Bringing the rich terrain of Arab American histories to bear on conceptualizations of race in the United States, this groundbreaking volume fills a critical gap in the field of U.S. racial and ethnic studies. The articles collected here highlight emergent discourses on the distinct ways that race matters to the study of Arab American histories and experiences and asks essential questions. What is the relationship between U.S. imperialism in Arab homelands and anti-Arab racism in the United States? In what ways have the axes of nation, religion, class, and gender intersected with Arab American racial formations? What is the significance of whiteness studies to Arab American studies? Transcending multiculturalist discourses that have simply added on the category “Arab-American” to the landscape of U.S. racial and ethnic studies after the attacks of September 11, 2001, this volume locates September 11 as a turning point, rather than as a beginning, in Arab Americans’

This much-needed study documents positive Arab-American contributions to American life and culture, especially in the last decade, debunking myths and common negative perceptions that were exacerbated by the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror. The term "Arab American" is often used to describe a broad range of people who are ethnically diverse and come from many countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Some Arab Americans have been in the United States since the 1880s. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 did serve to highlight the necessity for Americans to better understand the discrete nations and ethnicities of the Middle East. This title documents the key aspects of contemporary Arab American life, including their many contributions to American society. It begins with an overview of the immigrant experience, but focuses primarily on the past decade, examining the political, family, religious, educational, professional, public, and artistic aspects of the Arab American experience. Readers will understand how this unique experience is impacted by political events both here in America and in the Arab world.

This simple, introductory guide answers 100 of the basic questions people ask about Arab Americans in everyday conversation. Most of the work was done in the Detroit area, home to the highest concentration of Arabs in the United States. Find answers about culture, customs, identity, language, religion, social norms, politics, education, work, families and food. This guide is for businesses, schools, churches, government, medicine, law enforcement, human resources and individuals.

As Arab Americans seek to claim their communal identity and rightful place in American society at a time of heightened tension between the United States and the Middle East, an understanding look back at more than one hundred years of the Arab-American community is especially timely. In this book, Elizabeth Boosahda, a third-generation Arab American, draws on over two hundred personal interviews, as well as photographs and historical documents that are contemporaneous with the first generation of Arab Americans (Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians), both Christians and Muslims, who immigrated to the Americas between 1880 and 1915, and their descendants. Boosahda focuses on the Arab-American community in Worcester, Massachusetts, a major northeastern center for Arab immigration, and Worcester's links to and similarities with Arab-American communities throughout North and South America. Using the voices of Arab immigrants and their families, she explores their entire experience, from emigration at the turn of the twentieth century to the present-day lives of their descendants. This rich documentation sheds light on many aspects of Arab-American life, including the Arab entrepreneurial motivation and success, family life, education, religious and community organizations, and the role of women in initiating immigration and the economic success they achieved.

Tune up your knowledge of the Arab and Muslim worlds with this easy to read text. The Arab-American Handbook contains useful reference material and comment by a wide variety of participants and observers. The book includes: a thumbnail history; the essentials of Islam; social insights & cultural norms. The perfect tool for : teachers, employers, travelers, law enforcement. Government workers and the general public will find that they can quickly penetrate the stereotypes and misconceptions to appreciate the tenor and nuance of Arab and Muslim life. Without a better grasp of this subject, the citizens of liberal democracies are unsafe at home and at a disadvantage in the global competition for hearts and minds.

In this first history of Arab American activism in the 1960s, Pamela Pennock brings to the forefront one of the most overlooked minority groups in the history of American social movements. Focusing on the ideas and strategies of key Arab American organizations and examining the emerging alliances between Arab American and other anti-imperialist and antiracist movements, Pennock sheds new light on the role of Arab Americans in the social change of the era. She details how their attempts to mobilize communities in support of Middle Eastern political or humanitarian causes were often met with suspicion by many Americans, including heavy surveillance by the Nixon administration. Cognizant that they would be unable to influence policy by traditional electoral means, Arab Americans, through slow coalition building over the course of decades of activism, brought their central policy concerns and causes into the mainstream of activist consciousness. With the support of new archival and interview evidence, Pennock situates the civil rights struggle of Arab Americans within the story of other political and social change of the 1960s and 1970s. By doing so, she takes a crucial step forward in the study of American social movements of that era.

Setting the record straight about Arab American culture.

Provides a brief history of the Arab world, explaining why some Arabs chose to move to the United States and the challenges they faced when they arrive, and describes what challenges still face immigrants today.

New York City's main Arab communities exemplify the continuity and change that has taken place throughout the city's rich history. The Museum of the City of New York, in partnership with the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and a group of local Arab and non-Arab scholars, activists and educators, undertook a long overdue exploration of New York's Arab populations. The result is a revealing collection of writings and photographs that document and tell the stories of these communities.