Orfalea, Gregory 1949–

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Orfalea, Gregory 1949–

(Gregory M. Orfalea)

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced "Or-fa-la"; born August 9, 1949, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Aref Joseph (a garment manufacturer) and Rose (a retail store owner) Orfalea; married Eileen Rogers (a publications editor), August 4, 1984; children: Matthew Rogers, Andrew Aref. Education: Georgetown University, A.B. (with honors), 1971; University of Alaska, M.F.A., 1974. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Office—Pitzer College, 1050 N. Mills Ave., Scott Hall 220, Claremont, CA 91711. Agent—Scott Meredith, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10022. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Journalist, writer, editor, and educator. Northern Virginia Sun, Arlington, VA, senior reporter, 1971–72; Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, CA, instructor in English, 1974–76; Miramonte Elementary School, Los Angeles, CA, writer in residence and teacher, 1977–78; George Washington University, Washington, DC, instructor in English and assistant press secretary to Republican Senator S.I. Hayakawa, 1978–79; National Association of Arab Americans, Washington, DC, chief government liaison and editor of publications, 1979–81, member of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 1982; American Middle East Peace Research Institute, Washington, DC, fellow, 1983–84; Emerson Preparatory High School, Washington, DC, teacher of English and mathematics, 1985–86; U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, DC, writer and editor, 1985–86; U.S. Small Business Association, Washington, DC, field services manager for Office of Public Communications and editor in chief of association newspaper Network, beginning 1986; Resolution Trust Corporation, Washington, DC, director of public affairs, affordable housing, 1991–96; Freddie Mac, Washington, DC, director of executive communications and chief speechwriter, 1997; Center for Substance Abuse Prevention/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, public affairs specialist, 1998–2003; Pitzer College, Claremont, CA, assistant professor of creative writing and director of Pitzer's Center for Writing, 2003–. Washington correspondent for Middle East International. Also served on faculty of George Washington University, University of Alaska, and Santa Barbara City College, and as writer-in-residence at Stevenson School, Pebble Beach, CA, 2001, and at Miramonte Elementary School in South-central Los Angeles. Lectures and gives readings at universities, libraries, and museums.

MEMBER: National Association of Government Communicators.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edmund A. Bunn Award for journalistic excellence, Georgetown University, 1971; first prize, World Lebanese Cultural Union, 1975, for "The Pierced Cedar: Poetry in Lebanon from the Phoenicians to the Present"; grants from California Arts Council, 1976, American Middle East Peace Research Institute, 1983, Foundation for Transnational Projects, 1985, San Francisco's Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1986, and two from the DC Council on the Arts and Humanities.

WRITINGS:

Pictures at an Exhibition (poems), Confluence Press (Lewiston, ID), 1977.

Arms Build-Up in the Middle East (monograph), Americans for Middle East Understanding (New York, NY), 1981.

U.S.-Arab Relations: The Literary Dimension (monograph), National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (Washington, DC), 1984.

The Capital of Solitude (poems), Ithaca House (Ithaca, NY), 1988.

(Editor, with Sharif Elmusa) Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab American Poetry, University of Utah Press (Salt Lake City, UT), 1988.

Before the Flames: A Quest for the History of Arab Americans, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1988.

Messengers of the Lost Battalion: The Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge, Free Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor, with Barbara Rosewicz) Up All Night: Practical Wisdom from Mothers and Fathers, foreword by Alice McDermott, Paulist Press (New York, NY), 2004.

The Arab Americans: A History, Olive Branch Press (Northampton, MA), 2006.

Work represented in anthologies, including And Not Surrender: American Poets on Lebanon, 1982; Crossing the Waters: Arabic-speaking Immigrants to the United States before 1940, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987; Blood to Remember: Poets on the Holocaust, 1988; and Multiculturalism in the United States, edited by John Buenker, Greenwood Press, 2005. Contributor to Yearbook of Contemporary Magazine Verse. Contributor of stories, poems, and articles to periodicals, including Christian Science Monitor, Baltimore Evening Sun, Epoch, Jewish Currents, Antioch Review, California Quarterly, Northwest Review, and Triquarterly. Past editor, Political Focus and Three Sisters.

SIDELIGHTS: A journalist who later gained extensive experience in working with the U.S. government on issues involving Arab Americans, Gregory Orfalea has also written creative nonfiction, history, and poetry. In Messengers of the Lost Battalion: The Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge, for example, the author recounts his father's experiences during World War II as part of the 551st Parachute Infantry. The unit suffered such enormous casualties during the Battle of the Bulge that it was later disbanded. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote of the book: "Orfalea's account stands as a compelling witness to the consequences of that grim fact." Raymond L. Puffer noted in the Library Journal that the "narrative is enlightened by numerous deft character sketches, vivid flashbacks, and poignant anecdotes."

In The Arab Americans: A History the author, who is a third generation Arab American himself, provides an historical look at Arab Americans via history, memoir, and profiles. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book "a start toward recording the history of an under-documented, influential presence in American society." Writing in the Library Journal, Nader Entessar referred to the book as "eminently clear and well-written."

Orfalea once told CA: "All too fast the butterfly is gilded in the rush for notoriety. As less and less becomes precious, more and more cries out for value. I will leave the interpretation of my work to that stranger passing through a musty bookstore for whom it is meant.

"Poetry that hits home for me attempts to give voice to the voiceless, bears a resistant weight, has known an extended aloneness, and has come back with a glowing stone. I have a deaf cousin who once pointed out the window to a gray landscape and said, 'The rain is talking'—something as beautiful as that.

"My history of Arab Americans, Before the Flames, was a book that I tried to avoid writing. I am a descendant of the first documented Arab immigrant family, a family that came to the United States in 1878. That had centrifugal force, as did embracing a cousin in Damascus and realizing that he was literally wearing my shirt, one our family had sent to the old country for the 'poor people' there. In that moment, the ancestral blood flowed into me like an electric current.

"What has it meant to have my first books published just as I turned forty? It has meant much despair, but more hope; a curious combination of self-doubt and self-assurance; sorrow, for many of those I wrote for have died; gratitude, which should not be distorted by confetti and attention; a receding hairline; and great respect for those making the long haul in the dark with many rejections and few directional lights."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2006, review of The Arab Americans: A History, p. 124.

Library Journal, April 15, 1997, Raymond L. Puffer, review of Messengers of the Lost Battalion: The Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge, p. 96; April 1, 2000, Frank Allen, review of Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry, p. 105; December 1, 2005, Nader Entessar, review of The Arab Americans, p. 147.

New York Times Book Review, July 3, 1988, Andrea Barnet, review of Before the Flames: A Quest for the History of Arab Americans, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, February 17, 1997, review of Messengers of the Lost Battalion, p. 205; November 28, 2005, review of The Arab Americans, p. 38.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2006, review of The Arab Americans.