In 2013, author-activist Nani Ferreira-Mathews participated in a popular free ten-day "birthright" tour of Israel offered by the Taglit-Birthright organization in an effort to explore and reconnect with her Jewish heritage. This day-to-day account of the daily programs, activities, and dating games--as well as the tour guides' stubborn refusal to discuss or even acknowledge Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories--reveals an agenda animated by racism, heterosexism, colonialism, and militaristic nationalism.
Drawing upon her experience as a person of both indigenous Hawaiian and Jewish heritage, Ferreira-Mathews interrogates the meaning of "birthright" within a settler-colonialist nation, where national identity is so fundamentally entangled with the systematic displacement of native peoples.