Arab American Women Research Articles

Experiences of gender among Arab American women: A qualitative study.

Even within counseling psychology's multicultural literature, attention to persons of Arab descent remains limited. Despite counseling psychologists' goal of becoming more multiculturally proficient, the dearth of systematic empirical research on the counseling of Arab Americans is glaring. This exploratory consensual qualitative research (CQR) investigation analyzed interview data from 11 Arab American women to explore their experiences at the intersections of ethnic identity and gender. In addition to describing a need to be hyperaware and responsive to societal and familial expectations, participants reported believing that they did not fit American society's view of Arab American women. They also conveyed feelings of invisibility and invalidation due to racial ambiguity, and lack of census recognition. The findings affirm the need to increase psychological focus on Arab American women to facilitate the multiculturally competent practice of counseling psychologists working with this population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Carrying the Burden of a Culture: Bargaining With Patriarchy and the Gendered Reputation of Arab American Women

This article analyzes how Arab American women understand cultural expectations that govern their lives and bodies, as they grapple with tension between U.S. and Arab cultural narratives. Using data from 20 in-depth interviews with second-generation Arab American women, this study shows how they draw on traditional familial narratives of honor and reputation, (re)interpret acculturation into the United States, and bargain with patriarchy to (re)shape their views on gender, family, and community. Reputation is embedded in everyday language; their narratives unmask fears of scandal when they cross boundaries based on rigid gender expectations about sexual activity, marriage, and divorce. As immigrant women experience new pathways to navigate U.S. and Arab culture, new attitudes toward gender may reshape normative expectations toward gender and family. Grounded in the lived experiences of Arab American women, this study extends scholarship on gendered expectations within the family and community, challenging the cultural policing of women.

An Exploration of Coping with Childhood Sexual Abuse in Arab American Women

ABSTRACTThis research used a descriptive qualitative approach to explore coping with childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and to identify long-term psychological outcomes among Arab American women. Ten Arab American women participated in the study. Data were collected by individual semi-structured interviews and analyzed using content analysis. Five categories emerged for CSA experience among the participants: CSA characteristics, social support, Arabic culture, coping, and long-term psychological outcomes. Most of the women had experienced familial and contact CSA . and had disclosed their CSA and received different reactions from family and friends. Arabic cultural values influenced the women’s experience of CSA and their coping strategy, especially regarding the CSA disclosure and seeking mental health services. The women used a spectrum of strategies to cope with their abuse including seeking support, positive reappraisal,,, accepting responsibilities, avoidance and protective coping. All women experienced negative long-term psychological outcomes of CSA such as flashbacks and low self-esteem. Prior to this research, no known studies have explored coping with CSA experience among Arab American women. Thus, this study can be used to inform practice guidelines to minimize the stigma of CSA and to promote help-seeking behavior for Arab American female CSA survivors and their families.

Food as a Means of Defining One's Identity and Culture in Selected Works of Arab-American Women Writers

This research is an attempt to emphasize the connection between food, identity and culture in Arab-American women's writings. Many of the poems and short stories scattered throughout this research describe the ways in which the tastes and thoughts of certain foods arouse nostalgic feelings of cultural roots and thus approve the imminent usefulness and benefits of food as a means of defining the Arab identity and culture in the American melting pot.

Exploring the Experience of Arab American and Arab Immigrant Women With Intimate Partner Violence.

This article describes a study resulting from of a university-community partnership. The faculty of the university and the executive director of local community agency serving the local Arab American and Arab immigrant community had a shared interest in looking at the unique experiences and needs of Arab women survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). This led to a qualitative research project in which 25 Arab American women were interviewed about their experience with IPV. Contextual themes emerged related to cultural context, community response, and survival resilience. Implications for practice and direction for future research are discussed.

Abstract B47: Efficacy of GLI antagonists in triple-negative inflammatory breast cancer 2D and 3D models

Abstract Our objective was to investigate the differential effects of specific GLI1 antagonists in triple-negative inflammatory breast cancer 2D and 3D cell culture systems. Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) accounts for 15% of all breast cancer deaths. IBC is a unique form of locally advanced breast cancer, an aggressive and highly invasive breast cancer having one of the worst clinical outcomes among breast cancers. African-American, American-Indian, and Arab-American women are disproportionately affected by IBC (1-3). Compared to non-IBC, IBC has a higher incidence of the triple-negative (TN) phenotype for which there are few treatment options. There are currently limited strategies for targeting IBC; thus, IBC patients continue to have worse survival outcomes than non-IBC breast cancer patients. GLI1 (glioma-associated oncogene homolog 1), the terminal effector of the hedgehog (Hh) pathway, has emerged as a potential therapeutic target for TN breast cancers including IBC (4). There is overwhelming evidence for GLI1 activation across many tumor types, including aggressive breast cancers, and its importance for tumor progression. Nuclear expression of GLI1 has been shown to be a strong predictor of poor prognosis in pancreatic cancer and brain gliomas and correlates with aggressiveness in basal-like breast cancer. In our studies, we utilized various automated phenotypic and functional assays (5) to examine the efficacy of GLI antagonists with varying mechanism of action for effects on IBC cell proliferation and growth in 2D and 3D cell culture systems. We are also assessing by high-throughput transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) gene expression differences in IBC cell lines after treatment with GLI antagonists. In both our 2D and 3D cell culture systems, TN-IBC cell lines were highly sensitive to two GLI antagonists, JK184 and GANT61. JK184 and GANT61 showed significant but differential effects on TN-IBC cell proliferation, colony formation, cell motility, and spheroid formation. This study was supported in part by Department of Defense award W81WXH-13-1-0141, NIH award P20CA202924, Komen Graduate Training in Disparities Research award GTDR16377604, Developmental Funds from Duke School of Medicine and Duke Cancer Institute (as part of the P30CA014236 and Cancer and Environment Program supported by Mr and Mrs Fred and Alice Stanback P3917733).

Your Liberation Is Bound Up in Mine: Bringing Our Whole Selves to EDU 342

Research Article| April 01 2018 Your Liberation Is Bound Up in Mine: Bringing Our Whole Selves to EDU 342 Kayla C. Elliott; Kayla C. Elliott Florida Atlantic University Kayla C. Elliott is a Black woman, third-generation HBCU alumna, doctoral candidate, and research and teaching assistant at Florida Atlantic University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Leila H. Shatara Leila H. Shatara Florida Atlantic University Leila H. Shatara is a Muslim Arab-American woman. She is currently a doctoral candidate, adjunct instructor, and research assistant at Florida Atlantic University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Women, Gender, and Families of Color (2018) 6 (1): 37–42. https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.6.1.0037 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Kayla C. Elliott, Leila H. Shatara; Your Liberation Is Bound Up in Mine: Bringing Our Whole Selves to EDU 342. Women, Gender, and Families of Color 1 January 2018; 6 (1): 37–42. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.6.1.0037 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressWomen, Gender, and Families of Color Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2018 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Making History Usable: Al-Andalus as a Site of Identity Construction in Arab American Women’s Narratives

Abstract In ethnic literature, the historical and cultural past constantly haunt the present, producing contemporary narratives which emphasize how the heritage plays an essential role in preserving ethnic identity. From a trans-historical perspective, Arab American women’s narratives tend to turn the history of Al-Andalus (Medieval Moorish Spain) into cultural memory as a way of coping with the threats to their existence in the United States, particularly post-9/11, as well as of resisting the hegemonic culture. The aim of this paper is to investigate how Al-Andalus is intended to be seen as a construct of cultural memory and how this site of memory has the power to reshape individual and collective identity.

Depression Among Arab American and Arab Immigrant Women in the United States

The difficult and tense political climate Arab populations are currently facing may be exacerbating mental health issues, reducing forms of social support in friend circles, and decreasing the desire to seek health care. There is room to better understand the mental health needs of Arab women residing in the United States and to develop policies and interventions that keep these women safe and in care. This column reviews two recent studies; the first examines barriers to reporting intimate partner violence and depression among Arab American women and the second highlights stressors and social support for Arab women immigrants throughout their immigration experience.

Cervical Cancer Screening Among Arab Women in the United States: An Integrative Review.

Arab American women are an ethnic minority and immigrant population in the United States with unique and nuanced sociocultural factors that influence preventive health behaviors. The aims of this article are to evaluate and synthesize the existing evidence on cervical cancer screening behaviors, as well as determine factors that influence these behaviors, among Arab American women. . Extensive literature searches were performed using PubMed, CINAHL®, Scopus, Embase, and Cochrane databases; articles published through October 2015 were sought. . Of 17 articles, 14 explicitly identified Arab and/or Muslim women and cervical cancer screening in either the title or the abstract; the remaining three focused on cancer attitudes and behaviors in Arab Americans in general but measured cervical cancer screening. Eleven articles reported different aspects of one intervention. Because of methodologic heterogeneity, the current authors synthesized results narratively. . Key factors influencing cervical cancer screening were identified as the following. Cervical cancer screening rates among Arab American women are comparable to other ethnic minorities and lower than non-Hispanic White women. Findings are inconsistent regarding factors influencing cervical cancer screening behaviors in this underrepresented group. . Significant need exists for more research to better understand cervical cancer prevention behaviors in this group to inform culturally relevant interventions. Healthcare providers play a crucial role in increasing cervical cancer screening awareness and recommendations for Arab American women.

On the Brink: Identity and Language in the Poetry of Arab-American Women

On the BrinkIdentity and Language in the Poetry of Arab-American Women Lubna Safi Almost a decade ago, Al Raida (lit. The Pioneer), a journal based out of the Lebanese American University, published an issue on "Arab Women Writing in English." Among its concerns, the journal hoped to highlight the problem of translating experience into language asking: "How does one translate their experience of Arabness into another language whose signifying capacities will always tend towards distortion?" Whether the language is a European one or British and American English, the particular power dynamics between languages are concerns posed within a post-colonial frame of imperial and non-imperial languages. This struggle to translate experience is illustrated in a quote by Abdelfattah Kilito, a writer of French and Arabic, who cites an ancient source that describes a relationship with the Arabic language in this way: "I defeated her then she defeated me, then I defeated her and she defeated me again" (21). In the struggle between the subject and language this question arises—whether or not language, given its state as an inheritance from previous generations, can bring into articulation an identity when in fact it has an identity of its own. If this encounter with Arabic highlights a tense relationship between the subject and his native language; a struggle that ends with language's victory and the defeat of the speaker, then any relationship with language used as a means to articulate an identity must be one of complete surrender to that language. The question of language's capability to express or articulate poses too broad a scope to attempt in this paper. However, the choice of a writer's language as a mode of identification through writing becomes a significant one when considering bilingual writers. In his semi-autobiographical text, Monolingualism of the Other; or, the Prosthesis of Origin Jacques Derrida proclaims, "I have only one language; it is not mine" (2), a refrain he echoes throughout the rest of this work. At the heart of this contradictory statement stands the question of possessing language. As the foreigner, i.e. colonial subject, who speaks only the master's (or the host's) language, Derrida's dilemma of possessing language becomes a question of bestowing belonging through language, of being allowed access to a group, like a cardholder whose card [End Page 309] proclaims membership in a certain society. For Derrida, language only grants one an identity as a speaker of that language because of language's homogeneity with regards to itself: it is always open to assimilating the other.1 In justifying the refrain posed at the beginning of his book, Derrida qualifies it thus: … a necessity that, however, is there and that works: translation, a translation other than the one spoken about by convention, common sense, and certain doctrinaires of translation. For this double postulation, —We only ever speak one language … (yes, but) —We never speak only one language … is not only the very law of what is called translation. It would also be the law itself as translation. (10) Taking Derrida's text as a starting point for thinking about questions of identity vis-à-vis language, this paper examines the works of three Arab-American women writers within the context of an ambivalent relationship to language embodied through a particular practice of translation. As a foundation for approaching questions of identity, Derrida's text poses the question of translatability, both as a means and mode of understanding the integral problem of identity through and in language. This question of possessing a language—within its connection to an ethnic identity and the ability to translate both the language and an identity associated with that language—is the central metaphor in the poems below by Naomi Shehab Nye, Dima Hilal, and Suheir Hamad. Previous scholarship on Arab-American writers has focused on the negotiation of 'Arabness' within a community-based context, concentrating for example on ethnicity, religion, or within the parameters of reclaiming self-representation in writing. According to Carol Fadda-Conrey, writing, for Arab-American writers, especially post 9/11, "becomes an important tool to establish and practice self-representation, and to dismantle blanket and inaccurate portrayals inherent...

Gender and the Dark Side of the Border in Laila Lalami’s Hope and other Dangerous Pursuits

Abstract Starting from Arab-American women’s narratives, this study explores to what extent hegemonic history excludes and silences female Arab bodies and their relation to sexuality. It will also address the issue of present day migration, as reflected by Moroccan-American author Laila Lalami in her novel Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005).

Glanzmann’s thrombasthenia: Working through cultural barriers

Abstract Glanzmann’s thrombasthenia is a rare autosomal recessive bleeding syndrome characterised by a lack of platelet aggregation. This case study considers a young woman affected by this disease, integrating the role her culture plays in her medical management. Fatima (patient renamed for the purposes of this case study) is a 16-year-old girl with Glanzmann’s thrombasthenia and heterozygous factor XIII deficiency, complicated by menorrhagia and a history of packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusion for symptomatic anemia, with subsequent development of red blood cell (RBC) antibodies. Management has included years of working on hormone control, as well as dealing with the side-effects of such treatment, and starting NovoSeven (Novo Nordisk) recombinant factor VII infusions along with factor XIII replacement (Corifact; CSL Behring) via the use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC), following set-backs related to hormone control. Glanzmann’s thrombasthenia had its first true impact on Fatima at the onset of her menstrual cycle, just prior to the start of her teenage years. Her first menstrual cycle resulted in her admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), where emergency measures were required to save her life. When options to help Fatima began to diminish, Corifact was initiated to correct her factor XIII deficiency, thus allowing the cross-linking of fibrin to form a more stable clot. Fatima is Arab American of Palestinian descent. She has undergone HLA testing and evaluation for bone marrow transplant, however no matches have been identified to date. The family has had another child with intention of saving cord blood, but Fatima’s transplant team has determined that better matches are likely to be found in unrelated donors. Pregnancy for Fatima is very high risk and believed to be life-threatening for her, which plays a very significant role in her life as a young Arab American woman.

A New Intersectional Model to Illuminate the Workplace Discrimination of Arab-American and Muslim Women in the U.S.

Prejudices about Middle Eastern women have created a trend of male-centric approaches to studying Middle Eastern people and societies. Following terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001; increases in stereotyping and prejudices have made these studies more discriminatory in addition to excluding the women that these prejudices impact. In this paper, I examine how changes in the conceptualization of Arab-American identity following the attacks of September 11, 2001 impacted the experience of all Arab Americans and how discrimination models have failed to account for this. I use intersectionality theory, specifically, the works of Kimberle Crenshaw and Rachel E. Luft to argue that discrimination models are faulty because of their focus on men in a sexist system, as well as, their focus on Islam in an Islamophobic era in American history. I review the data and research that has been collected on sexual and ethnic harassment in the workplace, highlighting the absence of Arab-American women in these works as evidence of male-centered study. I argue that an improved discrimination model must use tools of intersectionality such as narratives and decentralize religion in order to demonstrate that cases of discrimination are a racialized gendered problem rather than a cultural problem.

Alternative media, self-representation and Arab-American women

Abstract Arab-American women often find themselves represented in the mainstream media as oppressed victims in need of saving, but what sometimes gets less attention are the ways in which Arab-American women themselves are adding to the media landscape, through poetry, film and other forms. This article offers a textual analysis of artistic interventions circulated by Arab-American women in the media sphere, and supplements the analysis of the content and context of these interventions with individual interviews with the artists involved. It focuses on the poetry of Suheir Hammad and the cinematic interventions of Annemarie Jacir, which I situate as alternative media. I conceptualise alternative media as media content that challenges dominant assumptions and offers stylistic innovations for the purpose of inspiring social change. In addition, I argue that alternative media consist of transforming the existing stock of material into one’s own language in order to promote social justice. The article concludes with remarks regarding the opportunities and the limitations of alternative media in effecting social transformation.

Trickster Humour in Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home: Negotiating Arab American Muslim Female Sexuality

Randa Jarrar’ s A Map of Home (2008), a major contemporary Arab American woman's novel, utilizes trickster humour as a way to resist the ideological manufacture of the Muslim female body propounded by US orientalism, Islamist orthodoxy and secular Arab patriarchy. Current scholarship on A Map of Home has not examined the relationship between humour and contemporary female sexuality. Focusing mostly on authorial tone, this article reads the novel's narrator-protagonist, Nidali Ammar, as a trickster figure, who resists being perceived as a cultural heroine and in doing so disrupts the sacredness of social conventions. The trickster A Map of Home celebrates, and Nidali enacts, prompts readers to laugh at key cultural norms shaping the Muslim female body in post-9/11 US sculpture. This inquiry examines a range of interconnected sexual themes—most notably, ‘proper’ sexual boundaries, orientations and codes of virginity—to illustrate how trickster humour fosters Arab American women's agency.

Performing Transnational Arab American Womanhood: Rosemary Hakim, US Orientalism, and Cold War Diplomacy

Author(s): Koegeler-Abdi, Martina | Abstract: The first Miss Lebanon-America, Rosemary Hakim, landed at Beirut Airport in July 1955 to start a public diplomacy tour. As an American beauty queen from Detroit visiting Lebanon, her parents' homeland, she was greeted enthusiastically by the local press and closely monitored by US government representatives. After her return to the States, she documented her experiences abroad in an unpublished memoir, entitled Arabian Antipodes. However, this 1955 account does not just chronicle her travels. Hakim performs here her own approach to Arab American womanhood. In this essay Koegeler-Abdi contextualizes her narrative performance within the histories of American orientalism, the emerging Cold War, and ethnic beauty pageants to provide a better understanding of the specific intersection in these 1950s hegemonic discourses that framed and enabled her public agency. Her analysis then looks at how Hakim herself strategically cites these discourses in her self-fashioning to claim her own subject position as a white Arab and American woman during the 1950s. She argues that, while most Arab American authors at this time avoid a serious Arab ethnic affiliation, Rosemary Hakim already proudly uses a transnational sense of Arab Americanness to negotiate her own gender and ethnic identity. This is significant because we currently lack a broader historical understanding of Arab American women’s public agency, particularly during the mid-twentieth century. Hakim’s memoir requires us to rethink the history of Arab American women’s strategies of self-representation in ways that acknowledge but are not confined within the terms of conventional orientalist discourses.

Diasporic Voices: Cultural Dislocation and Search for Home in Diana Abu-Jabers’s Arabian Jazz and Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan

his paper is concerned with literary and postcolonial facets of resistance and identity negotiation as concepts through which to approach representations of postcolonial conflicts in contemporary Arab-American women’s writings. These concepts operate at various levels of narratives and open new ways for remembering, narrating, and reading experiences via problematizing the discourses of Arab women’s experiences in diaspora. This paper aims to posit negotiation as a concept of writing and reading which actively engages events, discourses which implies pluralistic conception of social, political, and cultural agency. More specifically, the study explores the ways in which novelists descending from Arab origins, Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby, deploy negotiation and resistance as tools for aesthetic and socio-political engagement in postcolonial narratives to escape hegemonization. It is a reflection on the notion of hybrid identities and varied cultural provenance of non-native writings. Through its negotiated and interdisciplinary approach to narratives of alienation along with multi-consciousness of identity, this paper does not only engage with multiple discourses derived from postcolonial studies. It also intervenes into the conceptions of nation, memory, and accountability.

A Health Profile of Arab Americans in Michigan: A Novel Approach to Using a Hospital Administrative Database

The objectives of this study were to estimate and compare the prevalence of heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, diabetes, nephrosis, flu/pneumonia, hypertension, and atherosclerosis between Arab Americans and whites attending a large, metropolitan hospital system. The sample included 68,047 patients, 18years of age or older, who visited the hospital during 2012. Demographic and disease variables were electronically abstracted. Demographic characteristics were compared between Arab Americans and whites using Chi square tests. Sex specific, age-adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% confidence intervals were estimated for these two groups using a log-binomial regression model. Compared to white men, Arab American men had a higher prevalence of diabetes (PR 1.40, 95% CI 1.29-1.52) and hypertension (PR 1.07, 95% CI 1.04-1.10), and a lower prevalence of chronic lower respiratory disease (PR 0.74, 95% CI 0.66-0.83). Compared to white women, Arab American women had a higher prevalence of chronic lower respiratory disease (PR 1.12, 95% CI 1.01-1.25), diabetes (PR 1.49, 95% CI 1.38-1.60), influenza/pneumonia (PR 1.26, 95% CI 1.05-1.51) and hypertension (PR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01-1.08). This study supports previous findings that health disparities exist for Arab Americans, who are classified as "white" in health statistics. Standard inclusion of Arab American as a separate ethnicity category will aid researchers in assessing the health care needs of this growing minority community.

Arab American Housing Discrimination, Ethnic Competition, and the Contact Hypothesis

This study uses a field experiment to study bias against living with Arab American women, a group whose position in the U.S. race system remains uncertain. We developed fictitious female white and Arab American identities and used the audit method to respond to 560 roommate-wanted advertisements in four metro areas: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Houston. To focus on social—rather than purely economic—biases, all responses identified the sender as college-educated and employed and were written in grammatically correct English. We compare the number of replies received, finding that Arab-origin names receive about 40 percent fewer replies. We then model variation in discrimination rates by proximity to mosques, geographic concentration of mosques, and the percentage of Arabs living in a census tract so as to test ethnic competition theory and the contact hypothesis. In Los Angeles and New York, greater discrimination occurred in neighborhoods with the highest concentration of mosques.