing his very essence—his Somali soul.
From that point, the threat of Dhaqan Celis became a constant shadow looming over him. His father would bring it up at every opportunity, sometimes casually during dinner, sometimes as a stern warning: “Waxaad lumisay xidhiidhkii wadankeena. Waa inaad tagtaa si aad u baratid. Halkaan waxba ku baran maysid.”
You’ve lost your connection to our country. You need to go there to learn. You won’t learn anything here.
Each mention of Somalia left Ismail feeling more alienated. It felt like he wasn’t just disappointing his parents; he was losing himself in a culture clash that had no easy solution. He wanted to scream that no trip to Somalia would fix him, no forced immersion would undo the confusion he felt. Geographical factors alone were unable to bridge the cultural gap.
So he sought comfort where he could, diving deeper into music—an escape where the lines between Somali and American didn’t matter. He tried listening to more Somali artists, hoping something would finally click, but the more he listened, the more foreign the music felt. It was beautiful, sure, but it wasn’t his. He felt like an imposter trying to claim a heritage that he couldn’t fully understand.
K’naan, the Somali-Canadian rapper, was his only solace. In K’naan’s lyrics, Ismail heard echoes of his struggle. “Wavin’ Flag” became his anthem, capturing the tension between resilience and hopelessness, between pride and disillusionment.
Yet even K’naan’s music couldn’t fully drown out the tension at home. His father’s demands grew louder, and his mother’s warnings sharper. One night, after another painful argument, his father’s threat became more real. “Berri baan ticket kuu jaraynaa haddii aad sidan ku sii socoto!” We’ll buy you a ticket tomorrow if this continues!
“When I get older, I will be stronger, Just like a waving flag.” K’naan
K’naan, too, had walked the line between worlds, trying to find his place between his Somali heritage and the Western world.
One night, after another painful argument, his father’s threat became more real. “Berri baan ticket kuu jaraynaa haddii aad sidan ku sii socoto!” We’ll buy you a ticket tomorrow if this continues!
Ismail, The forgotten ones
“When I get older, I will be stronger, Just like a waving flag.” K’naan
Ismail fled to his room, his hands shaking as he slammed the door. He plugged in his headphones, cranking up the volume of the song that he was listening to until the house around him dissolved into the music. But his mind was racing. Dhaqan Celis—they were serious this time. He could feel it in the finality of his father’s words.
With a rush of fear and anger, he grabbed his notebook and began to scribble furiously, letting his thoughts pour onto the page. Once a quiet outlet for reflection, his poetry became a vent for his frustration. The lines came fast and raw, reflecting the storm raging inside him:
“Between two lands, I am neither;
I speak with a tongue that’s broken in half.
A mother’s love I cannot reach,
A father’s pride I cannot grasp,
Lost between the ocean and the desert,
I am the one you’ve forgotten.”
His hands trembled as he wrote, but the poetry wasn’t helping this time. It didn’t give him the release he usually found. Instead, it left him with more questions and more fear.
Was Dhaqan Celis the solution? Would he finally feel Somali if he was sent back, thrown into a world that had always felt just out of reach? Or would it only deepen the gap between him and the identity he so desperately sought?
As the possibility of Dhaqan Celis hung over him like a dark cloud, Ismail began to question everything. Was he more afraid of losing his American identity, or was it the thought of never truly belonging to his Somali heritage that terrified him more?
Was Dhaqan Celis the solution? Would he finally feel Somali if he was sent back, thrown into a world that had always felt just out of reach? Or would it only deepen the gap between him and the identity he so desperately sought?
Ismail, The forgotten ones
That night, the paradox of his existence pressed down on him heavier than ever. He picked up his pen again, writing one final line:
“I am the hyphen that never connects—a bridge without land on either side.”
“I am the hyphen that never connects,
Ismail, The forgotten ones
a bridge without land on either side.”
The weight of his parent’s expectations, the pressure to fit into two worlds, and the looming threat of Dhaqan Celis all converged in that single, unresolved thought. For Ismail, the journey was far from over, and the questions that haunted him would not be silenced so easily.
@murtidamaxamed