Guez’s video work Sa(Mira) features a young woman whose entire appearance contradicts the Jewish-Israeli codification, the stereotype (in terms of physiognomy, skin tone, and accent) of how an Arab woman is supposed to look. It brings the testimony of a student of psychology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, introducing one powerful traumatic moment. During the interview with Guez, Samira, Guez’s cousin, recounts an anecdote about the exposure of her Arab identity in the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The customers were pleased with the service she gave them until the moment they noticed her arabic name on the bill. Despite her ability to "pass" without being labeled an Arab, Samira is identified as such by her name, which pushes her to a marked position in the ethnic hierarchy of identities in Israel. In order to keep her job, she is asked to Hebraize her name from Samira to Mira (a Jewish name).
Samira’s anecdote is not a typical story of interpellation obeying the ideology carried by her naming, but its blatancy lays bare the dimension of ideological coercion inherent in every act of interpellation, the way in which her private, intimate name, her unique property, becomes a tool for the enforcement of a foreign identity. At the same time, Samira’s anecdote exposes her inability to be present and identified, the negation of her self- constitution as a subject.
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