On Friday evening a cab drops me, my sister, and my mother off at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. We are here for the opening of the exhibit Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present. This opening is the culmination of what Rana Abdullah, a local Palestinian human rights advocate whose family story is included in the exhibit, describes to me as “nearly two decades of persistence, dialogue, determination, pushback, disappointments, and obstacles.”

The source of some of those obstacles is represented outside the museum that evening. Hundreds of protestors have gathered by the entrances, many holding signs denying the Nakba, as elderly survivors, young families, and members of the Palestinian community and their supporters walk past.