Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists by Michael Malek Najjar (review)

Mental health care among marginalized populations in the United States

Middle Easterners: Sometimes White, Sometimes Not - an article by John TehranianThe Middle Eastern question lies at the heart of the most pressing issues of our time: the war in Iraq and on terrorism, the growing tension between preservation of our national security and protection of our civil rights, and the debate over immigration, assimilation, and our national identity. Yet paradoxically, little attention is focused on our domestic Middle Eastern population and its place in American society. Unlike many other racial minorities in our country, Middle Eastern Americans have faced rising, rather than diminishing, degrees of discrimination over time; a fact highlighted by recent targeted immigration policies, racial profiling, a war on terrorism with a decided racialist bent, and growing rates of job discrimination and hate crime. Oddly enough, however, Middle Eastern Americans are not even considered a minority in official government data. Instead, they are deemed white by law. In Whitewashed , John Tehranian combines his own personal experiences as an Iranian American with an expert’s analysis of current events, legal trends, and critical theory to analyze this bizarre Catch-22 of Middle Eastern racial classification. He explains how American constructions of Middle Eastern racial identity have changed over the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the shift in perceptions of the Middle Easterner from friendly foreigner to enemy alien, a trend accelerated by the tragic events of 9/11. Focusing on the contemporary immigration debate, the war on terrorism, media portrayals of Middle Easterners, and the processes of creating racial stereotypes, Tehranian argues that, despite its many successes, the modern civil rights movement has not done enough to protect the liberties of Middle Eastern Americans. By following how concepts of whiteness have transformed over time, Whitewashed forces readers to rethink and question some of their most deeply held assumptions about race in American society.

Although Americans of Middle Eastern origin—be they of Arab, Turkish, Armenian, Sephardic Jewish, Assyrian, Greek, or Central Asian heritage—comprise one of the fastest growing groups in the United States, their music may seem invisible to the American musical connoisseur. Many of the recordings of Middle Eastern American musicians are produced and distributed within community networks. Walk into an Armenian grocer in Watertown, Massachusetts or into a Lebanese audio-video store in Dearborn, Michigan, and you will find hundreds of hours of music by Middle Eastern Americans for your listening pleasure. Walk into your public library and you may not find a thing. Middle Eastern music made in America is simply not widely available on the major or alternative recording labels to which we habitually turn for our fare of world music.

Where do Christians and Christianity stand in today’s Middle East? How does their situation affect North American Christians and why would their cause be of concern for the latter? What makes partnership and solidarity between Middle Eastern and North American churches of utmost importance? And how can a genuine partnership that would be of mutual benefit be launched in a way that would help Middle Eastern Christians maintain their presence in their homelands and North American Christians contribute to the preservation of their heritage? The article establishes a historical overview of Christianity in the Middle East, as well as an overall picture of the status of Christians in light of the latest developments in the region. In addition, it puts forward practical steps for a more-than-ever vital partnership between Middle Eastern and North American churches in order to face the common challenges, serve the common cause, and save the common Christian heritage—and hence the common future of Christianity.

1856 • Social Forces Volume 84, Number 3 • March 2006 projects and global economic trends battered some classes and created new ones. However, the ideology of each class may vary from one period to the next or from one class faction to the next. For example, Moaddel notes that Islamic modernism was stronger in Egypt than in Iran in the 19th century, despite similarities in the two countries’ social structures. He attributes the difference in part to the smaller cadre of modern-educated Iranians, but primarily to the lack of “discursive pluralism” in Iran. If Christian missionaries had been permitted greater voice in Iran, Moaddel argues, Islamic modernism might have developed to a greater extent (p. 109). For Islamic fundamentalism, Moaddel goes even farther in undermining the relationship between social structure and ideology. In Iran, Moaddel locates fundamentalism in older social classes, the bazaar and the Islamic religious establishment; in Jordan, building on his earlier work on Jordanian exceptionalism, Moaddel associates fundamentalism with the new middle class; in Algeria, he associates it with peasants and the urban poor. All comparative-historical studies of this grand scale, including Moaddel’s and Wuthnow’s, are vulnerable to questions about representativeness: to what extent are the conclusions a product of the selection of cases? For Moaddel’s book, how well does the argument apply to other Islamic societies? Ottoman Turkey, for example, experienced Islamic modernism similar to Egypt and North India, but it seems difficult to apply Moaddel’s logic and attribute the pluralism of the Islamic modernist ideology to the pluralism of the Ottoman religious establishment. Or perhaps, unlike Moaddel’s argument for other Islamic modernists, the Ottoman movement targeted the Ottoman state more than the institutions of civil society, in which case the Ottoman state reforms of the mid-19th century might indeed have provided an inspiration for the opposition’s pluralism. The challenge in such an approach is to characterize the essence of an episode of discourse while doing justice to the variety of ideological currents within it, as well as variation over the course of the episode. Moaddel’s book is a bold attempt to do both. Reviewer: Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Middle Eastern Lives in America By Amir Marvasti and Karyn D. McKinney Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. 171 pages. $60 (cloth); $22.95 (paper) This is a perplexing book, as large claims are made for it in the foreword and by the authors, who claim it breaks new ground in laying out Middle Eastern contributions to the development of Western civilization and in portraying the experiences of Middle Eastern Americans. There is no bibliography, but the footnotes show that the authors have failed to consult the substantial literature that exists in both these areas. (Publications on Middle Eastern Americans that have been out for decades are reviewed in my own 2003 publication, Muslims in the United States: the State of Research). Instead, this book’s genesis relies on personal connections (xv-xvi) and the sense of urgency produced by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The authors’ position (p. xxi) is that Middle Eastern Americans “are considered a despised and dangerous minority group,” and the research goal was to “bring to light the history and current experiences of this group with discrimination.” Marvasti and McKinney, sociologists, set out to conduct formal interviews with 20 respondents (14 men and six women). We are not given the interview schedule or any systematic analysis. Nine of the 20 respondents were from Iran, six were from Pakistan, and one from Turkey; only two each from Egypt and Lebanon were Arabs and would fit most definitions of “Middle Eastern.” But these authors define Middle Eastern as “having ancestral

To assess differences in health access and utilization among Middle Eastern American adults by White racial identity and citizenship. Data from the 2011 to 2018 National Health Interview Surveys (N=1013) and survey-weighted logistic regression analyses compare Middle Eastern immigrants by race and citizenship on access and utilization of health care in the United States. White respondents had 71% lower odds of delaying care [adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=0.34; 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.13, 0.71] and 84% lower odds of being rejected by a doctor as a new patient (AOR=0.16; 95% CI=0.03, 0.88) compared to non-White respondents. US citizens had higher odds of visiting the doctor in the past 12 months compared with noncitizens (AOR=1.76; 95% CI=1.25, 2.76). Middle Eastern immigrants who do not identify as White and who are not US citizens are significantly less likely to access and utilize health care compared with those who identify as White and are US citizens. This study shows that racial and citizenship disparities persist among Middle Eastern Americans at a national-level, playing a critical role in access to and use of health care.

In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern peoples create a unique set of problems and tensions that assign specific meanings which must be addressed in combating racism. Included among these tensions is a problematic narrative that claims Middle Eastern peoples are an almost naturally warlike and thus fragmented collective. The problem of disunity results from being created and treated as objects of war. Thus, social recognition, or solidarity, is needed along with systemic recognition. As a more effective means of countering the repetitious practices of subjugation, I plea for a solidarity among Middle Eastern Americans in response to Orientalist-racist scripts that claim disunity and war are the preferred condition of Middle Eastern peoples.

In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern peoples create a unique set of problems and tensions that assign specific meanings which must be addressed in combating racism. Included among these tensions is a problematic narrative that claims Middle Eastern peoples are an almost naturally warlike and thus fragmented collective. The problem of disunity results from being created and treated as objects of war. Thus, social recognition, or solidarity, is needed along with systemic recognition. As a more effective means of countering the repetitious practices of subjugation, I plea for a solidarity among Middle Eastern Americans in response to Orientalist-racist scripts that claim disunity and war are the preferred condition of Middle Eastern peoples.

The Selected Works of Yussef El Guindi

The identity of Americans of Arab or Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent has been relatively understudied within the U.S. racial landscape. Given that the U.S. Census categorizes individuals of MENA descent into the “White” racial category, it is unclear the extent to which Arab/MENA Americans believe they are an ethnic minority in the United States. The current study surveyed 146 individuals of Middle Eastern and North African descent to answer two primary questions: 1) Would you call yourself an Arab or Arab American? 2) Do you consider yourself a minority in the U.S.? Findings indicated that 84% of the current survey participants consider themselves an ethnic minority and 51% are comfortable with the Arab American label. In addition, open ended responses were analyzed to determine the reasons participants answered yes or no to the aforementioned questions. Several themes emerged for each question based on endorsement including the accuracy of the Arab label, and Arab pride, among other themes. In addition, many felt that they were an ethnic minority in the U.S., specifically mentioning experiences with discrimination and lack of representation. Implications of study findings will be discussed.

This chapter addresses the manifold causes for the lack of representation of Middle Easterners and Middle Eastern Americans in American film, television, and theater. It focuses on the three major factors that have led to a paucity of actors in the entertainment industry: these include traditional cultural norms that prevent young people from pursuing a career in the performing arts. academic challenges that result in casting challenges, and, lastly, professional challenges in the field that center on controversial practices such as brownface, Orientalization, and cultural appropriation lead to further marginalization of these actors. This essay utilizes notions such as passing, cultural embodiment, identity sublimation, misrepresentation, and lack of diversity as major elements that further contribute to the difficulties in casting this minority movement.

Comprehensive Arrayed Primer Extension Array for the Detection of 59 Sequence Variants in 15 Conditions Prevalent Among the (Ashkenazi) Jewish Population

This article expounds the nature of Arab American identity through an exploration of discourses and practices related to traveling and movement at global and local levels, with a particular emphasis on personal narratives of both men and women of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Travel is dealt with here in its broad meaning and connotes migratory travel, and immigration. It also indicates traveling back and forth between the homeland and new land. Despite the fact that cross-cultural studies of travel are scant, population movements and transnational migration are currently the focus of broad academic debates and surround such issues as transnational cultural relations, the renovation of migrants' social cosmologies,1 and the dynamics of identity reconstruction (Axel, 2004; Clifford, 1988; Cohn, 1987; Coutin, 2003; el-Aswad, 2004, 2006a; Euben, 2006; Hall, 1990, 1992; Julian, 2004; Kaplan, 1996; Kennedy & Danks, 2001; Mintz, 1998; Tsing, 2000). This inquiry is contingent on ethnographic material gathered from 20 case studies addressing various experiences of Arab Americans living in the community of Dearborn, in the metropolitan Detroit area of Michigan.2 These case studies reveal some important and comparative theoretical insights that help us understand core features of the unity as well as the multiplicity, diversity, and plasticity of Arab American identity. The study concentrates on narratives of personal experience, defined as verbalized, visualized, and/or embodied framings of a sequence of actual or possible life events, through stories, narrations, diaries, memoirs, and letters (Herman & Vervaeck, 2009; Ochs & Capps, 1996). Although personal narratives encompass a wide range of daily experiences, they are prototypes that express people's views of other cultures generated by travel or direct contact. Travel is used here to mean a range of material and spatial practices that generate knowledge, stories, traditions, books, and other cultural expressions (Clifford, 1997; Euben, 2006). Cultures are understood by studying sites of dwelling, the local ground of collective life, and the effects of travel (Clifford, 1997). Travel and migration or Diaspora3 are prototypical rites of passage involving transition in space, territory, and group membership. They transform people's sense of themselves and others. For instance, migrants experience profound changes in their outlook and orientation as they move from the state of belonging to the homeland to that of belonging to the new land, generating a unique sense of multiple identities. The article aims to answer these questions: To what extent have travel and migration of the Arabs transformed their worldviews, including images of themselves, of others, and of new and old homelands? To what extent have these experiences of movement been incorporated into Arab American identities and articulated in their narratives as well? Do they view themselves as having one unified transnational identity, as being "Arab American," or multiple identities? Is there a conflict of having multiple identities and maintaining one encompassing identity? And to what extent can Arab Americans be viewed as cultural mediators or agents bridging the West and the East (the Middle East) as well as the north and the south? These questions are examined within the perspectives and views of both Arab American writers and ordinary Arab immigrants of the Detroit metropolitan area.4

Very little is known about mental health service utilization among Arab and Middle Eastern American (AMEA) college students. We aimed to document AMEA college students’ mental health service utilization behaviors and how known predictors shape this utilization. Using data from the 2015–2020 Healthy Minds Study, we examined self-reported diagnosis of depression or anxiety, lifetime use of therapy/psychotropic medications, and current use of therapy/medications among AMEA and non-AMEA white college students. Survey-weighted logistic regression models were fit with AMEA ethnicity as the main exposure and interaction terms to examine effect modification by religiosity, knowledge, beliefs, and stigma around treatment. Compared to non-AMEA white students, AMEA students had reduced odds of reporting diagnosis of depression (adjusted odds ratio, AOR: 0.84, 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.75, 0.94) or anxiety (AOR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.71, 0.88), of ever attending therapy (AOR: 0.72, 95% CI: 0.65, 0.79), currently attending therapy (AOR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.77, 0.99), and receiving medication for a mental health diagnosis (AOR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.71, 0.88). The relationships between Arab ethnicity and mental health service utilization were modified by religiosity, knowledge, beliefs, and personal stigma about treatment. Better documentation on mental health service utilization in AMEA populations is needed in order to improve prevention efforts and service delivery.

Latinos and Middle Eastern Americans: Work Discrimination