Diaspora and Multiculturalism in Reconstructing the Cultural Identity of Arabs in America

Abdalwahid Abbas Noman

Abstract


Diaspora and multiculturalism have been playing an important role in reconstructing the cultural identity of Arab immigrants in America. This paper attempts to highlight the roots, values and beliefs of Arab culture and explores how Arabs understand their culture and identity. The significance of the study is to draw attention to the original culture of Arabs and understanding the religious, cultural and social influences on the lives of Arabs in America. It attempts to take a deep dive into their culture, daily life, customs and traditions and highlights the issues that negatively cause the cultural perplexity among Arab-Americans from a socio-political perspective. Additionally, it sheds light on the history of the Arab immigration to the United States and hardly brings together essential efforts to present an important description of Arab culture for the reader, mainly for those who are non-Arabs, to know more about Arabs. Moreover, another focus of this study is to bring a space for an Arab culture in the multicultural communities and have a closer scrutiny on the historical background of Arab-American culture and identity. Finally, the paper aims at focusing on a role made by the western hegemonic discourse in redefining Arabs and their culture in America.


Keywords


Diaspora; Multiculturalism; Arab-American; Arab culture; Hegemonic discourse

Full Text:

PDF

References


__ (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage.

__ (1980). The question of Palestine. New York: Vintage.

__(2000). Reflections on exile and other essays. Harvard University Press.

__. (2005). Arab families: An overview. Ethnicity and family therapy. M. Agnew, Vijay. Diaspora, Memory and Identity: A Search for Home. Toronto. U of Toronto.

__. (2017). Arab Americans: An Integral Part of American Society (1st ed.) Dearborn: Arab American Museum. Web. 31 Mar. 2017. goo.gl/kkVl28

__. (2017, Mar 31). Arab world. En.wikipedia.org. N.p. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_world

__. (2000). Place, age, and culture: Community living and ethnic identity among Lebanese American adolescents. Small Group Research, 31(4), 447-469.

“Cambridge Dictionary | Free English Dictionary, Translations and Thesaurus.” Cambridge Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/diaspoa

“Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics” - State of Palestine. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/site/512/default.aspx?tabID=512&lang=en&ItemID=1111&mid=3171&wversion=Staging

“Refugee crisis: Where are all these people coming from and why?” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/refugee-crisis-where-are-all-these-people-coming-from-and-why-10490425.html

“The Arabs of Brazil” http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200505/the.arabs.of.brazil.htm

“The Holy Quran: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary.” 1991/ 1411H. al-Madinah: King Fahd Holy Quran Printing Complex.

Abdelhady, D. (2014). The sociopolitical history of Arabs in the United States: Assimilation, ethnicity, and global citizenship. Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Arab Americans (pp.17-43). Boston, MA: Springer.

Abudabbeh, N. (1996). Arab Families. In M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano, & J. Pearce (Eds.), Ethnicity and Family Therapy. New York: Guilford.

Ajrouch, K. J. (2004). Gender, race, and symbolic boundaries: Contested spaces of identity among Arab American adolescents. Sociological Perspectives Sociol Perspect, 47(4), 371-391.

Alatas, S. F. (Ed.) (2005). Covering Islam: Challenges & opportunities for media in the global village. Centre for Research on Islamic and Malay Affairs.

Amer, M. M. (2014). Arab American acculturation and ethnic identity across the lifespan: Sociodemographic correlates and psychological outcomes. Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Arab Americans (pp.153-173). Boston, MA: Springer.

Barakat, Halim Isber. (1993). The Arab world: Society, culture, and state. Berkeley: U of California.

Beitin, Ben K., & Aprahamian, M. (2014). Family values and traditions. Biopsychosocial perspectives on Arab Americans (pp.67-88). Boston, MA: Springer.

Budman, C., Lipson, J., & Meleis, A. (1992). The cultural consultant in mental health care: The case of an Arab adolescent. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. “N.p.”.

Cohen, R. (1997). Global Diasporas: An introduction. Seattle: U of Washington.

Dalrymple, T. (2008). Not with a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline. Ivan R. Dee.

Dawud, A. Hand book: “divorce” .13:3 (h.2177,2178).

Hashem, S. (1982). The other homeland: Sanbad journeys with Arab American immigrants in U.S.A.Beirut. Dar Alfaq Al Jadid. (Self-translation)

Kamalipour, Y. R., & Carilli, T. (1998). Distortion of Islam and Muslims. In mass media and education.

Macgregor, D. G., & Godfrey, J. (2011). Arab cultural influences on intertemporal reasoning. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Martiniel, M., & Yun, J. (2002) . Modern society and multiculturalism. Seoul. Hanul.

Mazower, M. (2000). The balkans: From the end of Byzantium to the present day. London: Phoenix.

Moats-Gallagher, Charlotte. (2010). Arab/American relations and human security, post-911 a political narrative inquiry. Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch U.

Naber, N. (2002). Arab San Francisco: On gender, cultural citizenship, and belonging. Davis: University of California.

Najjar, R. (1994). A Palestinian’s struggle with cultural conflicts. Women in cross-cultural transitions (pp.39-44).

Nobles, A. Y., & Sciarra, D. T. (2000). Cultural determinants in the treatment of Arab Americans: A primer for mainstream therapists. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70(2),182-191.

Noman, A., & Asthana, S. (2016). Westernizing Arabian culture between adaptation and resistance: A study in Diana Abu Jaber’s Arabian Jazz. LangLit, 2(3),181-187. Web. 3 Jan. 2018. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1bFkBuNuRivUzdyMktxRFl0MkU/view

Nydell, M. K. (1987). Understanding Arabs: A guide for westerners. Yarmouth, Me.: Intercultural.

PappeÌ, I. (2006). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld.

Phillip Connor in his article “Conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen” http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/10/18/conflicts-in-syria-iraq-and-yemen-lead-to-millions-of-displaced-migrants-in-the-middle-east-since-2005/

Safran, W. (1991). Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 1(1).

Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf.

Salhi, Z. S., & Netton, I. R. (Eds.) (2006). The Arab diaspora: Voices of an anguished scream. Routledge.

Savory, R. (1976). Introduction to Islamic civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Schmidt, A. J. (1997). The menace of multiculturalism: Trojan horse in America. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Suleiman, M. W. (1999). Arabs in America: Building a new future. Philadelphia: Temple UP.

Thiong, O, N. W. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. London: J. Currey.

Wang, H. S. (2013). Arab-Americans: A ‘Growing’ Community. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/05/30/187096445/arab-americans-a-growing-community-but-by-how-much

Watts, D. (2007). Glossary of UK government and politics. Edinburgh University Press.

Young, W. C., & Shami, S. (1997). Anthropological approaches to the Arab family: An introduction. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 1-13.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/10969

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2019 Abdalwahid Abbas Noman

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


Share us to:   


Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/ccc/submission/wizard

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
  • We only use four mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.org

 Articles published in Cross-Cultural Communication are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION Editorial Office

Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail:caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net

Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture