Gate A-4 By Naomi Shihab Nye

In the short story Gate A-4, written by Naomi Shihab Nye, the narrator of the story is supposed to board a flight to El Paso yet the flight is delayed, so an elderly Palestinian woman who is unable to understand English gets worried that she won’t be able to arrive at her destination to receive immediate medical attention. The narrator, who happens to speak Arabic, translates to the older woman in order to console her. This begins the beautiful friendship between the narrator and the older woman, along with a valuable life lesson. No matter what part of the world you come from, it shouldn’t deny one the ability to be united despite our differences.
Being united despite where we come from is a valuable lesson that everyone should learn. The narrator, who is ethnically Palestinian reassures an older woman by talking to her in Arabic . When the flight is delayed, the woman is frightened that she will be unable to make it to El Paso in order to receive her emergency medical treatment. It is easy to imagine what a frightening thought this is because if the medical treatment needed is serious, if unable to acquire said medical treatment, it could lead to death. Not only can it be scary to look death in the eye but it can also be frustrating when no one has the

The narrator said, “then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends”(20). This is a typical commonality in the Middle Eastern community in which people from the same area know everyone in that circle. One can come to the assumption that the author added this snippet in to show what kind of relationship people from that part of the world have, and how they treat everyone as family, regardless of their ethnic