Arab Americans are one of the most misunderstood segments of the U.S.
population, especially after the events of 9/11. In Arab America, Nadine
Naber tells the stories of second generation Arab American young adults
living in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of whom are political
activists engaged in two culturalist movements that draw on the
conditions of diaspora, a Muslim global justice and a Leftist Arab
movement.
Writing from a transnational feminist perspective, Naber reveals the
complex and at times contradictory cultural and political processes
through which Arabness is forged in the contemporary United States, and
explores the apparently intra-communal cultural concepts of religion,
family, gender, and sexuality as the battleground on which Arab American
young adults and the looming world of America all wrangle. As this
struggle continues, these young adults reject Orientalist thought,
producing counter-narratives that open up new possibilities for
transcending the limitations of Orientalist, imperialist, and
conventional nationalist articulations of self, possibilities that
ground concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality in some of
the most urgent issues of our times: immigration politics, racial
justice struggles, and U.S. militarism and war.
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For more, check out the author-run Facebook page for Arab America.**