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Brooklyn, New York –Moustafa Bayoumi brings to the shelves How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America.
Published by Penguin Press, this book eloquently narrates the portraits of seven Brooklyn residents and their lives post-9/11.
According to the 2000 U.S. consensus Brooklyn is one of five boroughs in New York carrying about half of the total Arab American population in this state alone (36,000). More than Dearborn Michigan that carries about 30,000 of a more condensed demographic, Brooklyn is known for its diverse and well-defined neighborhoods. Originally occupied by Dutch immigrants in the early 1600’s, and today has a diversity of immigrants from Poland, Italy, China, Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad, Guyana, Grenada, Barbados, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Russia. The Arab American population according to the Arab American Institute, is known to occupy most of the Bay Ridge area and carries communities from Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan, Morocco and Palestine. Both religiously and geographically diverse, Christian Arab Americans, mostly Orthodox, Maronite and Lutheran, as well as Muslim and Jewish reside in this neighborhood.
Bayoumi was born in Zurich and raised in Canada. An Egyptian and Brooklyn resident, he did not spend ample time in Cairo and his Arabic is somewhat broken with an accent. But who better to speak of Arab American culture than its first generation in a 9/11 desolation with an insider/outsider’s view of both worlds. He received his doctoral in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, under the auspices of Edward Said, and continued the legacy as a professor in post-colonial studies, passing on the torch for the past decade to young minds at Brooklyn’s City University of New York.
How Does it Feel to be a Problem formulated as an idea in 2004 when his interest in the influx of the Arab’s identity was taken under the microscope. Hariri was assassinated in February 2005 and Bayoumi was invited to give a lecture at the American University in Beirut the following month . With the turn of events, arriving in a troubled city that perpetuated experiences of war, Bayoumi sought to interact with the youth of Beirut. Many groups formed in the Martyr’s Square, separated by their religious and geographical networks, it was difficult to enter in on tight clusters of tent meetings. Bayoumi decided to hang out in Virgin Megastore, a global idiom seen in many Arab countries today. In the Middle Eastern publishing section he found his book The Edward Said Reader (co-edited with Andrew Rubin) held by two young Lebanese men. This gave him the opportunity to learn more about the impact on the identity of a post-colonial young Arab community where he noticed aspirations of leadership strengths to compete and create something new.
Young Arabs, young Arab Americans, young Arab American Muslims finally recognize a plate of socially irrevocable identities in seven characters. Starting with Rasha, a nineteen year old who lived 18 years of her life in Brooklyn from Syria, was just released from three months in prison along with her humble family in 2002. One late night in February, unlike any other, law enforcement officers had occupied her family’s household. Getting dressed and handcuffed they were to be taken to federal plaza. An investigation they were told would not take more than two to three days for possible terrorism connections, unraveled in three months.
Our second character, Sami, joined the Marine Corps in 2001 for four years. The son of Egyptian/Palestinian Christian parents who moved to Brooklyn back in the late forties and mid seventies. Sami did not typically associate himself with Arab communes, and his features were actually seen as more Hispanic. With the turn of events, Sami begins self-doubt. Grappling with his own identity, he questions the choice of war over being an Arab American, a non-Muslim, a son of New York, a New York Yankee fan, and simply a soldier at war with his own people. Living with his parents due to the lack of income and employment, he returns to college after four years of service and redefines himself.
Yasmin’s incident starts out on a bus ride to Taco Bell. A young girl with soft features from a Muslim Egyptian father and Christian Philippine mother, graciously covers her hair with the hijab, and deals with stares that categorize her as ‘bomber,’ and ‘one of them.’ Educated in an Islamic school up to seventh grade, Yasmin joins public schooling. Active and vibrant about life, at the age of fifteen she joins the school’s swim team that leads to her nomination in a leadership program for student government. To her surprise she wins, and well into her responsibilities learns due to her moral obligations in Muslim practice she would not be able to participate in events such as the school dance, forcing her to resign. Due to the lack of compromise, Yasmin sought to take further action in standing by her principals and was heard. Today she is in pursuit of a law degree furthering her legacy of human rights and social justice.
Akram, a twenty-one year old, is Bayoumi’s longest relationship and first encounter on this series of stories. Palestinian American, his family owns the grocery store where he works and his Arab American dream is to move to Dubai. The sense of humor of the aspiring bicultural youth is followed with an Iraqi-American girl, Lina who falls in love unknowingly with a spy for Sadam Hussein. The roles continue to take an unsuspecting turn when we meet Omar, an intern at al-Jazeera who discovers he has no future of employment, and Rami, a young man whose religious views become quite pious following his father’s imprisonment for a minor criminal offense.
The author presents seven portraits through a four-year climax of meeting and talking with many people from the Arab American and Muslim communities both inside Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and beyond. In order to have a better understanding of a post 9/11 generation, they are first hand representatives of the Arab American future and witnesses to its past. This book will be hard to put down.
* Aida Eltorie has worked with multinational galleries, museums and cultural agencies in Cairo, New York and San Francisco. She has worked with The Townhouse Gallery of contemporary art, The Brooklyn Museum, The International Museum of Women and Christie's auction house, and independently produced a number of international projects with artists and cultural practitioners from the Middle East, Europe and United States with the support of the Swiss Arts Council, The Ford Foundation and The American Center Foundation. Eltorie works with The Make Agency developing regional campaigns in the Middle East and North Africa. She holds a Bachelors of Visual Arts and Mass Communication from the American University in Cairo and is finishing her Masters in Islamic Art and Architecture.
To read more about Bayoumi’s experience in Lebanon, please refer to
Bayoumi, Moustafa, “Diary,” London Review of Books, Vol. 27 No. 9. (May 5, 2005).
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