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Book by Claremont Graduate Teacher a Finalist for Literary Award
Gregory Orfalea believes if Americans understood more about Arab history and culture, the United States might not be in the political situation it is internationally.
“We have to make up a lot of time lost in this country: history we have not taught our young, and the uncritical political alignments we’ve made,” said Orfalea, who teaches writing at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. “There’s been a price we’ve paid for those things.”
Orfalea’s latest book, “Angeleno Days: An Arab American Writer on Family, Place, and Politics,” addresses that gap. The book, a collection of non-fiction essays, was a finalist in the PEN USA literary awards for creative nonfiction. It also won the 2010 Arab American Book Award from the Arab American National Museum in Michigan.
The book reflects both Orfalea’s intelligence and compassion, said author Samantha Dunn, one of the PEN USA judges.
“He has this intelligence that vibrates off the page,” Dunn said. “His work is not cold. He’s not a pure intellectual. You’re very much aware of his compassion, of his understanding of human frailty.”
Orfalea, whose ancestry is Syrian and Lebanese, wrote “Angeleno Days” over about 10 years. Much of that time, he lived in Washington, D.C., where he went to Georgetown University and later taught Arab-American literature.
“I wanted to come home,” he said. “These pieces were my way of coming home.”
The book brings the Arab-American experience into the larger American picture, said Michaela Reaves, a history professor at CLU. That’s especially important since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she said.
“Our tendency is to lump people from the Middle East into one political group,” Reaves said, “and he’s showing it’s much more nuanced than that.”
“Angeleno Days” splits into two sections. In the first, “Los Angeles Memoirs,” Orfalea talks about how growing up in Southern California shaped him. In the second, “Arab America,” he writes about Arab-American literature and politics. Editors suggested he choose one or the other, but Orfalea wanted to address both.
“They imply each other in my life,” he said. “One cannot be dealt with without the other.”
Orfalea’s childhood memories include Sunday trips to visit his grandparents in Los Angeles and Pasadena, days filled with tasty Arab food and stories his uncles told, sometimes over and over while smoking cigars on the porch. Eventually, Orfalea started taking notes.
One essay is about his longtime barber, “The Barber of Tarzana.” Another, “An Act of Forgiveness,” deals with the murder-suicide of his father and sister years ago.
“That one piece took a year,” he said. “But writing that was redemptive for me, and for a lot of people, apparently.”
Orfalea also has written two history books, “The Arab Americans: A History” and “Messengers of the Lost Battalion,” about his father’s battalion that fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. In addition, he has written two collections of poetry.
He now is working on a book about Father Junipero Serra and his work with California Indians.
“I tend to treat intersections of culture,” he said.
Jean Cowden Moore
Ventura County Star