What Mo Showed Us About Palestine, Power, and Who Gets to Belong

Through a Palestinian protagonist, Mo captured how the weight of belonging shapes immigrants of all backgrounds.

courtesy of Tudum by Netflix

Ramadan Mubarak! This spiritual season of reflection is making me think even deeper about the stories we tell and the way they shape our world.

This past weekend, the Oscars celebrated outstanding storytelling, and despite the ongoing rollback of DEI efforts in the U.S., moments of representation broke through: Zoe Saldana became the first descendant of Dominican immigrants to win an Oscar, and a documentary on Palestinians facing settler vioence ethnic won big—even though it can’t be distributed in the U.S.

No Other Land’s big moment at the Oscars reminds me of another instance of Palestinian storytelling onscreen—Mo, the acclaimed Netflix series. Created by and starring comedian Mo Amer, it follows Mo Najjar, a Palestinian refugee in Houston navigating the absurdities of the U.S. immigration system. In a media landscape tha…