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Arab Museum Author Event to Air on C-SPAN2's Book TV
What does American history look and feel like in the experiences of Arab Americans? In A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories (Free Press; 2009; $25), Syrian American civil rights lawyer Alia Malek weaves the stories of the Arab American community into the story of America, using lively and moving narratives of real people, including several metro Detroit residents, who have lived history all around the country.
Alia Malek will appear at 6 p.m. Thursday, December 10, in the Library & Resource Center at the Arab American National Museum, 13624 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn. The event is free and open to the public. Malek will give a short presentation, read excerpts, take questions and sign copies of her book. A crew from C-SPAN2’s Book TV program will be on hand to record the event for later national broadcast.
Among the book’s metro Detroit subjects are Ron Amen, recently appointed development director for the City of Dearborn Heights; Ahmad Chebbani, chairman of the Dearborn-based American Arab Chamber of Commerce; Amal Berry-Brown of Comerica Bank; and attorneys Michael Berry and Bill Sworn.
MEDIA NOTE: Alia Malek is available for telephone interview prior to her December 10 appearance at the AANM; high-resolution images are also available upon request.
Each chapter of the book corresponds to one historical event as it occurred in the life of one Arab American, allowing readers to live that moment in history in the skin of an individual Arab American. From the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing in 1963 to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Malek introduces an ensemble cast that represents the diversity within Arab America itself.
We meet Luba, the wife of a Palestinian refugee who yearns for her hometown of Ramallah as she tries to establish a new life for herself and her family in the outskirts of Baltimore. We endure Norma Odeh’s horror when her husband Alex, former director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, is murdered for his political stance. Meanwhile, Rabih, a homosexual Arab Muslim in the Midwest, is afraid to be gay in the Arab World and afraid to be Arab in America. And we squirm alongside Lance Corporal Abraham Al-Thaibani in Iraq, where, as the only Arabic-speaking soldier in his unit, he must explain to a young Iraqi mother why her two little girls were blown up on a bridge by U.S. soldiers. Civilians taunt, “You should be ashamed of yourself. You are Arab! You are coming to an Arab country to kill Arabs?”
Malek traces the Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinian Christians who made up the first Great Migration, which began in 1880 and consisted of largely unskilled laborers, who found work in the mines and opened grocery stores in Birmingham, Alabama. She examines the effect of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, when refugees from Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Yemen sought asylum from the political upheaval in their own countries to settle in Detroit and work as employees of the Ford Motor Company. She looks at the politicalization of and discrimination against Arab Americans in the late 1960s and ‘70s, as the country reacts to the energy crisis, PLO terrorism and the Iranian revolution. And of course she explores how the devastation and fallout of 9/11 impacted Arab Americans across the nation.
There are Christians and Muslims; naturalized and native-born citizens; Southerners, Midwesterners, East Coasters, West Coasters and Texans; urban, suburban and rural residents; Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Yemenis; women and men; rich and poor; adults and children; lovers and fighters.
“The purpose is not to separate them out,” says Malek, “but to fold their experience into the mosaic of American history and deepen our understanding of who we Americans are.”
Alia Malek is an author and civil rights lawyer. Born in Baltimore to Syrian immigrant parents, she began her legal career as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. After working in the legal field in the U.S., Lebanon and the West Bank, Malek, who has degrees from Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities, earned her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Her reportage has appeared in Salon, The Columbia Journalism Review, and The New York Times. A Country Called Amreeka is her first book.
“Infectiously readable…This book gives us the faces behind the names, and tells the story of a community that both enriches and embraces the American fabric. A Country Called Amreeka, and the people who inhabit it, are remarkable.”
—Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, author of A Leap of Faith: Memoir of an Unexpected Life
“Engaging and enlightening, impossible to put down.”
—Helen Thomas, columnist for Hearst Newspapers
“An excellent book, one certain to put right some of the wrongs it catalogues.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review, Pick of the Week)
“Written with wit, compassion and insight, [A Country Called Amreeka] is at once timeless, in its telling of immigrants in America, and unique, in its exploration of the diversity of the Arab-American community….a stirring story of humor, loss, love and triumph.”
—Anthony Shadid, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War
“If you’re not an Arab American, then it’s really imperative for you to read this fascinating book…. Alia Malek brings the entire spectrum of Arab America to vivid, three-dimensional life.”
—Samuel G. Freedman, author of Letters to a Young Journalist and Jew vs. Jew
A Country Called Amreeka “should be a textbook across the nation.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi and winner of the 2009 Arab American Book Award for Honeybee
The Arab American National Museum documents, preserves, celebrates and educates the public on the history, life, culture and contributions of Arab Americans. It serves as a resource to enhance knowledge and understanding about Arab Americans and their presence in this country. The Arab American National Museum is a project of ACCESS, a Dearborn, Michigan-based nonprofit human services and cultural organization. Learn more at www.arabamericanmuseum.org and www.accesscommunity.org.
The Arab American National Museum is a proud Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Read about the Affiliations program at http://affiliations.si.edu.
The Museum is located at 13624 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, MI, 48126. Museum hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday, Tuesday; Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission is $6 for adults; $3 for students, seniors and children 6-12; ages 5 and under, free. Call 313.582.2266 for further information.