Story adapted from an article originally shared through MSU Today
School of Journalism professor of practice, Rola Nashef, is an American writer, director and producer who applied her experience in the arts to Michigan's diverse communities as a social movement catalyst and inspiration for creative expression.
Nashef moved to Lansing, Michigan with her family from Lebanon three years into the Lebanese Civil War with hopes to escape from the surrounding conflict.
Learning to speak English while navigating through a diverse neighborhood that featured Latino, Black and White Americans cast a profound sense of uniqueness that has never left her—even as a professor.
Each project Nashef asks: What does it mean to exist fully and unapologetically in a country that struggles to name us?
Her debut feature film, "Detroit Unleaded," broke ground as the first Arab American romantic comedy in the U.S. cinema. Set inside a family-run gas station in Detroit, exploring love, grief and cultural inheritance from behind the bulletproof glass. Nashef's latest project, "Nadia's House," tells the story of Arab American sisterhood and rebellion through Detroit's 1995 techno experience.
Nashef is pioneering new concepts in the classrooms at MSU, inviting political conversations with her students and emphasizing the fact that their voices, culture and stories matter. Nashef's journey traces her early memory of belonging and displacement as a storyteller who understands that our voices are acts of visibility.
"This is why storytelling is not just an art form for me, it is an act of resistance," Nashef said. "In my work, I strive to tell Arab American stories that move beyond stereotypes and political messaging and live in a different, deeper space."
By Miles Sloan