Arab World Immigration

T he 2000 U.S. Census reported 1.2 million people who claimed ancestry in the Arab world. This figure has doubled since 1980, when the census reported 610,000 Arab Americans. In 1990 it reported 860,000. According to the census, Arab Americans represented 4.2 percent of the U.S. population in 2000, but many researchers believe the count is inaccurate and has missed a significant number of Arab Americans. Some researchers and experts place the population at more than 3.5 million. The dramatic rise in population of the Arab Americans is due mainly to high rates of immigration over the last three decades.

The Arab world refers to twenty-one Arab countries. These countries cover vast territories extending from the African shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Arab-Persian Gulf in Asia. The Arab countries are members of the League of Arab States, also known as the Arab League, which was founded in 1945 to strengthen relationships and mediate conflicts among its members. The Arab world is the home of 260 million people. Arabic is the native language of the over-whelming majority (92 percent). In addition to the Arabic language, Arabs have a shared history and cultural heritage that has given rise to their collective cultural, ethnic, and national Arab identity.

Yet, the Arab world is a diverse area with numerous religious and ethnic groups. The majority of Arabs are Muslims, but many Arabs are Christians, and a smaller number are Jews. The Arab world is also home to non-Arab ethnic groups, including the Chaldeans (a Catholic group from Iraq), Assyrians, Kurds, Berbers, and Armenians.

The largest group of Arab Americans in 2000 were people of Lebanese descent, who numbered 440,279 and accounted for 37 percent of the Arab Americans reported in the census. The next two largest groups were of Syrian and Egyptian ancestry, each numbering over 142,800 and accounting for about 12 percent of the Arab American population reported in the census. Palestinian Americans numbered 72,112; people of Jordanian, Iraqi, and Moroccan descent each had populations averaging about 38,000.

Historical background through World War I

Many of the world's oldest civilizations evolved in the Arab world. From 7000b.c.e. it gave rise to the Babylonian Empire, the ancient Egyptian civilization, and the Carthaginian and Phoenician empires. Arabs have one of the world's oldest cultures.

The Countries of the Arab World

The Arab countries in Africa include:

• Mauritania
• Morocco
• Algeria
• Tunisia
• Libya
• Egypt
• Sudan
• Somalia
• Djibouti

The Arab countries in Asia include:

• Syria
• Lebanon
• Iraq
• Jordan
• Palestine
• Saudi Arabia
• Bahrain
• Kuwait
• Oman
• Qatar
• The United Arab Emirates
• Yemen

According to the Muslim faith, by 610c.e. the prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632), a merchant in the city of Mecca, began to receive revelations (truth revealed by God to

Arab World Immigration: Fact Focus

• After World War I (1914–18), despite an agreement the British made with the Arabs promising them an independent nation, the Arab world was divided into the separate nations that exist today. The British and the French took control of many of the new nations.
• During the Great Migration from 1880 to 1924, when twenty million immigrants entered the United States, there were about ninety-five thousand Arabs among them, most from the area known as Greater Syria—present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel.
• In the early migrations at the turn of the century and in the post-1965 migrations, the Lebanese were the largest group of Arabs immigrating to the United States.
• The majority of Arab Americans are Christians. Forty-two percent of Arab Americans in 2000 were Catholics; 23 percent of Arab Americans were Orthodox; 12 percent were Protestant. The number of Muslim Arab Americans is growing; it was 23 percent of the Arab American population in 2000.
• There are two main branches of Islam: Sunni and Shi'a. The division among Muslims occurred shortly after the death of Muhammad in the seventh century. The Sunnis believed that the successor should be chosen through an election. The Shi'a believed that the line of succession should be through Muhammad's descendants only.
• Many of the first wave of Arab immigrants did not have a lot of money to buy or rent a store, so some sold goods from house to house and town to town as peddlers. Peddlers traveled through the countryside, selling various goods and wares mainly to housewives.
• Within weeks of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, approximately twelve hundred immigrants were arrested by federal government agents. Most were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. Many were held without charges and without access to attorneys or their families, and many were deported (expelled from the country). None were charged with terrorism.

human beings) from Allah. (Allah is the word for God in Arabic.) These revelations were written down in the Qur'an and became the foundation of Islam, one of the major world religions. (Qur'an is also written Koran; it is the holy book of Islam.) After Muhammad's death in 632, his followers gathered together to select a caliph (the religious and political leader of the Muslim community) to rule.

Arab World Immigration: Words to Know

Alien:

A person living in the United States who is not a citizen of the United States.

Caliph:

The religious and political leader of the Muslim community.

Citizen:

Someone who lives in and participates in a political community or country, who has fulfilled the requirements for citizenship as set out by the government. Citizens can expect certain rights and privileges from their government, such as voting or military defense, and at the same time the government has a right to expect its citizens to obey its laws.

Constitution:

The document that sets out the laws and principals of a nation or state, defining the powers of the various government bodies and the rights of its citizens.

Deportation:

The act of sending an alien out of the country.

Displacement:

Involuntary removal from one's home or nation.

Industrialization:

The historic change from a farm-based economy to an economic system based on the manufacturing of goods and distribution of services on an organized and mass-produced basis.

Labor unions:

Organizations that bring workers together to advance their interests in terms of getting better wages and working conditions.

Mandate:

Territory surrendered after World War I and put under the direct control of a European power.

Migrant labor:

People who move regularly in order to work at temporary jobs.

Mosque:

A temple, or a building used for worship by Muslims.

Nationalist groups:

People who seek to create independent, self-governed nations and eliminate rule over them by foreigners.

Nativism:

Favoring the rights of people who were born in the country over those who have more recently immigrated.

Naturalization:

The process of becoming a citizen.

Prophet:

A person who makes known the revelations he or she has received from God.

Quota:

An assigned proportion.

Qur'an:

also spelled Koran; the holy book of Islam.

Refugee:

The Refugee Act of 1980 defines a refugee as a person who has left the country in which he or she last lived and is unable to return to that country "because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion." Once a person is determined to be a refugee in the United States, he or she is entitled to federal assistance in settling into a home and finding a job, and in getting English-language training, temporary cash loans, and necessary medical services.

Revelation:

Truth revealed by God to human beings.

Terrorist:

A member of a group that uses violence to intimidate the public and the government, usually with a political purpose or a demand in mind.

Visa:

The official endorsement on a passport showing that a person may legally enter the country.

Within one hundred years the Arab Islamic Empire spread westward from Arabia to North Africa, into Spain and Portugal, and eastward into present-day Pakistan. As the Arabs spread out, conquering new territories, they did not force people to convert to the Islam religion or to adopt Arab culture. Under Islamic law, "people of the book" (Jews and Christians) could not be forced to convert. Over time, though, people did convert, and Arabic became the dominant language. For hundreds of years the Arab world experienced a "golden age" in which Arab scholars translated and studied the works of the ancient Greeks and made great advances in astronomy, geometry, and medicine. Arab artists created great works in music, poetry, and painting. Arab architects built beautiful mosques (temples, or buildings used for worship by Muslims) and castles.

By about 950 the Arab world had weakened, due to internal disputes and external enemies. Local rulers frequently broke away from the main government to establish independent political units, and soon the caliphs in Baghdad had lost control over North Africa, Egypt, and much of western Asia. In its weakened state, the Arab world was invaded first by the Christian Crusaders from 1090 to 1291, then by the Mongols (nomadic, or traveling, armies from central Russia) in the 1300s, and finally in 1517 by the Ottoman Empire, which had arisen in present-day Turkey. The Ottomans ruled the Arab world (except for Morocco, which it never conquered)

from the 1500s to the twentieth century. Arabs were the largest ethnic group within the Ottoman Empire, and Islam became one of the major forces holding the empire together. For many years, the Ottoman Empire facilitated the creativity of the golden age of Islam. By 1700, however, corruption and economic problems plagued the empire. In 1830, France conquered Algeria, expanding into Tunisia and Morocco by the early twentieth century. England occupied Egypt and the Sudan starting in 1882. The Ottoman Empire, though too weak to expel the invaders, held on to its rule, though many Arab people were beginning to resist and wished to rule themselves.

In the 1800s Christian missionaries from Europe and the United States established bases throughout the Arab world. They enjoyed close contact with Christian Arabs in Lebanon and Palestine, but very few Muslims converted to Christianity.

World War I and the division of the Arab world

Arab leaders began to organize against both the Ottomans and the Western powers in the nineteenth century. By the time World War I (1914–18) started, there were quite a few nationalist groups (people who sought to make independent, self-governed nations in the Arab world and eliminate the rule by foreigners). The Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the war, but the Arabs living in the Ottoman Empire fought against the Ottomans on the side of the Allies (England, France, Russia, and, ultimately, the United States), hoping to win independence as nations if the Allies won the war.

The British made three conflicting agreements regarding the Arab world during World War I. First, they secretly arranged for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, hoping to weaken their enemy. In exchange, they promised the Arabs an independent nation; the new nation was to include the present-day nations of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Israel. The Arabs agreed and revolted against the Ottomans in 1916. Second, at the same time the British made these arrangements with the Arabs, they made different arrangements with France. The British promised France that after the war the Arab world would be divided between Britain and France, and that France would get Syria and Lebanon as mandates (territory surrendered after World War I and put under the direct control of a European power). Third, the British made an agreement with the Zionists, the Jewish nationalists from all over the world who actively sought to establish a Jewish state (Israel) in Palestine, land that was holy to them. In 1917 the British issued the vaguely worded Balfour Declaration, which seemed to promise British support for the Zionists to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The three conflicting agreements made by Britain have caused problems that last into the present.

Despite the agreement with the British, after World War I the Arabs were not granted independence. Britain and France divided the Arab world into the separate nations that exist today, and the British and French took control of most of them. (For this reason, many Arab Americans whose ancestors immigrated before 1918 do not distinguish themselves by a nationality as much as a region within the Arab world.) The Arabs struggled against the rule imposed on them, and the British and French used military force to defeat the Arab nationalist movements.

In Palestine, Britain maintained direct control. Until World War II (1939–45), Britain tried to balance the conflicting nationalist demands of the Zionists for a Jewish state and the Palestinian demands for an Arab state. As the Jewish population in Palestine increased during the 1930s, the tension between the two groups grew.

The Arab-Israeli conflict

After World War II, Britain and France gradually gave up their empires in the Arab world. The problem of Palestine was handed over to the United Nations. The United Nations, a newly formed international organization devoted to keeping peace and fostering cooperation among nations, recommended that Palestine be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Under the United Nations plan, about 50 percent of Palestine, including the most fertile land, was allotted to the Zionists, who at the time made up about one-third of the population and only owned about 20 percent of the land. The other half of Palestine was to go to the Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinians and other Arabs opposed the division. When the Zionists declared the independent state of Israel in 1948, war immediately broke out.

The Israelis won the 1948 war and added more territory to their holdings. At that time more than eight hundred thousand Palestinians lost their homes and livelihoods. Many escaped and became refugees in surrounding Arab nations. There were more wars between the Arabs and the Israelis in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. The Israelis won these wars. In 1967 Israel occupied all of historic Palestine and parts of Egyptian and Syrian territory as well. These conflicts and upheavals forced many Arabs to emigrate in order to seek jobs and secure homes for their families. Many came to the United States. The conflicts between the Arabs and the Israelis continue today.

Arab American immigration

There has been a small population of Arab Americans throughout U.S. history. Arabs probably accompanied the Spaniards in their explorations of the New World in the fifteenth century. Arabs from Morocco lived in South Carolina in the late 1700s. The first Arabic-language newspaper to be published in the United States, the Kawkab Amirka (The star of America), was founded in 1892 in New York City. By 1895 there were three Arab churches in New York. The first Arab mosque was built in Highland Park, Michigan, in 1923.

During the Great Migration from 1880 to 1924, when twenty million immigrants entered the United States, there were about ninety-five thousand Arabs among them, most from the area known as Greater Syria—present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. A smaller number of Arabs arrived from Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, and Egypt. By 1924, there were about two hundred thousand Arabs living in the United States. In the early part of this migration, most of the Arab immigrants were young men, and many of them planned to return home after earning some money. By 1899 many of the immigrants were families, with a higher percentage of Arab females arriving than occurred in most of the European immigrant groups. Most of the early Arab Americans settled in the northeastern and Midwestern cities, such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. But many took up residence in small towns throughout the country. The large majority of these early immigrants were Christian.

In 1924 Congress passed the National Origins Act, decreasing immigration to a number equivalent to 2 percent of the country's population in 1890. Nationalities were allotted quotas, or assigned proportions, based on how many people from that nation had been in the United States in 1890. The new act slanted the permitted immigration in favor of Western Europe because that was where many Americans in 1890 came from. From 1924 until 1965, many fewer immigrants arrived from the Arab world. (For each Arab country, only one hundred immigrants per year and the wives and children of U.S. citizens were permitted.) Between 1924 and 1965 only Palestinians immigrated to the United States in significant numbers (most immigrated as refugees away from their embattled homeland).

Arab immigration since 1965

After the quota system was eliminated from U.S. immigration rules in 1965, Arabs began to immigrate to the United States in large numbers—an estimated four hundred thousand between 1965 and 1992. The number of Arab Americans doubled between 1980 and 2000.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a team of nineteen terrorists (people who use violence in order to intimidate the public and the government, usually with a political purpose or a demand in mind) hijacked four passenger jets, crashing two into the towers of the World Trade Center buildings in New York and collapsing them, and crashing another jet into the Pentagon Building in Washington, D.C., ripping a seventy-five-foot hole in the U.S. military building's west side. Another jet crashed in Pennsylvania. About three thousand people were killed in these attacks. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi Arabians, and several had been living in the United States for some time as they painstakingly prepared for the attack. The group claiming responsibility for the act was Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is an international terrorist group, with widespread links to many Islamic terrorist or revolutionary organizations worldwide dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments through violence and other means.

There are terrorist organizations all over the world, including the United States, but because Al Qaeda and the Islamic movement have roots in the Middle East (an area that includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Turkey, the Levant, as well as the Arab world), Arab immigrants were immediately targeted for increased inspection as the United States stepped up its antiterrorist measures. Many of the new measures that singled out people of Arab descent were very controversial, and some of the measures are being tested in the court system. Not surprisingly, Arab immigration to the United States slowed down in the aftermath of the attacks. Significant numbers of Arab students already in the United States and other legal residents returned to their homes overseas. Studies have shown, however, that there are still many new applications for immigration from the Arab nations. Growth in the Arab American population due to new immigration is expected to continue.

Lebanese and Syrians

Lebanese and Syrians made up about 80 percent of all ninety-five thousand Arab immigrants during the Great Migration of 1880 to 1924. Although Lebanese and Syrians in the Arab world included Muslims, Druze (a sect of reformed Muslims), and Christians, about 90 percent of the Lebanese and Syrian immigrants coming to the United States at that time were Christian. Most came from an area that was known then as Mount Lebanon, now in the country of Lebanon. Many of these immigrants came to the United States to make money and planned to return to their home. Others came with their families to make a better life, after hearing from friends or family who had migrated before them that there was good money to be made in the United States.

Most Lebanese and Syrian immigrants were engaged in retail trades. Syria and Lebanon had successful silk, lace, linen, and clothing industries, and it was profitable for the immigrants to sell these goods door-to-door. Both men and women worked as peddlers. Over 90 percent of early Lebanese immigrants were peddlers for at least a short time after arriving in the United States. Other Syrian and Lebanese immigrants worked in industry—the textile industry in New England or the iron shops and automobile factories in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit. Because many were successful, they brought their families to the country and settled permanently.

In time, huge Lebanese American trading networks developed. Central suppliers established themselves in various areas of the country, such as Fort Wayne, Indiana. Wholesalers in New York City would purchase large shipments of goods from Lebanon then send them on to the central suppliers. The suppliers would then distribute the goods to individual peddlers to be sold door-to-door. Wholesalers and suppliers sometimes helped Lebanese immigrants pay for their passage to America and find housing once they arrived. The wholesalers and suppliers were generally honest in their dealings with new immigrants, and the immigrants were grateful for the ready employment the traders offered in return.

Since 1965, Lebanon has sent more Arab immigrants to the United States than any other Arab country—91,460 between 1965 and 1992. Lebanese immigration to the United States rose drastically in 1976 and 1977, in large part in response to the civil war that had broken out in Lebanon in 1975. The conflicts leading to the war had originated after World War I, when the French established a system of government in Lebanon that was divided along religious lines. This system of government gave the most power to Lebanon's Christian Maronites, a Christian sect with ties to the French. During the early months of 1975, violence between Maronite Christians and Muslims gradually erupted into a full-scale civil war. At least one hundred thousand people on all sides were killed and some six hundred thousand persons displaced (involuntarily removed from one's home or nation) during the eighteen months of fighting. Many Lebanese immigrated to the United States at the time. Many chose the destination mainly because they had relatives or friends already in the country. In 1978 and 1979 the United States admitted one thousand Lebanese as refugees (people who leave their home country and are unable to return because of fear of persecution).

After the civil war, the economically devastated Lebanon remained unstable, with many different militant groups (aggressive fighters) and Syrian forces occupying various parts of the country. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon, where they targeted the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO; a militant group fighting for the Palestinian refugees) and a Syrian antiaircraft missile base. The Israeli troops then engaged in a long bombing campaign of Lebanese cities and towns, including the capital city of Beirut. The Lebanese estimated their war casualties at more than nineteen thousand dead and thirty thousand wounded, although these figures were disputed by Israel. Lebanon was seriously destabilized by the 1982 war and by Israel's continued occupation. Immigration from Lebanon to the United States at this time skyrocketed. There were many Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon at the time, and the number of Lebanese who immigrated certainly includes many Palestinians.

Syrians are the fifth largest group to immigrate to the United States since 1965, with 43,010 coming between 1965 and 1992. The immigration was slow and steady until the late 1980s, when the job situation in the Gulf states (the oilrich countries bordering on the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman) declined owing to a drop in oil prices and to wars in some of the oil-producing nations. Post–1965 Syrians are generally from two groups: the relatives of earlier Syrian immigrants, and professionals who are seeking better job opportunities in the United States.

Palestinians and Jordanians

Palestinians were the second largest group of Arab immigrants during the Great Migration of 1880 to 1924. They made up about 10 percent of all Arab immigrants. Most were Christians who came to the United States seeking economic improvement; most worked as peddlers when they arrived. The Palestinians tended to settle in East Coast and Midwestern cities. They often sold goods in the newly emerging African American communities in the North.

In 1936, during the slowest years of immigration, the number of Palestinian immigrants exceeded the number of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants for the first time. The British government had ruled Palestine after World War I and assisted large numbers of Jewish immigrants to resettle in Palestine. Most of the arriving Jews were Zionists who hoped to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The British banned Arabs from the lands purchased by Jews, and the Arabs became increasingly angered and concerned about their rights in Palestine. The conflict came to a head in 1936, when the Arab Palestinians went on a six-month national strike to protest. That year saw an influx of Palestinian immigrants to the United States. In 1948 the State of Israel was declared, and eight hundred thousand Palestinians became refugees, most fleeing to neighboring countries. A majority of these Palestinians and their children are still refugees today.

In 1953 the U.S. Congress passed the Refugee Relief Act, the first American immigration law to mention refugees as a specific type of immigrant. Under this law, 2,000 Palestinian refugees were to be admitted to the United States that year. The law was extended in 1957 and 985 Palestinians were admitted to the United States as refugees between 1958 and 1963.

Palestinians and Jordanians were the second largest groups of Arab immigrants in the years after 1965. It is not possible to accurately count the number of Palestinians coming in, because many came in with Jordanian passports and were registered as Jordanians. From 1965 to 1992, 80,921 Jordanians and Palestinians entered the United States. It is estimated that about 65,000 of them were Palestinians. Many Jordanian immigrants to the United States were seeking new economic or career opportunities.

Although many Palestinians became refugees when the State of Israel was established, it should be noted that most Palestinians did not flock to the United States during the Arab-Israeli conflicts. Many were and still are fiercely determined to remain on their land. Palestinian and Jordanian immigration was fairly stable from 1965 until 1988, when the migration began to rise. This was probably due to renewed violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but it was also due to the devaluation of the Jordanian currency and decreasing opportunities for good jobs in the oil-rich Arab Gulf countries. A major drop in oil prices in 1985 and 1986 tightened budgets and eliminated many of the previously abundant high-paying jobs connected with the oil industry. Some Palestinian immigrants were students who came over to study in American schools. Most planned to go back to oil-industry jobs in the Arab Gulf countries. In the 1980s when the opportunities in the Gulf decreased, many decided to stay in the United States.

A majority of the Palestinian immigrants of the 1965 to present-day period are relatives of the early Palestinian immigrants—Palestinian Christians and Muslims from Jerusalem and the West Bank. The West Bank is a part of what used to be Palestine, named for its location on the west bank of the Jordan River. Between 1948 and 1967 the West Bank was under Jordanian rule, which is why most Palestinians carried Jordanian passports. The West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967, when Jordan lost it in a war with Israel.

Other Arab immigrants

Egyptians. Few Egyptians immigrated to the United States before 1965, but they were the third largest group of Arabs to immigrate after 1965. From 1965 to 1992, 80,884 Egyptians immigrated to the United States. They tend to be highly educated professionals, including doctors, dentists, lawyers, scientists, and professors. Most have brought their families with them to the United States. A large number are Coptic Christians (following an ancient Egyptian rite), some are Protestants, and many others are Muslims. Many Egyptian immigrants obtain visas (official endorsements on passports showing that a person may legally enter the country) to live and work in the United States because they have special professional skills that the United States seeks.

Yemenis. Living in a country with a very long coastline on the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, Yemenis have for hundreds of years traveled and settled in nearly every country of the world. Early Yemeni immigrants to the United States were men who arrived on ships, looking to improve their economic status, often not knowing that the United States was to be their destination. There were only about four thousand

Turkish Americans

Turks are not Arabs but they share a large segment of history with many Arab countries since they were at the center of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey lies partly in Europe and partly in Asia and has historically served as a bridge between the two continents. Turkey is slightly larger than the state of Texas but has three times its population. The population of the country is almost entirely Muslim.

Turks have inhabited the area that is modern Turkey since the eleventh century when the Seljuk Turks, the ancestors of today's Turks, won control of the region. By the fifteenth century, Turkish culture and the Turkish language had spread throughout the area. Power peaked under the Ottoman Turks, who overtook the area in 1453, and for a few centuries the vast Ottoman Empire thrived.

After World War I (1914–18), the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and its territory was divided among the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Greece. The Turks wanted to re-establish their homeland, and were led by Mustafa Kemal (1880–1938; later known as Atatürk) in a successful nationalist uprising. Atatürk helped form a nonreligious, democratic republic in 1923. Over the next fifteen years, until his death in 1938, Atatürk built the modern Turkish nation.

A first wave of Turkish immigration to the United States occurred between 1900 and 1921. There was no nation called Turkey at that time, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) recorded almost everyone entering the country from the Ottoman Empire as Turks, which was the name of the ethnic group that had settled in the area that is now Turkey. Exact numbers of Turkish immigrants are difficult to determine, but it is estimated that about 50,000 Muslim Turks of the Ottoman Empire arrived in that period. Most were males from eastern Anatolian (a large part of Asian Turkey) cities with little education. The primary reason for the mass migration was the pursuit of money, because of the political and economic instability in the Turks' homelands, particularly during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the building of a new nation. Almost all of them came with the intention of making money in the United States and then returning home to Turkey. Most—perhaps as many as 95 percent—did return to Turkey.

When they arrived in the United States, the Turks worked mainly in industrial jobs in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest, in leather factories, steel mills, and the auto industry. The young men tended to live in tight-knit communities near their work, many staying in boarding houses with their coworkers. They were, for the most part, young bachelors. Few Turkish women came to the United States in this first wave. Since these young men intended to go back to Turkey, they had little reason to assimilate (blend into the mainstream) and remained highly connected to their homelands, and were particularly loyal to the new, independent nation of Turkey after its foundation in 1923.

Little research has been done on this first wave of Turkish immigrants, but in the early twenty-first century much interest in the subject has arisen. Descendants of those first immigrants, mostly in Turkey, are being interviewed to learn more about the experiences of the first Turkish migration to America. One of the interesting theories coming out of this new research (which is headed by Case Western Reserve University professor John Grabowski and Sedat Isci of Ege University in Izmir, Turkey) is that the Turks who returned to the new nation of Turkey after living and working in the United States brought back with them some of American principles of government, which were put to use in the creation of the modern democratic and secular (not religious in its government) Turkish republic.

There were two more waves of immigration from the nation of Turkey. One occurred in the 1950s and was made up of students and well-educated professionals from Turkey who could supply some of the United States' demand for scientists, doctors, engineers, and technology professionals. Turkish women arrived with this second wave. In 1965, when U.S. immigration policy relaxed, a third wave of Turkish immigration began that continues today. The third wave Turkish immigrants are a very diverse lot, from many different backgrounds and social classes, and there is a balance of women and men among them.

According to the U.S. Census, there were 136,498 persons of Turkish ancestry in the United States in 2000. More than half of the population was foreign-born. The largest concentrations of Turkish Americans were in New York, California, and New Jersey. The majority of Turkish Americans are Muslims. Grabowski notes that they were probably the first large group of Muslim immigrants to the United States. Many Turkish Americans today remain very loyal to Turkey. The celebration of Republic Day on October 29, the anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic, takes place among Turkish Americans across the United States annually.

Yemeni Americans in 1990, but due to a loss of jobs in their homeland after the Gulf War of 1991, the number of Yemenis in the United States tripled in the 1990s.

Iraqis. Most Iraqis did not immigrate in significant numbers until after 1965. After 1965, Iraqis are the fourth largest group of immigrants from the Arab world. From 1965 to 1992, 52,913 people emigrated from Iraq. Until 1980, the Iraqi oil-based economy was flourishing and Iraqi immigration to the United States was low. There was a huge jump in the number of Iraqi immigrants to the United States in 1992, as a result of the first Gulf War of 1991 and the paralyzing economic sanctions—which placed strict limits on what can be sold to Iraq and what Iraq can sell to other countries. These sanctions were, for the most part, still in place at the time of the second war on Iraq in 2003 and had caused many hardships for the Iraqi people. The 2000 U.S. Census reported 90,000 Iraqis living in the United States who were born in Iraq. That figure had doubled since 1990, when 44,916 foreign-born Iraqis were reported.

The Arab American population

Religion

Christianity. The majority of Arab Americans are Christians. Forty-two percent of Arab Americans in 2000 were Catholics of three branches: Roman Catholics, Maronites, and Melkites. The Maronite and Melkite churches are Catholic and accept the pope as the head of their church, but they have religious services in the Arabic language and they continue to practice their own unique cultural rituals. Twenty-three percent of Arab Americans are Orthodox. In 1054c.e. the Eastern Orthodox churches split from the Roman Catholic Church because the Eastern Orthodox churches did not consider the pope to be the supreme authority on moral and spiritual matters. Instead, they decided that decisions affecting their faith should be made by consensus, or agreement, by the church members. Each of the Eastern Orthodox churches, including the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Syrian Orthodox Church, has its own patriarchs, or leaders.

Islam. The number of Muslim Arab Americans is increasing. In 2000, 23 percent of the Arab American population was Muslim. Islam is the religion of the majority of Arabs still living in Arab countries. Like Jews and Christians, Muslims believe in one God. The word for God in Arabic is Allah. Islam means

"submission" and derives from a word meaning "peace." Muslims believe in submission to the will of Allah. In general, Muslims are more familiar with Judaism and Christianity than Jews and Christians are with Islam, because the religion of Islam recognizes all the prophets (people who make known the revelations they have received from God) from Abraham through Jesus. These earlier prophets are mentioned in the Qur'an (also spelled Koran), and Jews and Christians are considered "people of the book." This expression means that Muslims respect the holy books of the Jews and Christians.

The Qur'an provides Muslims with prayers, the history of the prophets, and guidance on spiritual and moral matters. There are two other sources for religious instruction. The Hadith provides the sayings and acts of the prophet Muhammad. The Shari'a is the code of Islamic law. It provides detailed explanations of legal matters, including laws on diet, marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In addition to the rules provided in the Shari'a, there are five commands, or pillars, of Islam, which are Muslim obligations. They are: (1) Shahada: declaration—Muslims must state that there is only one God and that Muhammad is his messenger; (2) Salat: prayers—Islam commands Muslims to recite prayers five times daily at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and nightfall; (3) Zakat: charity—Muslims must give 2.5 percent of their income to those in need; (4) Soum: fasting—every year in Ramadan, the ninth month of the lunar year, Muslims are expected to fast from sunrise to sundown, going without both food and drink; and (5) Hajj: pilgrimage—the annual trip to Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, takes place in the twelfth month of the lunar year and is required of those who are healthy and financially able to make the trek.

There are two main branches of Islam: Sunni and Shi'a. The division among Muslims occurred shortly after the death of Muhammad in the seventh century, when the Muslim community needed a new leader. The Sunnis believed that the new caliph, or successor, should be chosen through an election. The Shi'a believed that the line of succession should be only through Muhammad's descendants. The Shi'a favored Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Ali as his successor. Shi'a caliphs follow that line of descent. Currently Sunni Muslims are the majority, making up about 85 percent of the world's Muslims. Large numbers of Shi'a Muslims live in southern Iraq and Lebanon. Sunni and Shi'a Muslims adhere to the five pillars of Islam, but they have separate mosques and different ceremonial rituals.

One of the least understood branches of Islam is the Druze. The Druze trace their origins back to Cairo, Egypt, where they began as an Islam reform movement in the eleventh century. The movement called for the abolition of slavery and the separation of church and state. The Druze follow the five pillars of Islam and study the Qur'an. They have other manuscripts as well that outline specific Druze commandments and obligations. There are about twenty thousand Druze living in the United States, and the largest Druze community is in southern California.

Work

Arab Americans generally came to the United States looking for economic opportunity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the once-prosperous silk trade in the Arab world was declining, causing an economic crisis in parts of Greater Syria (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel). At the same time, the United States was in the process of industrializing (changing from a farm-based economy to an economic system based on the manufacturing of goods and the distribution of services on an organized and mass-produced basis). Factories, coal mines, and other industries were in desperate need of labor. Some companies actively recruited for laborers in the Arab world. Arabs who had already immigrated sent word to the old country that work was available. Arabs put together their savings and boarded ships heading for the United States. Many went immediately to key areas where people they knew had already settled and found jobs: Detroit, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; Wheeling, West Virginia; and other places where Arab immigrant communities were being established.

Many Arab Americans were part of the work force in the key years of industrialization. Arab immigrants were so connected to automotive manufacturing in the Detroit area that Arab communities sprang up right next to the automotive plants. In one instance, the Arab community moved from Highland Park, Michigan, to Dearborn, Michigan, when the Ford automotive plant moved. These workers also assisted in building the nation's labor movement.

Although immigrants may have been initially drawn by the available jobs, not everyone remained in them. Many immigrants entered into business for themselves as soon as they were able. Since many Arab immigrants did not have a lot of money to buy or rent a store, some took to the road to sell goods from house to house and town to town. This practice was known as peddling. Peddlers traveled through the countryside, selling various goods and wares mainly to housewives. Generally taking their wares to rural villages where the local stores did not carry everything their customers needed, peddlers would often walk several miles every day. Eventually they might save the money for a horse and buggy.

A whole industry arose out of peddling, in which Arab suppliers would set up bases in certain towns along the peddling routes that served as supply stations and resting points for tired peddlers. Some Arabs ran inns at which peddlers

could stay for a few days as they rested and bought additional items to sell. Gradually, as peddlers were able to save more money, some were able to give up the road and open grocery stores and produce stands. This was a major turning point in the lives of the Arab immigrants. Until they invested in a store, these Arab immigrants—primarily men who had left their families in the old country—worked on their own. When they made money, they would send much of it back home. But when they bought a store of their own, they usually sent for their families. The whole family often worked together in the store. Many stores were also residences for the family; they lived in rooms either in the back or upstairs.

Wherever Arab immigrants found themselves, they were able to fit into the environment. Some immigrants who landed along the U.S.–Mexico border opened specialty stores catering to Mexicans and Mexican Americans. In the Southwest, Arab Americans sold Native American jewelry and crafts. In California, Yemeni Americans found work in the agricultural industry.

The second wave of immigrants from the Arab world who started coming in the 1960s has had the advantage of being able to join the already established Arab American communities in the United States. In many cases the second-wave immigrants arrive with more education and skills than the first and can establish themselves more quickly. But many challenges remain. Professionals, like teachers, doctors, and lawyers, often cannot practice in the United States without first going back to school for U.S. certificates and degrees. Some have faced job discrimination. And many of the immigrants today are from the war-torn countries like Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq and have the difficulty of coping with trauma and grief while adjusting to the new country.

Like the earlier immigrants, many recent immigrants from Arab countries start their own retail businesses. Peddling is no longer an option, so many use family resources and savings to set up a small business as soon as they arrive in the country. Many of the second- and third-generation Arab Americans become educated and move on to professional positions, while new immigrants fill their vacancies in manual labor and store ownership.

According to the U.S. Census, Arab Americans have been economically successful in the United States. In 2000 about 64 percent of Arab American adults were in the labor force and 5 percent were unemployed. Seventy-three percent of working Arab Americans hold positions in managerial, professional, technical, sales, or administrative fields. Only 12 percent of Arab Americans work in service jobs (lower-paying jobs such as food preparation and office cleaning), less than half of the overall rate of Americans in service jobs. The median income (the income level that is midway between high and low income levels) for Arab American households in 1999 was $47,000, compared with $42,000 for all households in the United States. About 30 percent of Arab Americans have a household income that exceeds $75,000 per year—the rate for Americans overall at that income was 22 percent.

Education

About 82 percent of Arab Americans have a high school diploma or higher degree, which is close to the national average. About 36 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher, which is considerably above the national average of 24 percent. Fifteen percent have graduate degrees.

In addition to public schooling, some Muslim Arab Americans attend private Islamic schools. These schools teach standard subjects like the public schools, but they also provide classes in Arabic language and promote a sense of cultural and religious identity among their Muslim students. Learning, prayer, and discipline are emphasized. The most important text, which the students must learn by heart, is the Qur'an. Some Arab American students attend public schools during the week and go to Islamic school on weekends.

In general, Islamic schools in the United States are places in which the more established Muslim Arab American families can preserve culture and religious roots. So too can newly arrived immigrants find a community to aid them as they adjust to American life.

The Hijab and the Kaffiyeh

Arab American women sometimes cover their heads with a head scarf called a hijab. The hijab is mainly worn by Muslim women, but many Christian Arab American women also wear head scarves. It is common among Arab Americans of every religion to dress modestly, as many believe dressing so shows that one has strong morals. Part of this modesty is shown by covering up rather than showing off the body. Some people believe that Arab women are not required either by religion or by their culture to cover their heads; others believe it is mandatory for a respectable Muslim woman to wear the hijab because there is reference to it in the Qur'an. The hijab means different things to different women. Many Arab American girls start wearing the hijab while quite young. Some are no doubt pressured into wearing the hijab by their families, but others wear it with pride as an expression of their heritage. Many Arab American men wear a kaffiyeh, a checked cloth worn on their heads. Kaffiyehs are traditional to Arab culture but they do not have religious meaning. Like the hijab, they are often worn to express pride in the Arab culture.

Discrimination and civil rights

Arab Americans have faced negative stereotyping (an overly simplified and usually prejudiced mental image) as well as political and legal discrimination in the United States. Many Arab American organizations such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) have been active in fighting discrimination. In the early twenty-first century, with emotions running high after the September 11 attacks and the U.S. war on Iraq, their efforts were called upon more heavily than ever and appear to have made a tremendous difference in educating the American public.

Arab American stereotyping goes back to the role that Rudolph Valentino (1895–1926) played in the 1921 film The Sheik. This started the Hollywood trend of portraying Arabs as desert nomads leading camels around, visiting harems, and watching women belly dance. These images have little to do with the real Arab world, but since many Americans were not familiar with anything else, they seemed to stick. Later Hollywood stereotypes are more threatening, portraying Arabs as terrorists. Films like True Lies, Rules of Engagement, and The Siege portray Arabs hijacking airplanes and threatening the United States with bombs. Unfortunately, the news media perpetuates the image by using the word "terrorist" more often in reference to acts of violence committed by Arabs and Muslims than to those committed by other groups.

Since the late 1970s there has been an increase in hate crimes (personal attacks based on ethnic prejudice) against Arab Americans. In 1995, a federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing 168 people. Almost immediately the nation jumped to the conclusion that Arabs or Muslims were responsible for the violence. (Two years earlier, a similar bombing to the federal building had been carried out by Muslim terrorists who detonated a car bomb in the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring one hundred more. A blind cleric who preached in Brooklyn, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, was convicted of masterminding the 1993 plot to destroy the World Trade Center.) When the Oklahoma City federal building bombing occurred, Arab Americans across the nation became the victims of harassment. Two hundred hate crimes were reported within days of the event. The bombing was quickly attributed to white American terrorists, not Arabs. Surges of hate crimes continue to occur with world events such as the U.S. bombing of Libya in the 1980s and the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the onset of the war

on Iraq in 2003 were no exception. After the 9-11 attacks, there were physical attacks on Americans of many ancestries—Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs, and South Asian. Even Hispanic Americans were mistaken for Arabs and harassed.

One of the issues that most concerns Arab American civil rights groups is that they are discriminated against by law enforcement agencies in the "War against Terrorism." Long before 9-11, Arab Americans suffered disproportionately from airport security policies and immigration proceedings. In the 1980s the Justice Department formulated a contingency plan for the mass arrest of Middle Eastern residents of the United States in the event of an unspecified national emergency. They were to be held in prison camps in Louisiana and Florida prior to deportation.

In 1996 Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. This act gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI; a federal law enforcement agency) expanded surveillance powers (permission to spy) over the legal and peaceful activities of immigrant communities and organizations. It allowed for the deportation of noncitizens on the grounds of suspected links to organizations abroad that the U.S. government has designated as terrorist organizations.

Arab Americans are also concerned about laws that permit the use of "secret evidence" used to deport immigrants. Both the 1996 Antiterrorism Act and a 1996 Immigration Bill allow for the use of secret evidence. When secret evidence is used, defendants cannot defend themselves since they do not know what they are accused of doing.

Some of the worst fears about these acts came into the foreground after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Within weeks of the attacks, approximately twelve hundred immigrants were arrested by federal government agents as part of an antiterrorist campaign. Most were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. Many were held without charges and without access to attorneys or their families. Many were deported. None were charged with terrorism. Thousands of Arab and other Middle Eastern and Muslim immigrants were interrogated by the FBI for no other apparent reason than their place of birth. Most of these immigrants were Arab and Muslim college students. Many returned to their home countries soon after the interrogations, in the middle of the school term, alarmed by the way they were being treated in the United States.

The USA PATRIOT Act ("Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism") was signed by President George W. Bush (1946–) six weeks after the terrorist attacks. Among many other things, the bill called for tightened provisions for screening and restricting immigrants. It granted sweeping new powers to federal police agencies and permitted indefinite detention (holding in prison) of immigrants and aliens (people living in the country who are not citizens) in the country for minor immigration status violations. In 2004 civil liberties groups as well as Arab American organizations were plaintiffs (people starting a legal action) in a lawsuit that targets Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. The section provides that law enforcement officials do not have to show probable cause that a crime has been committed if they say the information is relevant to their investigation into terrorism.

In 2002 the new antiterrorist Homeland Security Department required the annual registration of temporary male immigrants from twenty-four predominantly Arab or Muslim countries as well as North Korea. The nations are as follows: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The government stated that this registration requirement was an effort to protect the United States from terrorists. Of the 83,519 people who registered with immigration officials in 2002, 13,799 were put in deportation proceedings. Others complained of terrifying or humiliating interrogations and harsh conditions. Immigrant and civil liberties groups protested the policy. The next year the Homeland Security Department added more nations to the list of temporary male immigrants in the United States who are required to undergo the special registration with the government. Young males from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and Kuwait were added to the list of those required to register.

Anti-Arab discrimination at airports existed long before September 11. After TWA Flight 800 mysteriously crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1996, the Federal Aviation Administration put a profiling system into effect in airports. (Profiling is an investigative technique in which law enforcers determine possible characteristics of a would-be offender even before a crime has taken place.) The profiling system specifies the characteristics of persons most likely to commit an act of terrorism. Several airline manuals listed ethnic factors: Arab names, birth in an Arab country, and travel to or from an Arab country. The effect of the profiling system has been that Arab Americans and other Middle Easterners are commonly singled out for scrutiny—or inspection—in airport check-in lines. This scrutiny often involves a humiliating process of questioning, interrogation (more intense formal questioning), and intrusive searches. Since September 11, there have been many cases of people of Middle Eastern descent being removed from flights for no other reason than their ethnic background.

The 9-11 attacks evoked an extremely strong reaction since it happened on American soil. People were able to see firsthand the destruction that was caused by the attackers and the country as a whole had profound emotional reactions to

the events of that day. They were unsure about how to separate their pained, and often angry, feelings towards the people in Arab countries who had violently killed so many Americans from the people who came from those countries and lived in America. Because the attacks were done by men who had been living as Arab Americans for a long time in the United States, many Americans felt vulnerable and looked upon all Arab Americans with distrust, uncertainty, and fear. Unfortunately much of the fear turned to prejudice, discrimination, and racist acts against Arab Americans.

Ignorance about Arab Americans in the United States remains a serious problem and a challenge, but many American people understand that the acts of a few people have nothing whatsoever to do with Arabs, Muslims, or Arab Americans as a whole. When news of hate crimes toward Arab Americans arose, many Americans reached out to express their concern for the Arab American community. After 9-11 President Bush urged the nation to "be mindful of Arab Americans who live in New York City, who love their flag just as much as [we] do" (as quoted in the Arab American Institute's Healing the Nation: The Arab American Experience). Arab American organizations were ready with programs in place to educate Americans about Arabs and Muslims. The Arab American community contributed generously to the relief efforts after the attacks. Today, in the troubled atmosphere of the war with Iraq and the ongoing violence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Arab Americans are finding a strong voice and gathering political momentum, using their growing voting powers to gain fair representation in the U.S. government.

Arab American culture

Musical events: The Hafla and Mahrajan

By about the 1930s, Arab American community groups began to organize music parties and festivals for which they hired professional musicians. Live music performances became the focus of two events in the Arab American community: the hafla (plural haflat), a cross between a concert and a party; and the mahrajan (plural mahrajanat), an outdoor festival that could last for three days, involving hundreds, sometimes thousands, of participants.

In the early 1930s, the hafla was held in a church hall for one hundred to two hundred people. The idea behind the hafla was to celebrate a community event, raise funds for a good cause, or just to have a fun gathering. Later, as the community grew and the haflat became more popular, they were held in hotel ballrooms that could accommodate larger groups of one thousand to fifteen hundred people. Gradually the hafla evolved into a formal musical event during which the community gathered to listen to live performances of Syrian, Egyptian, and Lebanese music and to enjoy skits, poetry, and the speeches of clergymen and community leaders. The hafla brought the community together to raise funds for needy families in the United States or back home and for building Arab American institutions such as churches, mosques, and community organizations. The hafla became an important institution in the life of the community as well as provided Arab American musicians a venue in which they could perform.

The musical groups that performed included singers (both male and female) and men who played the 'oud (an Arab stringed instrument, a forerunner of the guitar), the qanum (a seventy-two-stringed flat wooden instrument), the riqq (a fancy tambourine with heavy brass cymbals), the violin, and the derbekeh (a vase-shaped ceramic drum). To please their audiences, musicians would plan their programs to include a little of everything: village songs and music for group folk dancing, traditional urban music, and music for modern dancing for the younger folks.

The mahrajan, or community festival, started as a church picnic, where musicians would play, people would dance, and the older folks would tell stories to the young. Eventually the mahrajan grew into a three-day event sponsored by churches or Arab American organizations. These were grand events that people traveled hundreds, or even thousands, of miles to attend. With time, however, the mahrajan became too large and too much of a financial gamble for those who planned and promoted them. The last large-scale, outdoor mahrajan was held in the mid-1970s.

Contemporary Arab American literature

Unlike Arab American writers of the earlier generation who came almost entirely from Lebanon and Syria, contemporary Arab American writers can trace their heritage to any of the countries of the Arab world, and some have a parent or grandparent from a non-Arab background. They are concerned, as the earlier generation was, with bridging the gap between the land of their ancestors and the United States. The writing of today's authors, however, presents a more realistic picture of the United States. Whereas the early writers tended to portray the United States only as a land of freedom and opportunity, contemporary writers depict it as a place where poverty, racism, and injustice exist alongside economic opportunity and social freedom.

The contemporary Arab American writers are often critical of the role the United States has played in the political events of the Arab world. This includes the United States' financial and military support of the state of Israel. The war on Iraq in 1991 drew their attention, as did the war on Iraq in 2003. Arab American writers frequently focus on the anti-Arab sentiments that emerge during the times of political crises involving the United States and the Arab world.

But writings of Arab Americans are also full of positive images associated with being Arab: food, gardens, close-knit families, music, and dancing. Many of the autobiographical writings contain humorous stories about the difficulties of finding a balance between being Arab and being American: the embarrassment at having one's father stop the car along the highway to pray, or at showing up at school with falafel in pita bread (fried balls of ground chickpeas in thin flatbread) when everyone else is eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In recent times, Joseph Gehan (1944–) published Through and Through: Toledo Stories (1990), a book of short stories that portray the lives of three generations of a Lebanese American family. Raymond Hanania (1953–) authored the 1996 work I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist, a book of essays that contains humorous accounts of growing up Palestinian American in Chicago. Hanania believes in a peaceful solution to the conflict between the Jews and the Palestinians and uses humor to get his message across.

Before the Flames (1988) by Gregory Orfalea (1949–) describes one hundred years of Arab American history through personal stories and research about Arab Americans across the United States. At an Arab American writer's conference in 2002, Orfalea remarked that the surge of anti-Arab sentiment that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks had deeply affected, and outraged, Arab American writers. He criticized other American writers who have perpetuated Arab stereotypes and hoped for writing that avoids the simple typecasting of ethnic and national groups and aspires to the truth. "I think all of us have been just so stirred up … so set upon and upset and frustrated and angry and mortified. Is this what we're being identified with? The collapse of two huge buildings in New York and the death of thousands of people? Is this what we have to answer for?" (as quoted in a U.S. Department of State bulletin of April 24, 2003).

Diane Abu-Jabar (1959–) is the author of Arabian Jazz (1993). The novel centers on a Jordanian American family in upstate New York and the struggles that occur for people who are part of both the Arab culture and the American culture. Shaw Dallal (1934–), a Palestinian American, wrote the novel Scattered Like Seeds (1998), a semiautobiographical account of a Palestinian uprooted from his homeland by the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ramadan

Ramadan is the month in which Muslims believe that the prophet Muhammad received his first revelation from God in the form of the Qur'an. Ramadan is considered the holiest month for all Muslims. During Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to fast from sunrise to sunset, abstaining from eating, drinking, and smoking during that time. In this month, devout Muslims spend more time on spiritual activities, such as going to the mosque, praying, and reciting the Qur'an. Ramadan is also a month of peace, forgiveness, and giving.

Although Ramadan is a holy month, it is also a festive one. For some children, the rules of discipline are bent a little—they can stay up longer, visit their friends, and go shopping. Ramadan is also a month in which the extended family, neighbors, and friends get together to break the fast.

The last day of Ramadan is called the Waqfa. During the Waqfa, people prepare for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr (the holiday of breaking the fast) by cooking, cleaning, and doing last-minute shopping for clothes and food. Eid al-Fitr is a feast that lasts three days. It is a happy occasion for which families dress up in new clothes and exchange gifts. After attending the mosque, the three days are filled with visits to family and friends, lots of food, and homemade ka'ak and ma'moul (date and nut cookies). In some Arab countries, such as Yemen, children start the Eid by going around the neighborhood collecting candy, money, and gifts—similar to what Americans do on Halloween. In the United States it is difficult for Yemeni American children to do this unless they live in a neighborhood that has other Yemeni Americans familiar with the custom.

Some favorite food dishes prepared for holidays by Arab Americans are:

• Tabbouleh: a salad of chopped parsley and tomato mixed with cracked wheat.
• Shish kabob: lamb or beef barbecued on skewers.
• Hummus: a dip made from garbanzo beans (chickpeas).
• Kibbeh: a meatball made from ground lamb and cracked wheat.
• Stuffed grape leaves: grape leaves stuffed with either rice and ground lamb or rice and chopped vegetables.

For More Information

Books

Ashabranner, Brent. An Ancient Heritage: The Arab-American Minority. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

Haiek, Joseph R. Arab-American Almanac. 4th ed. Glendale, CA: News Circle Publishing House, 1992.

Naff, Alixa. The Arab Americans. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.

Web Sites

Arab American Institute. Healing the Nation: The Arab American Experience After September 11. September 4, 2002. http://www.allied-media.com/911%20report.pdf (accessed on March 3, 2004).

Kurata, Philip. "Arab American Writers Discuss Efforts to Fight Prejudice: Symposium on Arab Novel Held at Georgetown University."U.S. Department of State: Internal Education Programs.http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/02042414.htm (accessed on March 3, 2004).

"100 Questions and Answers About Arab Americans: A Journalist's Guide." Detroit Free Press.http://www.freep.com/jobspage/arabs/ (accessed on March 3, 2004).