Review: Arab in America

Arab in America by Toufic El Rassi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw this weathered graphic novel sitting on the "New Books" rack at the library and picked it up. I'm currently reading Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo, and her experiences in the Middle East have made me curious about the experiences of Arabs and Muslims in regards to the last two decades of warfare. The graphic-novel-meets-memoir is well written and well drawn. This graphic novel presents an American view of Arabs and Muslims that surprises me at the same time that it doesn't. It isn't, because seeing it I realize it's always been there, and yet having it pointed out to me all at the same time makes me realize just how much of it there is.

I'm not a fan of war movies; my mom watched a lot of them when I was growing up, so I feel well-versed in the Anti-Asian sentiments of the older generations, and I took for granted that "the war" would cause a lot of my generation to have an Anti-Arab sentiment. But when you see it all on the same page (well, several pages, there's a lot of it... really Star Wars?) it's scary. I already knew anti-Arab and ant-Muslim sentiment filled so much media space (televised news, newspapers, online news, and op-eds every which way), and as much as I rail on about female minority representation, I didn't notice this. Or, it was so commonplace that I didn't process it. Imagine that the only person in movies or the news that looks like you is "the bad guy". Maybe you can. I'm just learning, at 34.

It was an unexpected boon to see this at the library, and I wish it were required reading in today's high schools. Yea, there are curse words, drug and alcohol use, even a stripper's butt, but it's real life. It's maybe not a powerful political piece, but it's a real view of racist America, from a real American Person of Color (as we now say), that's easy to understand and digest. The conflicts are explained, the sentiments and confusion make sense, and it's, just, eye opening. In high school (1997-2001), the Taliban didn't even register on my radar until they blew up the Buddhas. And I didn't give it another thought until they blew up the Twin Towers. It was horrifying, of course. After that, though, the war was nearly commonplace. Just another day. Because I was a white American, at home, seeing blips about how many Americans were killed today. So little from the other side, or about them, filtered through the media to me. I wish I'd had this book then, or in 2008 when it came out. I wish there was a sequel.

But... I mentioned Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo; and in her story she and her Lebanese husband are in Beirut Lebanon from 2006-2007. Toufic's graphic novel ends when he board a plane to Lebanon in 2006. Maybe they ran into each other, and talked over cups of Arak.

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