GRACE MESSARRA
SENIOR COPYWRITER
I AM A DISAPPOINTMENT TO MY STEREOTYPE
No matter how hard I try, I am just not a fan of hummus. It’s been a long, hard journey to self-acceptance; but now, I’m finally able to say it, and say it loud. (Though I can sense my ancestors rolling over in their graves.)
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I’m from Lebanon, the one Arab country that failed to spring, and incidentally, the birthplace of hummus.
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In a country that’s one-sixtieth the size of Texas, everyone is somehow your cousin.
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That makes for a lot of awkward first dates.
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Spending the better part of my life in a political vacuum has left me with a morbid sense of humor—that, and a very high threshold for loud noises... which is more than I can say for the slew of next-door neighbors who couldn’t handle me drumming at reasonable hours and considerate decibels.
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At the age of six, I was subjected to ballet for years (as if my name weren’t enough of an imposition of grace); the looks I would get in that class were reminiscent of those directed at natural disasters.
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I’d never quite heard sighs of relief in chorus until the day I quit.
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Determined to regain face in the public eye, I sashayed all the way across the Atlantic for college, getting a BS in Communication from Boston University. After graduation, I returned to Beirut and joined Publicis Worldwide, and later, M&C Saatchi.
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Here’s a challenge: Try advertising a ladies’ hair care product to a Saudi Arabian audience—without showing any women or hair.
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There’s more to me than a hummus infidel.
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When I’m not leveraging the fact that I’m fluent in English, Arabic, and French, I’m probably speaking all three in the same sentence—and biting my tongue when someone mispronounces “hors d’oeuvres.” (It’s "aughe d’euh-v-gh-euh," not "ohr-deurve.")
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While being trilingual surely endowed my résumé with a certain je ne sais quoi, I was not quite ready to retire from studenthood. So, I returned to the U.S. to pursue a graduate degree in Advertising at the University of Texas at Austin, where I met some lovely folks who brought me right back to Boston.
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What can I say? I just couldn't stay away.
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