Laura Menchaca

For many years, the most prevalent images of Palestine have been those of death and destruction. These depictions are critical in helping people internationally understand the structural and physical violence that Palestinians face daily. However, what we lose when death and destruction is the most prominent story of Palestine are the day-to-day, hard-won joys of living there—the very reasons for which Palestinians struggle to remain on their ancestral lands. In a context of strategic erasure, “Hay Betl7em (هاي بيت لحم)” creates a digital public archive of 20 slice-of-life ethnographic short films centered on a single city (Bethlehem) and disseminated publicly via the web and social media. Drawing on Gerald Vizenor’s concept of "survivance," the archive foregrounds how people in Bethlehem not only survive hardship, but continue to assert themselves on their own terms in spite of it.