Arab America

Saudi Arabia in the Balance brings together today’s leading scholars in the field to investigate the domestic, regional, and international affairs of a Kingdom whose policies have so far eluded the outside world. With the passing of King Fahd and the installation of King Abdullah, a contemporary understanding of Saudi Arabia is essential as the Kingdom enters a new era of leadership and particularly when many Saudis themselves are increasingly debating, and actively shaping, the future direction of domestic and foreign affairs. Each of the essays, framed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, offers a systematic perspective into the country’s political and economic realities as well as the tension between its regional and global roles. Important topics covered include U.S. and Saudi relations; Saudi oil policy; the Islamist threat to the monarchy regime; educational opportunities; the domestic rise of liberal opposition; economic reform; the role of the royal family; and the country's foreign relations in a changing international world. Contributors: Paul Aarts, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Rachel Bronson, Iris Glosemeyer, Steffen Hertog, Yossi Kostiner, Stéphane Lacroix, Giacomo Luciani, Monica Malik, Roel Meijer, Tim Niblock, Gerd Nonneman, Michaela Prokop, Abdulaziz Sager, Guido Steinberg

Through his own life story, from childhood through is life as an adult, El Rassi illustrates the prejudices and discrimination Arabs and Muslims experience daily in American society. He contends with ignorant teachers, racist neighbours, bullying classmates and a growing sense of alienation. He also examines the roles that media and popular culture play and with examples from film and news media, he shows how difficult it is to have an Arab identity in a society saturated with anti-Arab messages.

The landscapes, cultures, and cuisines of deserts in the Middle East and North America have commonalities that have seldom been explored by scientistsÑand have hardly been celebrated by society at large. Sonoran Desert ecologist Gary Nabhan grew up around Arab grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in a family that has been emigrating to the United States and Mexico from Lebanon for more than a century, and he himself frequently travels to the deserts of the Middle East. In an era when some Arabs and Americans have markedly distanced themselves from one another, Nabhan has been prompted to explore their common ground, historically, ecologically, linguistically, and gastronomically. Arab/American is not merely an exploration of his own multicultural roots but also a revelation of the deep cultural linkages between the inhabitants of two of the worldÕs great desert regions. Here, in beautifully crafted essays, Nabhan explores how these seemingly disparate cultures are bound to each other in ways we would never imagine. With an extraordinary ear for language and a truly adventurous palate, Nabhan uncovers surprising convergences between the landscape ecology, ethnogeography, agriculture, and cuisines of the Middle East and the binational Desert Southwest. There are the words and expressions that have moved slowly westward from Syria to Spain and to the New World to become incorporatedÑfaintly but recognizablyÑinto the language of the people of the U.S.ÐMexico borderlands. And there are the flavorsÑpiquant mixtures of herbs and spicesÑthat have crept silently across the globe and into our kitchens without our knowing where they came from or how they got here. And there is much, much more. We also learn of others whose work historically spanned these deserts, from Hadji Ali (ÒHi JollyÓ), the first Moslem Arab to bring camels to America, to Robert Forbes, an Arizonan who explored the desert oases of the Sahara. These men crossed not only oceans but political and cultural barriers as well. We are, we recognize, builders of walls and borders, but with all the talk of ÒhomelandÓ today, Nabhan reminds us that, quite often, borders are simply lines drawn in the sand.

N.B. this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title. Stock of this book requires shipment from overseas. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. Using literary and social analysis, this book examines a range of modern Arab American literary fiction and illustrates how socio-political phenomena have affected the development of the Arab American novel.

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.

Arab American women have played an essential role in shaping their homes, their communities, and their country for centuries. Their contributions, often marginalized academically and culturally, are receiving long- overdue attention with the emerging interdisciplinary field of Arab American women’s studies. The collected essays in this volume capture the history and significance of Arab American women, addressing issues of migration, transformation, and reformation as these women invented occupations, politics, philosophies, scholarship, literature, arts, and, ultimately, themselves. Arab American women brought culture and absorbed culture; they brought relationships and created relationships; they brought skills and talents and developed skills and talents. They resisted inequities, refused compliance, and challenged representation. They engaged in politics, civil society, the arts, education, the market, and business. And they told their own stories. These histories, these genealogies, these narrations that are so much a part of the American experiment are chronicled in this volume, providing an indispensable resource for scholars and activists.

Both a summative description of the field and an exploration of new directions, this multidisciplinary reader addresses issues central to the fields of Arab American, US Muslim, and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) American studies. Taking a broad conception of the Americas, this collection simultaneously registers and critically reflects upon major themes in the field, including diaspora, migration, empire, race and racialization, securitization, and global South solidarity. The collection will be essential reading for scholars in Arab/SWANA American studies, Asian American studies, and race, ethnicity, and Indigenous studies, now and well into the future. Contributors include: Evelyn Alsultany, Carol W. N. Fadda, Hisham D. Aidi, Nadine Naber, Therí Pickens, Steven Salaita, Ella Shohat and Sarah M.A. Gualtieri.

Preface -- Acknowledgments --Introduction -- Generations reunite in Arbeen, Syria -- Seed to the wind : The first wave of Arab immigration (1878-1924) -- The Stuff of Myths: Arab Adventurers in the New World -- The Withered Cedar: Why the Arabs Left Syria and Lebanon -- Who Am I? The Syrians Dock in America -- Transplanting the fig tree: The first generation on American soil (1924-1947) -- The Depression and the Syrian Americans -- World War II -- Making a Name: First-Generation Notables -- The Palestine debacle: The second wave of Arab immigration (1948-1966) -- Syrian Americans React to the Brewing Palestine Conflict -- Immigrants from a Lost Palestine -- Other Second Wave Immigrants from Arab Regimes -- The third wave: West Bank captured, Lebanon torn asunder, The Iran-Iraq War (1967-1989) -- Iraqis, Yemenis, and Egyptian Copts -- Third Wave Palestinians and Lebanese -- The political awakening (1972-1982) -- The Association of Arab American University Graduates (AAUG) -- The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) -- The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) -- Before the Flames -- The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon -- Stumbling toward peace (1986-2000) -- The Cases of Alex Odeh and the L.A. 8 -- The Coleico Doll and the First Intifadah -- The First Gulf War Triggers Hate Crimes -- The Oslo Peace Process -- Access White House or Affirmative Action? -- The Death of Oslo and the Second Intifadah -- After the flames: Arab Americans and American fear (2001-2004) -- September 11 and the Patriot Act -- What do Arab Americans Want? -- Ongoing Achievement -- To Be or Not to Be Arab American: A Look at the Literature -- A celebration of community -- Center of the World (Washington, DC) -- Food You Can Trust (Detroit) -- Dance over the Death Home (Brooklyn) -- The Slave of Balfour House (Vicksburg) -- The Sunni Who Sells Insurance (Cedar Rapids) -- The Mosque and the Prairie (Ross, North Dakota) -- A Porch in Pasadena (California) -- Appendixes: Number of Arrivals in the United States from Turkey in Asia, by Sex, 1869-1898 -- Number of Arrivals from Syria in the United States by Sex, 1899-1924 -- Arab Immigration to the United States, 1948-2003 -- Arab Eastern Rite Christian, Muslim, and Druze Population in the United States -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index.