Living under authoritarian surveillance made Rasha value American freedoms she had taken for granted

Evidence

Outside class she would repeat to her school friends what she heard about their dear president at home, and they would stare at her with their mouths dropping, and then they would shush her up. “What are you doing?” they would whisper. “No. You never, ever, ever say anything about the president!” She would become even more pro-American then, seeing with a teenage girl’s perspective what things like freedom of speech, arbitrary detention, and human rights mean. She realized that she took so much for granted. At times like these, she missed her American life. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 92

Categorization

• XREF: This reversal—authoritarian constraint sharpening appreciation for American liberty, only to be dashed later—anticipates the irony of her subsequent detention by the FBI.