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LorraineAli
Journalist Lorraine Ali won Da Capo’s “Best Music Writing” honors when her story “West Bank Hardcore” was included in the 2001 edition of Da Capo’s “Best Music Writing” book. In the piece, writer Lorraine Ali profiled the lives of a group of American-Palestinian teens living in the Occupied Territories. The teens were sent back to the region by their parents to learn more about their native culture and homeland (just as many American Jews send their children back to Israel to learn about their heritage), but as Lorraine Ali discovers, the teens are hit with the hard reality of life as an Arab in the Occupied Territories. The teens vent their frustrations by rapping about the curfews and checkpoints they live with, and tell Lorraine Ali about their hopes of becoming the next Tupac Shakur when they return to America. Lorraine Ali’s story “West Bank Hardcore” originally ran in Raygun magazine.