Moustafa Bayoumi talks to students at Northeast High School.
On October 7, Al-Bustan hosted Moustafa Bayoumi in Philadelphia to speak about his book How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America. Bayoumi was invited by Germantown Friends School (GFS) and Northeast High School (NEHS) to speak with high school students about themes from his book, which tells the stories of seven Arab Americans living in Brooklyn and their experiences shortly after 9/11. A highly engaging speaker, Bayoumi used humor and wit, mixed with his natural ability at weaving a range of compelling true stories, to easily captivate the attention of the high schoolers.
In 2005 he began compiling stories for his book, which includes the experience of Rasha, a 19-year-old Syrian who immigrated to the United States when she was 2, only to find herself and her family arrested in the middle of the night by American immigration authorities and jailed for three months. And the story of Sami, a Christian Arab who enlisted in the military and was on his way to combat training on the night of September 10, 2001 without much thought of being deployed, only to find himself doing two tours in Iraq. These stories and others serve to show the nuances of the Arab American experience, the different ways in which “being a problem” manifests itself in our society, as Bayoumi references W.E.B. Du Bois’ classic “The Souls of Black Folk: How does it feel to be a problem?” from a century ago, and explores what being American means today.
As a book rooted in place, the setting of Bayoumi’s stories forms an integral component of the historical moment in which he writes. “Brooklyn,” Bayoumi opines, “is the concentrated, unedited, twenty-first-century answer to who we, as Americans, are as a people.”
GFS had just finished reading Zeitoun, a true story narrated by Dave Eggers, about Abdelrahman Zeitoun’s heroic actions during Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent difficulties he faces as an Arab/Muslim American. The students and teachers at GFS asked a wide range of questions, from inquiries about Bayoumi’s thoughts on the current discourse surrounding Islam and the development of an interfaith community center near Ground Zero, to a poignant question of “Do you think you would have been able to write this book if you weren’t Arab?” His answer to the latter was particularly interesting given the difficulties the Arab American community has faced in the wake of 9/11. “I would have been able,” he said, “but it would have taken much longer to earn the trust of the community.” He explained that after the attacks, fears of the F.B.I, who used confidential informants, undercover officers, and ambiguous immigration law, kept many in the Arab American community fearful of curious outsiders. He had to work overtime to gain the trust of the community, noting it was certainly easier as an Arab, but it would not have been impossible if he weren’t — perhaps similar to David Eggers’ ability to write the story of one family.
Northeast High School presented a counterpoint to the discussions at GFS, an independent Quaker school. NEHS is the largest public high school in Philadelphia County, and almost every immigrant community present in Philadelphia is represented there. This includes a significant Palestinian and Iraqi immigrant community among those of Arab heritage. Moustafa gave his talk in the school library to students who were reading his book as part of an ESOL book club and International Baccalaureate class. It was a rare opportunity for many of the students to have access to the author of an acclaimed book, and many were awestruck as they sat and listened to his engaging talk. They asked questions pertaining to identity and commented on how they found their own life experiences affirmed by the book. After the talk, many students introduced themselves to Bayoumi with their names and their country of origin and eagerly asked him to sign their books. In this diverse setting, Moustafa made a point of describing the impact of writing in understanding other people and their struggles. “The best way to learn about someone else’s experience is to write about it from their perspective.” He spoke of how writing can humanize a person in a way that other art forms simply cannot replicate. The active experience of listening to another, really listening, rather than talking past one another, makes one able to more clearly understand the experience of the other. He ended his talk by encouraging the students to write about themselves, other people, and to ask important questions and turn them into stories.
After the two high school talks, there was a bit of time to relax before Bayoumi’s last presentation at the University of Pennsylvania, which was co-presented by the Middle East Center, Greenfield Intercultural Center, English Department, PASS, and MSA. He spoke about his book to an audience of thirty-five, including students, staff, and interested community members. Since most of the attendees had not yet read his book, he discussed his writing process and provided anecdotes as windows into his experience. Some anecdotes were humorous, such as his story about the Imam of the mosque who asked for a meeting with him, only to find out that the Imam was trying to set him up with a wife. But as complex stories grounded in reality go, there is also the heartbreaking. He recounted interviewing Rasha about her experiences and how she was haunted by humiliation and guilt despite the years that had passed. Or how Sami came back from the war in Iraq only to discover that in spite of his experiences there, his identity as an Arab was now more solidified, although this came at a price, as other Arab Americans had trouble accepting another who had fought in a war they were strongly opposed to.
The uniqueness of each story that Bayoumi tells makes it difficult to talk about the Arab American experience in any monolithic way. What unites these incredibly varied and nuanced moments is the question the title asks. How does it feel to be a problem? finds resonance in each story, as Rasha, Sami, Akram, Yasmin, Lina, Omar and Rami grapple with this dilemma in a different way. What unifies their experiences is the way their complex existence is increasingly problematized in a society that has expressed indifference to finding a place for them. Bayoumi’s book goes a long way towards “lifting the veil,” in the words of Dubois, over this often misunderstood and wrongly maligned community.
