44 pages • 1 hour read
Moustafa BayoumiHow Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008)
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Afterword Summary
Bayoumi breaks down the current and historic significance of these Arab-American narratives, connecting their stories to Du Bois’s quote, US foreign and domestic policy, and American cultural perception (and representation) of Arabs. He writes, “Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are to blame for the terrorist attacks, but we are responsible for the kind of society we live in” (270), affirming the great disparity between the “anti-terrorist” paranoia toward Arab-Americans and the reality that not one of the intrusive US anti-terrorist policies—including “Special Registration”—“produced a single terrorism conviction” (267).
The Afterword concludes with a Brooklyn block party, where a wide range of social and ethnic groups interact in harmony. The author offers this block party as an example for America’s potential as a country that can and should embrace its diversity.
Afterword Analysis
In his Afterword, Bayoumi deconstructs the ways American society needs to change its perspective toward—and treatment of—Arab-Americans, explaining that the discriminatory policies affected after 9/11 have not protected Americans and instead damaged the lives of so many Arab refuge-seekers.
Amidst his critiques of discriminatory policies, Bayoumi’s Afterword offers a great deal of optimism, not only providing a visual example of positive diversity in action (through the block party), but examining the many positive community efforts exemplified in these immigrant stories:
