How Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008)

When examining the social phenomenon of the Arab-American store, Bayoumi references sociologist Edna Bonacich’s writing around “middlemen minority” groups, including—in addition to Arabs in Brooklyn—Jewish merchants in Europe, the Chinese in southeast Asia, the Syrians in West Africa, and the Parsis in India. 

The defining feature of middlemen minorities is that they act as bridges between the multi-ethnic inner city customer base they service and the corporate (in this case, usually white) community that wants to sell to these customers without dealing with them directly. Because these middlemen minorities occupy a liminal space between two different populations (and also because, as Bonacich points out, they often stick together, usually in families), they are often regarded with suspicion by both the corporate groups they sell for and the ethnic minority groups they sell to. This suspicion, of course, increased after 9/11, resulting in group violence against numerous store owners across the US. Luckily, Akram’s family’s store—Mike’s Food Center—does not experience violence. Rather, the immigrants from their Brooklyn community band together in support and protection of the store.

Middlemen minorities serve as effective translators between their own culture and the cultures of customers. Akram learns to speak in multiple dialects, joking and making small talk with his Arab, African, and Caribbean patrons. The idea of the middleman minority as translator also extends to other professions when Sami assumes the role of Arab translator as a Marine in Iraq. Sami naturally feels conflicted about his translation role, however, observing that his Arab-speaking ability makes him a target for fellow Marines who suspect he sympathizes with “the enemy.” Omar feels similarly-conflicted feelings when he contemplates joining the FBI simply to have a job. 

The hijab is presented as a symbol for Islamic identity, one that is often met with misunderstanding from Westerners. As Bayoumi notes, Westerners often harbor the stereotype that those who wear the hijab are “submissive and retreating” (85), and they perceive the garment as “a small piece of cloth that holds the talismanic power to destroy Western civilization” (86). Western paranoia around the hijab is poignantly illustrated in a scene Bayoumi describes at the beginning of Yasmin’s chapter. On a Brooklyn bus, a white couple fears that a hijab-wearing Islamic woman is hiding a bomb underneath the blanket she carries. The fellow hijab-wearing Yasmin knows, in reality, the woman’s just holding her baby. 

After September 11th, the male Arab-Americans of How Does It Feel To Be A Problem immediately worry about their mothers, who wear the hijab. While men and more secular Muslims can conceal their identity to some degree (as Sami does when he tries to pass for Latino in the Marines), the Islamic identity of hijab-wearing women is easily perceived by the public. 

Lina’s mother demonstrates a different kind of anxiety around the hijab when Lina returns from Iraq. Her mother remarks, “You don’t have to go parading around in hijab to show your imam [your faith]. Imam starts in your heart” (166). As an immigrant mother who recognizes that her daughter is trying out numerous different roles, Lina’s mother seems to worry that Lina is performing the part of a Muslim woman—“parading around in hijab”—and that she does not earnestly appreciate the symbolism or meaning of the garment. 

When Lina becomes a strong, independent woman, however, she dispels any notion of the “submissive and retreating” stereotype Bayoumi alludes to. Likewise, Yasmin’s courage in her fight against her high school’s discrimination proves that she, too, is a strong-willed woman, like many other women who wear the hijab in the United States. Indeed, as Jeanette Jouli writes—via her theory that Bayoumi quotes from in Rami’s chapter—Islamic women can actually empower each other by wearing the hijab in the workplace, becoming more visible and thus claiming “a presence in the public sphere” (245).

In its own way, the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf is as misunderstood as the hijab. Akram attests that after the attacks of 9/11, teachers at his high school berated him for wearing the keffiyeh, associating the garment with terrorism and asking him if he hated all Jews. 

As Bayoumi explains, however, “For Palestinian kids in American high schools, their keffiyehs matter. Unlike other kids, they don’t have a country to lay claim to so they hold tightly to their symbols” (127). The traditional scarf thus becomes a stand-in for Palestinian national identity and the country they cannot lay claim to. As Akram says, “Some people have do-rags […] We have our hattas” (127).