Their Problems are Real

Moustafa Bayoumi has written a WYSIWYG.*

How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, efficiently describes some of the problems faced by seven teens and young adults living in New York in the aftermath of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on US soil.

All US citizens, gainfully employed, good students, and in most cases both, Rasha, Sami, Yasmin, Akram, Lina, Omar, and Rami are presented as being 'normal' Arab-American citizens. And for all I know, they are. In my admittedly white-bread world, I'm very unaware of what life is like behind a dark complexion and the Quaran. That's exactly why I wanted to read it.

I stumbled at first. The writing is a bit clunky here, the grammar out of sync there. I wanted the prose to sing! Succinctly! Alas, Bayoumi isn't Barbara Kingsolver. (Sigh. No one is.) But the writing really didn't get in the way of the story - er, stories.

How Does It Feel... is seven truly separate stories; although the characters share some common ground, it's surprisingly little. Bayoumi's choice of subjects and his ability to paint a very rich and deep, living, breathing portrait of each in a relatively few pages (less than 40 pages each) is the basis for the book's success.

These are far more than snapshots or shotgun introductions, denser than slice of life vignettes, and at the same time, the sections left me both satisfied that I "knew" the subject and still I wanted to know each one better.

I felt that each one is owed a sincere apology from someone - something - in our country. ("The Government" is the easy whipping boy; it's also a perfectly absurd target.) I'm also pretty darned sure none of Bayoumi's subjects will bear significant scars or remain "down" because of the pressures and prejudices applied to these Arab Americans.

From Rasha, the high school student who was jailed along with her family in May 2002, to Sami, who was traveling with a busload of other young Marines when he heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center, the folks we meet in How Does It Feel To Be A Problem are strong, smart, serious, young people I'm extremely proud to call Americans.

Perhaps only this author, who was born in Switzerland, raised in Canada, and currently lives in New York, could have enough detachment and the necessary understanding to write this book this way.

To Bayoumi's great credit, the book is not a condemnation of the United States, its government, or any of its white bread citizens. (Whew.) Nor is it a look through rose-colored glasses. It is what it is: "a wholly revealing portrait of a community that lives next door and yet a world away."

Bayoumi writes in the book's forward that he "developed a great deal of optimism through its writing." Reading it, I believe my emotions were equal parts fascination (I am more ignorant than I thought!) exasperation (THIS is America?!) depression (that's terrible!) and wonder (human beings are truly amazing).

So while the book left me with no overriding emotion, it certainly left me changed. I believe my mind has been pried open a bit...and I hope it will remain that way.

I'm certain, at least, that I can forgive the occasional clunky sentence.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = =HIGHLY RECOMMENDED= = = = = = =

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*My all-time favorite acronym: What You See Is What You Get.