It’s a confusing time to be Mohammed Amer, the Palestinian-American comedian known to his friends and fans as Mo. This week, he will release the second season of his groundbreaking Netflix comedy-drama Mo – a semi-autobiographical series about his family’s life as refugees living in Houston, Texas. For Amer, who writes and stars in the show, it’s a huge moment – but any joy he feels is offset by the unimaginable tragedy unfolding back in Palestine.
Mo’s first season, released in 2022, saw Amer play a lightly fictionalised version of himself: an immigrant without documentation, trying his best to support his mum and brother by selling fake Gucci bags and Rolexes out of the trunk of his car – something Amer also did in the decades he spent awaiting asylum after emigrating from Kuwait at age nine. Amer was born in Kuwait after his parents had been displaced from Palestine in the 1948 Nakba, in which around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland in the creation of Israel.
