Nadine Naber Arab American Feminities

Arab American Femininities: Beyond Arab Virgin/ American(ized) Whore Author(s): Nadine Naber Reviewed work(s): Source: Feminist
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Arab American
Femininities:
Beyond Arab Virgin/ American(ized)Whore
Nadine Naber
Itwas a typical weeknight
at my parents' home. My father was asleep
since he wakes up at 4:00 a.m. to open his convenience store in down town San Francisco. I joined my mother on the couch and we searched for something interesting towatch on TV. My mother held the remote control, flipping through the stations. Station after station a similar pic ture of an Anglo American male and female holding one another in romantic or sexual ways appeared on the screen. As she flipped the sta tion, my mother remarked, "Sleep, Slept . .. Sleep, Slept . .. THAT is America!" She continued, "Al sex al hum, zay shurb al mai [Sex for them is as easy as drinking water]." -Nadine Naber, journal entry, December 2, 1999 A s I L I ST EN ED to my mother,' within a bicultural Amerikan (Americans) terms. It was worth were often I recalled several experiences familial and communal referred to in derogatory morally bankrupt,
growing up context. Al
Arab American
sexualized and not referred to Similarly,
the trash culture-degenerate,
investing
in. Al Arab (Arabs), on the other hand, were
positively throughout
and associated with Arab family values and hospitality. the period of my ethnographic family and community
Feminist Studies 32, no. 87
research among middle-class in San Francisco,

2006). C 2006 by Nadine
Arab American
networks
1 (Spring
Cal
Naber
88
NadineNaber
ifornia,2 between ality circumscribed
January 1999 and August the ways my
2001, the theme of female sexu imagined and con
research participants
tested culture, identity, and belonging. The theme of female sexuality

tended to be utilized as part of some Arab immigrant families' selective
assimilation strategy inwhich the preservation of Arab cultural identity were simultaneously and assimilation toAmerican norms of "whiteness"
desired. Within gendered daughter's nify cultural this strategy, the ideal of reproducing and disproportionately cultural identity was A and sexualized placed on daughters.
rejection of an idealized notion loss and thereby negate
of Arab womanhood
could sig this
her potential
as capital within
family strategy.In policingArabAmerican femininities, this family strate

gy deployed a cultural nationalist logic that represented the categories "Arab" and "American" in oppositional terms, such as "good Arab girls" vs.
whore." I "bad virgin"vs. "American(ized) American(ized) girls,"or "Arab

coin the term Arab cultural within Arab histories re-authenticity to contextualize assimilation, this process and racial of transnational migration, re-authenticity, I suggest,
ization. Arab cultural unspoken
is a localized, spoken, and that emerges as a
figure of an imagined the pressures and men.
"true" Arab culture
reaction or an alternative U.S. nationalism, nationalism rate media tion of Arab women
to the universalizing of assimilation,
tendencies
of hegemonic racializa (white) U.S.
and the gendered
I use the term hegemonic
to refer to the official discourses and the notion of a universalized
of the U.S. state and corpo abstract American sexualized, citizen and
that "at the same time systematically racialized bodies and particularistic
produces
gendered,
claims for recognition
and justice by
minoritized groups."3
This article focuses on the narratives who are specifically struggles feminist, activists who of three of the thirty interviewees or supported Arab have worked within and Iraq),
homeland American ments.
(i.e., Palestine
radical Arab of color hegemonic provides
and Arab
queer Arab, and/or women on the margins cultural of both
feminist move U.S. nation a rich site from that cir
Their
location
alisms and Arab American which to explore dominant
nationalisms on gender
discourses
and sexuality
cumscribeArabAmerican femininities.Their narratives representhistori

cally specific contexts in which the gendered and sexualized discourses of
NadineNaber
89
assimilation,anti-Arabracism,andU.S.Orientalism emerge, aswell as the multiple points atwhich they break down. Counter to dominant colo nialistWestern feminist approaches that highlight "religion" (Islam) as the primary determinant of Arabwomen's identities, this articledemon strates that religion (ChristianorMuslim) alone does not determine the processes by which Arab American femininities are imagined and per formed. Instead, it situates discussions on religious identitywithin the context of intersecting coordinates of power (race, class, nation, and so Moreover, Ido not present theirnar forth) and historical circumstances. ratives as sites from which to universalize the experiences of all Arab American women, but to provide an opportunity to think beyondmis perceptions and stereotypes. I locatemyself in the context of multiple, contradictory loyalties,such asArab daughter, sister,and cousin, anthro pologist, researcher, community activist, and feminist. This location rendered me at once "insider" and "outsider," collaborativelyand individ ually deconstructing, contesting, and often reinforcing the cultural logics that circumscribed my research participants'identities. This article focuses on the tense and often conflictual location of Arab American femininitiesat the intersections of two contradictorydiscourses: Arab cultural re-authenticity and hegemonic U.S. nationalism. I explore theways that the theme of sexuality permeatedmany Arab immigrant with the pressuresof assimilationvis-a-visa seriesof families'engagements
racial and cultural discourses on Arabness a binary of Arabness and Americanness. and Americanness, I argue that when lived
althoughmy research participants(and theirparents)perceived their cul

tural location within
and performed, thisbinary constantly broke down, particularlyalong the linesof race, class,gender, sexuality,religion,and nation. Yet binary terms for expressing the themes of family, gender, and sexuality persisted
throughout complex my field sites as a discursive mechanism that implicate my for explaining more and their par processes research participants
that ispredicated entswithin a desire for a stereotypical"Americanization"

on "Arabness" as the crucial Other. "them" that was gendered A binary cultural logic of "us" and reaction to and sexualized was then a discursive
the complex dichotomies of hegemonic U.S. nationalism that at once pres sure racializedimmigrants to assimilate into awhitened middle-class U.S.
90
NadineNaber
national identity while positioning them outside the boundaries of "Americanness." Both generationswere mutually invested in expressing the two racial-ethnic-nationalcategories (ArabandAmerican) in dichoto
mous terms because it provided a discursive mechanism and assimilation for engaging with Arabness and the processes of immigration in which
Americanness absolutely depend on each other to exist-as opposites and

in unison. My among research is based on intensive thirty second-generation and Christian, interviews and participant between observation
women
the ages of twenty and and
thirty, both Muslim Syrian descent.4 My the 1960s, during
of Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, parents emigrated
research participants' most
to the U.S. in in the
a period of heightened of my
secular Arab nationalism
Arab world. Although
research participants were
raised within
secular families, religious affiliation (Muslim or Christian) er of identity and difference throughout my
was a key mark of my
field sites. Most
research participants ofMuslim descent, for example, explained that

growing of my up they understood Islam as part of their cultural from Christian identity. Most gener research participants who were that they were backgrounds
ally agreed community" Before
raised as "Christian Arabs" or that the "Arab identified with was comprised States, most of my predomi
that their parents to the United involved and war
nantly of Christian Arabs. coming research participants' enterprises who were of colonial or families were either displaced Lebanese traders in small business (i.e., Palestinians
to the San Francisco Bay area as a consequence civil war) or emigrated
ism, neocolonialism,
and Israeli colonization,
and the Lebanese
to the San Francisco Their parents did not
Bay area in the 1960s in search of economic mobility.
integrate into culturally whitened middle-class corporate communities

upon migration, and support but relied on familial and communal buy their own grocery financial networks to eventually and liquor stores. The networks and the
internal pressures of tight-knit, external fostered pressures an often
familial, and communal assimilation, reproduction
of Americanization, reactionary bourgeois
and racism have of Arab cultural
Cultural authorities-including parents, aunts, and uncles aswell identity.

as the leaders of secular and religious community-based institutions-tend
NadineNaber
9I
ed to generate
a socially
conservative
and essentialized
notion
of "Arab
culture" alongside a contradictorydesire for the "Americandream" and assimilationintoAmericanmodes ofwhiteness.

This article, then, is not an analysis of all second-generation icans, but of how locational conditions (especially when Arab Amer to racial it comes
ized,gendered, class, and religious identities) mediate and break down an

imagined California. American among my "Arab" identity in the context of the San Francisco Bay area of within Arab form young It is an exploration discourses on gender research participants, of how binary oppositions and sexuality
take on particular
a group of educated, middle-class,
women active in progressive Arab,Arab feminist,and/orqueerArab politi calmovements whose parents are ethnic entrepreneurs and immigrated,
or were displaced, to the San Francisco Bay area-a traditionally liberal,
racially/ethnically diverse location. Focusing on the narratives of three

young Arab American women, this article highlights the processes by
which discourses of Arab cultural re-authenticity and hegemonic U.S. nationalismpoliceArabAmerican femininitiescircumstantially, depending
on the types of "bad girl" behaviors location. I argue that the phenomena to be controlled within a particular of intersectionality cannot be gener that one must be
alized as taking one singular form for all Arab Americans; cautious about using the terms "ArabAmerican" en" in a U.S. national Arab American ent contexts the policing entrepreneurs the most sense; and that feminist should
or "ArabAmerican wom theory and practice vis-a-vis intersect in differ behind business reproduc to some of and Arab
communities
take the specific ways that the coordi
nates of race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and nation of an Arab daughter's invested in economic cultural behavior mobility
seriously. For example, perhaps part of the motivation among middle-class and the selective is home
tion of patriarchal student movements
ideals is that San Francisco some of the most
vibrant progressive alongside
Arab, queer Arab, Arab feminist, in the nation. transgressive imperialism,
vibrant civil rights, racial In the San Francisco sexual politics, and
justice, feminist, and queer movements Bay area, multiracial critiques of classism, people, coalition building,
capitalism, such as my
U.S.-led
and war heavily who are either
inspire young
research participants,
active in or loyal to progressive politics.
92
NadineNaber
Among my research participants, the performativity of an idealized

"true" Arab culture emerged in the context of "regulatory ideals" that
they associated with "being Arab" and distinguished from the regulatory (shameful); ideals of "beingAmerican," such as: knowing what is 'abe knowing how to give mujamalat (flattery);knowing what you're supposed
to do when someone greets you; drinking shai (tea) or coffee; talking
about politics "sooo" much; getting up for an older person; respecting

your elders; looking people according after your parents and taking care of them; judging through con to what family they are from; marrying
nections; gossiping and having a good reputation.5 Articulations of "selfhood"among my researchparticipantswere key siteswhere the oppositional logic of self/Other,us/them, Arab/American
was reproduced ulated person, being among my research participants. Selfhood was often artic own and in terms of a choice between being an American," "being an individual, being my having family,
or "being connected, distinguished
'Arab."' Yet what
ultimately
"us" from "them," or Al
Arab from Al Amerikan, among my of norms that were sexualized,
research participants was a reiterated set gender specific, and performed in utter
ma bitlaau fil lail" (our girls don't ances such as "banatna the binary daughter, assumption oppositions of good Arab daughter
stay out at night).
within my field sites in between Positioning the feminized subjectivities

vs. bad American(ized) the discourse of Arab demands loses or Arab virgin vs. American(ized) that if a daughter chooses whore,
cultural re-authenticity reproduced amasculinist cultural nationalist

to betray the regulatory of an idealized Arab womanhood, an imagined Arab community
itself to theAmerikan. Jumana, recallingher parents' reinforcementof this distinctionwhile shewas growing up, explains,
My parents thought that being American was spending the night at a friend's house, wearing shorts, the guy-girl thing, wearing make-up, to an American's house, they're smoking, drinking banat[They watch over their daughters]. My research participants (ethno-religious) generally agreed that virginity, marriage were followed by reading teen maga zines, having pictures of guys inmy room. My parents used to tell me, "Ifyou go . .. they offer you this and that. But ifyou go to an Arab house, you don't see asmuch of that. Bi hafzu 'alaal
heterosexual
endogamous
the key de
NadineNaber
93
mands of an idealizedArab womanhood that together, constituted the yardstick that policed female subjectivities in cultural nationalist terms. Here, discoursesaroundArabAmerican femininitiesallow for a cultural, versus territorial,nationalistmale ArabAmerican perspectivewithin the United States that emerges in opposition to hegemonic (white) U.S. nationalism and in the context of immigrantnostalgia.Here, an imagined
notion of "Arab people" or an "Arab community" is inspired, in part, by a
collectivememory of immigrantdisplacement and romantic memories of "home"and "homelandculture."Among middle-class familialand com munal networks in San Francisco,Arab American cultural nationalism was expressed in terms of an imaginedArab community or people that constituted "woman" as virgin or mother vis-a-vis an extended family context.Among ArabAmerican cultural authorities in San Francisco, the idealofmarryingwithin one's kin groupwithin the discourseof Arab cul was refashionedin termsofmarrying within the kin tural re-authenticity groups' religious group (Muslim or Christian); village of origin (Ramallah, Al Salt), economic class, national (Jordanian, Lebanese, Palestinian,or Syrian), or racialized/ethnic(Arab)group. These categories were hierarchical, as "religiousaffiliation"tended to supersede "national origin" and "nationalorigin" superseded "racial/ethnicityidentity"as the
boundary regulatory native to be protected demands through a daughter's marriage. were often the cultural American Although discourses the of Arab womanhood and Americanization, to an appropriate framed as an alter that
to assimilation
controlled a daughter'smarriagability simultaneously enabled a family

strategy of assimilation norm of whiteness
that privileges heterosexual marriage-within particular boundaries of

race and class-as capital.
The following narrativesepitomize the processesbywhich discourseson Arabness andAmericanness shifteddepending on the kinds of power rela
tions that set the stage for a daughter's idealized notions centralizes of femininity within expression and/or transgression of Arab American of a given context. The first narrative
intersections
of race and class in the policing draws attention
The secondnarrativeemphasizes intersectionsof religionand femininities.

sexuality. The third narrative to intersections of
Orientalism and religion.Together, thesenarrativeshighlight threediffer
94
NadineNaber
ent locations along a continuum of gendered experience among my participantsat the intersectionsof raceand class;religionand sex research uality;andOrientalism and religion. In doing so, theypoint to the process bywhich different sociohistorical circumstances produce shifting con structionsof Arabness andAmericanness in general and shiftingconstruc tions of Arab American femininity in particular.Although my research also illustrates thatArab cultural re-authenticity articulatesmasculinity
and femininity as relational and mutually constitutive and implicates mas
culinity in binary terms that are contested, transformed,and often repro duced along the linesof race, class,gender, sexuality, religion,and nation,
an analysis of Arab American masculinities is beyond the scope of this arti
cle. Overall, this article argues for a historically situated, anti-essentialist

approach tional to Arab and Arab American that mediate feminist studies that takes the loca down an "imagined Arab conditions and break
American identity"seriously.
RACE, CLASS, AND THE DOUBLE
LIFE
met at Arabian Nights, one of the few clubs in San Francisco Rime and I where the DJ spins Arabic music. A mutual friend introduced us to one another and told her that Iwas doing research among young Arab Americans. As the DJ mixed hip-hop, reggae, and Arabic beats, Rime . . . the 'Arab'world of [her] to San Francisco that described herself as "living in two worlds we met, she explained
family ... and the 'American' world outside of home." The next time that her parents emigrated from Jordan in the late 1960s in search of economic opportunity, store in one of San Francisco's poor black neighborhoods suing amaster's degree in public health. -Naber, journal entry, June 18, 1999
she was the oldest among five siblings, that her father owned a liquor for the past fifteen years and that she graduated with a BA in nutrition and was per
my parentsdidn'twant me hang EXCERPTS FROM RIME'SORALHISTORY:In hilghschool, ingoutwith my brother's friends because theygot paranoid aboutmy virginityand theydidn't want me hanging outwith my cousins'friends because theywereMexican and black. In high
NadineNaber
95
school, my mom got paranoid about my virginity. My dad used to tellme, "I had a nightmare that my daughterwouldmarry a black man." That was becausemy dad ownsa liquorstore in theTenderloin[neighborhood] and all his life he's been robbed and shotat, and his wife's been
robbed byblacks. He blamed poor black communities situation without understanding for their
it and he couldn'tunderstandthat I had a lotof blackfriends at schooland that blackswere
movements at school. ones outthere supporting Arabstudent always thefirst

I remember whenmy cousingot pregnantwith a guy who was halfMexican and half black. She lied and stayed out of the housefor four years. Her family knew but kept it secret. The couplegot in a big fight and theguy kicked my cousinout and shemoved back toherparents' most despicable thinga girl could everdo in house.She did the Arab culture-and they took her
back.
I was with Roger until recently. He was someone who I thought was total instantlovebut he was moreof my support blanketbecausehewas outsideof the traditional Arab cultural realm. I lived inhis house,and hisparents accepted that100 percent. As far as my parentswere con was always theanxiety aboutgetting caughtfor cerned,I was livingwith my cousin.But there hating being a woman. I would wake up at his house thinking about lying and I internalized my father seeingme with a blackguy. It was pure panic. Roger would touch my skin and be
like, "You're socold."

and I was always reminded Because I was Arab I had to takecareof my family's reputation my parents knewabouthim, but theirattitudewas, "Dowhat you do ... don't let of it. I think anybody find out."Then itwas always myfriends'fault-my American friends-'they're bad." men picked up onme there. And I couldn't workat thefamily store,because "American" When I was graduatingfrom college, I was partying a lot and Ifelt I needed to be more That's why I went back home toJordan. In Jordan, my life completely turned responsible. around.I met Omar.All my life, themessage was that I had tomarry an Arab Christian man. Ifinally met anArab Christianman who I love,and I thoughtthe double life and the lyingcould be resolved. . . butmy parents are not acceptinghim. Before he toldhis family or my family, he askedme to marry him, and traditionally,thatwas wrong. My mom is stuckon that issue.The thing thatwas really bugging her is thathe's a communist and an atheist and against all the traditions. But what they focus on mostly is that . . . "the guy has no money-and you'regoing togo livewith his family." Traditionally if anArab man isgoing toget married he shouldfurnishand opena housefor thegirl and thenget married, notget married and thenworry about thatstuffMy motn keeps
saying "Batlee[stop]. You're not getting It all comes down toourtraditions-hav married."
and thenbeing raisedhere in theUS.... Arab traditions, ing Why does it have to be sodif
96
NadineNaber
ficult? Is it because I'mArab? Is it becauseof my mother?" I'm planning on moving toJordan and marrying him.My parents will get over it.My cousin askedme, "Have you told him about birth control?" And when I said yes, she went a Western crazy and said I was crazyfor tellinghim aboutbirth control.They see him through imageof Arab men. They thinkI'm going togo back therefromthis independent, free spirit to be all theway across theworld in thisbackwardculture, likeI'm going tobe locked up at home rollinggrape leavesall day.He says, "Don'tworry, itwon't be like that." If we get married and I move back toJordan and it doesn'twork, I'll say, I'm going toget New York.I won't evengive thema phone num some milk, but thenI'll get a ticketand go to ber. I'll call themonce amonth-and tell themthatI'm okay.Then I'll go andget all thisfree white CEO womanwho's all alone and has no dom, but I'll be all alone. I'll be another lonely no nothing. 'Causethat's one:has nofamily, no brothers, American culture. what it's like in Sometimes it can all make you crazy becauseyou can't get out. I have somany worlds and everyworld is a whole otherworld. But inyourmind they'retotallyseparated,but then they're Youget toa point that all thereinyourmind together. you are about toexplode.
When
Rime
speaks of living in "two worlds," as though
fixity and singularity
under
write her view of "culture." Rime speaks about "Arab culture" and "Amer ican culture" relations leak."6 Rime's class, which homogeneous ment" of Arab they already existed, transcending puts place, time, and always economic
of power. Yet as Trinh T. Minh-ha family's Christian
it, "categories
religious affiliation and Omar's Omar's position bursts
disqualifies him as a suitable marriage "Arab world." Moreover, and his ironic foreignness in that Omar
partner, disrupt Rime's as a "disappoint the bubble of reflects the instability and have tried to
to Rime's parents cultural Arabness"
re-authenticity
"authentic
that they left in the homeland States. Here, Omar's
recreate in the United
forced presence
in Rime's fami
ly's life exposes the nostalgia underlyingArab cultural re-authenticity for

what it is.
Mexican and black ruptureRime's Similarly, the racializeddistinctions

essentialized argument "American" world. that while Rime These discontinuities drive the present rupture and and difference. At a to marry a Jordanian reproduces a sees herself between "two worlds,"
difference position critical distance man of Christian
her along the two axes of sameness "worlds," Rime decides
from both
descent who
is an atheist. Yet her narrative
NadineNaber
97
behaviors"are signified good girl versus bad girl binary inwhich "bad-girl
by her desire to marry across lines of socioeconomic plan to move she invents class and political to New York alone in affiliation. As she crafts an alternative case the marriage beyond Rime's does not work, of a nostalgic
tactics for transgression
the boundaries
"true" Arab culture. worlds" are not homogeneous or sta
"two (Arab and American) and overlapping
ble, but multiple
in the context of power, history and the
changing intersectionsof class, race,gender, religion,and politics in differ marriage ent locations.Rime implies that the unacceptabilityof interracial mixed-race compounds the virginity ideal. Although prohibitions against
unions are common in the Arab word, Rime's interpretation of her com
munity's prohibitions ismediated by historically based U.S. nationalist

anxiety about interracial marriage. Rime's father's positionality as a liquor
store owner in theTenderloinneighborhood further shaped the racialized and gendered imperatives that policed Rime's sexuality.His nightmare
over his daughter's potential interracial marriage emerges as a threat to securing white middle-class tance from the racial Other norms and implies the forging of a critical dis toward whiteness. Here, "Arab culture" is
invoked as a strategy for harnessingmarkers of middle-class whiteness.

Meanwhile, the regulatory ideal that forbids sex with the United States'
while protectingRime's racialized Other controlsArab daughters' sexuality

family, and an imagined Arab people, class terms. Binaries collapse in that her father's attitude (in his daughter's mind) ty, he is reinforcing States, demonstrating Rime's two worlds from degeneracy of amuch in white middle greater complexity in the context
fits comfortably when
he seems to be speaking in the United and sexualized is disrupted
to Arabness. Yet in fact, in policing Rime's sexuali the fiction of Arab cultural are similarly narrated re-authenticity.
the new identity he has had to develop in gendered
terms and her perception when
of a fixed and stable "Arab culture"
her aunt and uncle take her cousin back after she "got pregnant with and half black." Here, relationship her cousin's parents and illegitimate preg
a guy who was half Mexican
seem to care less about her mixed-race nancy than with presenting al" Arab family. Through house for years; Rime
the public face of an "authentic" or "tradition silence (that is, Rime's cousin staying out of the her cousin) both "traditionalist" parents
living with
98
NadineNaber
daughters aremutually implicated in keeping and their "Americanized"

the idealized notions of Arabness and Americanness active and in opposi the fact tion. These silences allow them to keep the binary intact and mask that at different points the oppositions
threaten to be one and the same.
Although Rime narratesherself as a split subject,her "worlds""inside"

and "outside" (Arab and American) aries between were not discreet. In bed, the bound "inside" and "outside" collapse as her father's disapproving
gaze interrupts the privacy of her boyfriend's bedroom while her boy
friend places his hand on her skin. Rime marrying "an Arab Christian man" or acceptable within interprets the regulatory ideal of render re as the central act that would the discourse
her embraceable
of Arab cultural
authenticity in between two seemingly distinct and homogeneous "Arab"

and "American" worlds. communist terms with duces atheist Yet in learning of Omar's unacceptability class, Rime comes as a to from a different socioeconomic
the heterogeneity
of Arab cultural "Arab cultural
identity. Yet she also repro identity" when she inter or be CEO
the notion
of a normative
prets her reality as a choice between "being another tween lonely white
"having a family and community," Here, Rime's distinction
CEO woman."
"having family and community" critically
and "being a lonely white
woman" represents the reproduction of idealizednotions of selfhood in

the diaspora. As Rime and "American" alienation. receives cultural meanings, she associates
with love, community, cohesiveness, and control "Arab" cultural identity

cultural identity with parents individualism, autonomy, because values, and he Yet as Rime's notion render Omar unacceptable located
lives in the homeland, of a romantic
lacks money, of "cultural
and lacks Christian authenticity"
the fantasy
in the homeland
collapses along the lines of class, religion, and gender.
THE HETEROSEXUAL IMPERATIVE

Waiting for a friend at Caf6Macondo, conversations among Arab women artist was a Syrian American woman in San Francisco's Mission district, activists, I learned that the graffiti named Lulu. Lulu was also the graffiti reading QUEER ARABS EXIST caught my attention. Later, in
coproducer of a special issue of BintAl Nas on the theme of "sexuality." BintAl Nas is a cyber magazine and network for queer Arab women and
NadineNaber
99
as part of this issue, Lulu designed the web art, "Virgin/Whore," where a collage representing herself as "virgin" (represented by drums, pita bread, camels, Allah, a Syrian flag, and a photograph of her family members wearing blindfolds) friend's name written months transforms into a second collage repre
senting her as "whore" (represented by images of dildos next to her girl in Arabic, handcuffs, a blurred image of the pic A few ture that represents her parents, and a photo of Madonna).
later, Lulu and I made plans tomeet at Cafe Flor, a queer hang
out in the Castro district of San Francisco. I recognized Lulu from the tattoo of her girlfriend's name Amina in Arabic script on her arm and the Palestinian flag sewn onto her book bag. We talked about the col lage and she explained, "What I am doing with the two images is show ing how they are dichotomous, or at least they have felt that way, and how really, it has been an either/or situation. Also, I think it's how my mother would see my sexuality: dirty, sinful, dark. The reason for the roll over of images is to show that the two states can't coexist." -Naber, journal entry, December 28, 2000 EXCERPTS FROM ORALHISTORY:I grew upwith this all the time: "Sex is an act LULU'S I fought of love inmarriage. If you're not a virginwhen you get married,you're in trouble." thatall the time.I would askmy mom aboutSyria. I would say, "IfgoodArab women are not Arab men having sexwith?" She having sex andArab men can have sex, thenwho were the would answer, "TheChristianwomen."So theChristianwomenwere thewhores.That is very prevalent inmy family, the Muslim virgin and the Christian whore. The whore is either
American orChristian.
My family is unique becausewe talkedabout sex. My sisterwas really vocal abouthaving and theywere always black,whichwas evenmore of a problem. My parentsare into boyfriends the idea that Arabs are white. I think it'smore of a Syrian-Lebanesething.But I didn't have the sameproblemswith my parents aboutboyfriendsas my sister becauseI knewI was queer since I was thirteen orfourteen. It was when I came outwhen thingseruptedforme. It got to the were asking, "Don'tyou want tohave a boyfriend?" pointwhere they My momwon't comevisitme atmy housebecause she doesn'twant to see thatI livewith a woman. The bottom line ispremarital sex. Lesbian sex doesn't happen becauseArab girls don't havepremarital sex. When I came out, it was like, "That'sfine thatyou're gay-but don't act on it.We don'twant you having sex."Everyday I heard, "Getmarriedwith a guy "And I still get that . . . " We (Arabs) and. . ." suppressit, basically. I said, "I can't do that.
100
NadineNaber
don't do that". . .or "You'retheonlygay Arab in theworld." me It became this thing thateveryone was going tofix me.My uncleswould comeand take out to lunch.They would say, "Let's talk. This doesn't happen in our culture.You've been brainwashedbyAmericans. You've taken toomany feminist classes,you joinedNOW, you hatemen, you have a backlashagainstmen...." societyhas done toourdaughter." When thatwas the reactionI received,I totallydisassociated myselffrom Arabs. Ifelt I couldn'tbe gay andArab. Ifelt thateither I have togo homeand be straightor be totallyout queer Arab networks. andpass as white. But later,Igot a lotof supportfrom One of thefirst people I met was Samah. She was doing some researchand asked if she me. I did it and we both cried. Then I went toa queer Arab women'sgather could interview ing. I was theyoungest one and everyoneknew that I came out a week after I turnedeighteen me. and was kickedout bymy parents fourmonths later. I was the baby. They all supported Over theyears, they've become myfamily. Now my mom tellsme, 'Justgo have sex with a man-maybe you'll change," and I say, "Maybe you should try it with a woman." She keeps finding ways to say I'm too Americanized . .. andwhen I tell her, "Youdon't knowhowmany queerArabs I know." She American born, they'renotArab . . . "or "Theymust be says, "They're American, they're must not be aroundbecause nofatherwould accept his daughter Christian," or "Theirfathers beinggay. Then theychanged their They blamed Western feminism and said I shouldgo toa therapist. mind and said not to go because they don't want it on my hospital records that I am gay-because "You know," theywould say, "After you change-someonemight see on your hospital recordsthatyou were gay." Their ideawas that theydidn't want anyonefinding out "afterI change"and "onceI get married, " thatI had thisdarkpast. Then at thevery end they did try to sendme toa hospital.That was when theshit hit thefan, our biSgfinalfight. I was so strong in defending myself-and they thoughtthat toowas veryAmerican. So it became this thingof like- and theymake it very clear-"You choseyour sexuality over us. Sex ismore importantthanyour family." Which goes back to the tight-knitfamily Arab thing. It's all aboutgroupdynamics. It was like . . . "This iswhat this American
When
Lulu's mother
replaces the "American whore" with
the "Christian
Arab" she reveals the gaps and fissures within
the idea of a unified Arab
American nationalist identityand theways thatArab cultural re-authen ticity shifts depending on sociohistorical circumstances.Lulu'smother's
Nadine Naber
101
Christian" with the classification"Wes associationof the category "Syrian and "Arab ternizedOther" signifies theways that the categories "Islam" ness" have often been conflated throughoutArab history and in several
cases, juxtaposed against the notion of a Christian West. According to her
mother, the Syrian-Muslim self is to be protected from the corrupted, Other. Westernized, Syrian-Christian Intersectionsbetween national origin and racial identificationin Lulu's narrative further complicateArab cultural identity in theUnited States.
Lulu, in remembering explains why her parents did not accept her sister's black is "a Syrian-Lebanese thing." boyfriends, that identifying as white
The Syrian-Lebanese distinction is common within hegemonic Arab

American discourses in San Francisco. Many of my research participants access to agree that Syrian and Lebanese Arab Americans the privileges of middle-class whiteness have had more
compared
to other Arab Ameri like
cans.7 Steering Lulu's sister away from the racial Other, Lulu's mother,
Rime's father, secures awhite middle-class positionality. Yet when it

comes to Lulu's sexuality, the association of Syrians with whiteness is
quickly disrupted as a sexualized,cultural, nationalist logic disassociates

them as "Arabs" from the loose, sexually Other in the name of controlling Lulu's immoral American sexuality. "feminist" In Lulu's narrative, and shifting. As Lulu
then, the Al Arab/Al Amerikan boundary
is permeable
explains, her parents uphold the normative demands of middle-class American whiteness to tame her sister'ssexualitywhile they distinguish
themselves from Al Amerikanwhen it comes to taming Lulu's behaviors. also emerge when a more Lulu's moth symbol of the ideal. Gloria In the case of Lulu's queer iden significant than the "virginity" the ultimate Fissures in Arab cultural tity, a heterosexual Arab virgin/American Anzaldu'a writes, make against re-authenticity aman." becomes boundary
er suggests that Lulu "try sex with imperative whore
"For the lesbian of color,
rebellion she can
against her native culture two moral prohibitions:
is through her sexual behavior. She goes sexuality and homosexuality."8 Lulu's her marginaliza such as her moth she is seen as "un to send her
queerness,
the central marker
of her betrayal, underwrites by cultural authorities to which
tion as traitor-outsider-American
er, her father, and her uncle. The extent acceptable, faulty, damaged," culminate
in her family's attempt
102
NadineNaber
to a hospital
to fix her so that she might ismade
return "straight" home. Here, possible by their inculcation
the and
stance of their conservativism
reproduction of white American middle-class norms, such as "therapy," within the discourse of Arab cultural re-authenticity.Lulu'sparents thus
reinforce Arabness a particular kind of assimilation constituted by the ways and in unison that in the and Americanness operate both as opposites
policing ofArabAmerican femininitiesthroughout my field sites. Inoverriding the virginity ideal with the heterosexual imperative, Lulu's
mother reinforces the control over women's conjugal sexual and marriage practices soci that underlie the heterosexual ideal in Arab and Western
eties. Yet beyond reinforcing a heterosexual imperative,Lulu'smother is also reinforcing family ideals critically inherited from Arab homelands
that are not only conjugal, yond household but include extended terms. kin that are inscribed be to reinstate Lulu's or nuclear In attempting
heterosexuality, Lulu'smother seeks to protect Lulu's father's honor as

well as the family honor of her nuclear and her extended family. in terms of and Moreover, the intervention of Lulu's uncle can be interpreted ideal in the diaspora, lineage members children for female
the refashioning elders remain
of a patrilineal responsible
in which males
(even after mar include aged children
riage) and men includes
are responsible
for providing brothers,
for their families, which and may and the orphaned
their current wives
and underage
parents, unmarried
sisters, younger
of theirbrothers.9
As a form of political ity, Lulu's chosen critique directed against patriarchy and patrilineal family is a sign of her resistance. In the act of choosing ideologies that read
her family, Lulu challenges Arab and Anglo-European blood and heterosexual marriage
ties as the key foundation defined.
of kinship,
demonstrating
that all families are contextually
In undermining
the associationof kinshipwith biology, Lulu overtly performs the social, ideological,political, and historical constructedness of kinship. Yetwhen
she meets Samah and joins queer Arab e-mail split in the coming lists, Lulu finds an alterna together of what she under that and tive to the Arab/American stood
to be her "queer" and her "Arab" identities. Lulu's EXIST is an act in resisting fronts: it undermines
insistence
QUEER ARABS patriarchy
racism, homophobia,
on multiple
the Arab virgin/American
NadineNaber
103
(ized)whore that seeks to controlwomen's sexualitybymarking women who transgressthe heterosexual imperativeof Arab cultural authenticity as "American" and itdisrupts the dualistic logicof hegemonic U.S. nation alist discourses that homogenize and subordinateArabwomen as either veiled victims of misogynist terrorist Arabmen or exotic erotic objects accessible towhite/Westernmale heroes. Yet cultural identity,for Lulu, is more than "separate piecesmerely coming together"-it isa siteof tension, pain, and alienation that isconstantly inmotion. Lulu's narrative signifies the critical inheritanceof the polarization be tweenMuslim and Christian Arabs from the homeland(s) to Arab San Francisco.It exemplifies theways that thispolarization took on local form amongmany bourgeoisArabAmericanMuslims with whom I interacted. Muslim discoursesoften privi Throughoutmy field sites,hegemonicArab legedArabMuslim women as the essence of cultural re-authenticity-as opposed toArabChristianwomen who were often representedaspromis Yet although cultural authorities cuous and therefore, "Americanized." a often deployed religion as framework for policing feminized subjectivi ties throughoutmy field sites, religiousbackground alone did not deter mine the extent towhich my researchparticipantsupheld, reconfigured, ofArab cultural re-authenticity. or transgressed the feminized imperatives who research My participants transgressed"goodgirl"behaviors through dating beforemarriage, interracial,and/or same-sex relationshipswere religiouslydiverse. In addition, religiousaffiliationalone did not determine the extent towhich parents, aunts, or uncles circumscribedtheir daugh ters'behaviorsand identities.
While Lulu explained that her mother deployed her Muslim identity to
reinforce the normative demands of virginity,her parents' self-identifica tion as "white"complexified theirunderstandingof a "normativefeminin
ity." In addition, Lulu stated that her mother deployed a pan-ethnic
when she askedher to suppressher lesbianidentity. "Arab" identity Thus, whore" while the discourse of the "Muslim virgin" and the "Christian policed Lulu's femininity, the "virgin/whore" dichotomy was also consti tuted by a seriesof intersectingand contradictorydiscoursessuch aswhite versus non-white, Arab versusAmerican. The ways that these discourses operated to police femininitiesdepended on the differentways that coor
104
NadineNaber
dinates of race, class, gender, each of my
sexuality, lives.
religion, and nation
intersected
in
research participants'
U.S.
ORIENTALISM
AND THE RELIGIOUS
DIFFERENCE spot
Nicole and I agreed on Kan Zaman in San Francisco as our meeting
since we heard they served argilah[an Arabic water pipe]. Little did we know that on Thursday nights, itwas the place to be for ex-hippie yup pies who enjoy mixing a little humus and a pita with a few drinks before a night of partying on the town. As we walked in, I greeted the owner Yousef, who goes by the name of Joe to his customers, as we watched two Anglo-American women who went by the names of Laila and in a recreated imaginary As daughters of Arab to Amina belly dancing with nose rings and sequined bikini tops. Sitting down on a bed of bright colorful pillows Orient we began our first conversation. Christians, we had parents who
similarly believed that emigration
the United States would mean further distancing themselves from the "backwards, uncivilized, Muslims." Over dinner, we confessed similar stories about our parents' comments about theMuslim Other and pon dered the irony that our immigrant parents view us as "more Arab" than them because we interact with Muslims. For the following three months, Nicole and I continued meeting for dinner as she shared with me her struggles over gender, culture, and identity between and among the boundaries of "Arab"and "American." -Naber, journal entry, August FROM NICOLE'S EXCERPTS ORALHISTORY: One timeI askedmy uncle to sendme an argilah from Lebanon. When it arrived in themail, my mom hid it in the closet and startedflipping out at me. She kept askingwhy herWestern 16, 1999
modern she used all these educated, Lebanese, Christian, civilized, daughter-and adjectives
who theygave theprivilege of having a Western education-wanted togo back and smokean
argilahwhich isa backwards, dirty, horrible, uncivilized Muslim habit.

But when you grow up in theUnited States, all kindsof Arabs end up hanging out with each other and the Muslim Christian thing isn't as big. In college, thebiggestmovementwas thePalestinianmovement. I was involved because itwas anArab thing, even though growing up Lebanese, the Palestinian strugglewasn't driven intoyou as much. In Lebanon, Pales tinians,especially thePalestinianMuslims, were associatedwith being refugees,being radi
Nadine Naber
105
Arab countries. cal politically, and trying to takeoverother when I In college, my ethnicity bloomed. I felt more proud of beingArab-even though would tellpeople I was Arab, theywouldn't believeme becauseI go toparties and drinkand they thoughtthat if you were anArab girl, you had towear a veil andyour parents never let once, when I told someoneI was Arab, they said, "Andyour you do anything. I remember father letyou go to college?" In college,my name andmy lookbecame cool because I was viewed as exotic.All of a sudden,you turnaroundwith dark curly hair and dark lips and you. It's trendy.It'spart of you're the itemof theyear. White men are confident to approach the boy talkwith other boys. This one guy said tome, "I've been with a Sri Lankan, a you Madagascan, a Somali. . . . It's like . . . I was with thisLebanese."People approach because you are thevisionof thisexoticArab womangoddess. My parentswere really liberal aboutguys. I would tell themwhen I had a boyfriend. In college, I starteddating Ben. His mother is a Jewish lesbian. I toldmy father this over the dinner table. He was upset, but he got over it. They accepted him because no one else would my dad'sfamily thathe isChristian. have tofind out abouthismother.We couldhave told Both my parents are Christian, but we were raised atheist. So why this reaction to Mohammed.He's a Palestinian Muslim, Mohammed?After college, I met the loveof my life, meant he is Muslim and how andwe've beendating seriously. My momfreaked out saying that dare I date aMuslim. She went on to say, "Don'tyou know that thereare 15,000 cases of Muslim men and thewomen are in theStates ChristianWesternAmerican womenmarried to Muslim world and thewomen are in the men have takentheirchildrenfromthemto the and the men?" horrible States tryingtoget theirchildren backfrom those She learnedthison 20/20. Then she said, "Wellyou know,ifyou are sleepingwith him, his never stop.She says thathe will forceme to sleep family isgoing tokill you." The stereotypes my hair, or he will marry with him so I will have tomarry him or thathewill make me cover more thanone wife. After afew months she said, "Your father isfreaking out becausepeople in the community are talkingaboutyou. Even his friends inLebanonheardyour are dating a Muslim. He's saying thatyou've ruinedhis reputation." My dad called me and said, "You have to stopdating him rightnow."I toldhim that thisdoesn'tmake sense. I have auntsmar ried to Palestinians. But even thoughLebanese think they'rebetter thanPalestinians, that wasn't the issue.The issuewas that he is Muslim. My dad is acting as if he's experiencing absolutebetrayaland they'relosing theirdaughter to theenemy. What's crazy ismy mom is Armenian and herArmenian parents let hermarrymy dad, an per se, it's that theywant Arab! And my parents are atheists!So it'snot really about religion me tomarry someone Westernized, and LebaneseChristian falls intoWestern. Then there's
io6
NadineNaber
this issueof land. My dad has all this land in the village. He's already discussedwith my brother and [me] what landwe get. And in thefuture, I want tobuild a house on that land.I knowif I marryMohammed my father isgoing todisownme and he won't give me that land. will undo it. But I know thatmy brother My brothertoldme he would give me the land but I know it'shard on him becausehe is alsoworried thathewill get a bad reputationforsanction inghis sister todate a guy that isagainst hisfather'swish. I think my parents are doing all this to saveface. I'll neverforget thee-mailMohammed sentme. It said, "Howgood is it thatwe loveeach other ifwe'regoing toallowOttoman conventionstokill it?" I have tofigure out for myself if I can endurebeing rejectedby my society and excluded from the social glue that keepsme tied tomy rootsand all the networks my of social relations marry him, I will family built here even thoughthey'reso reactionary. If I make thedecision to Can I endurethepain and hardships be cut offfrom my lifeblood. of strugglingagainst society for the sakeoffollowing my heart?But personal happinessextendsway beyond the bond that tiesman towoman. There are other ties . . . betweenan individual and her society,a daughter and hermother, and a girl . . . and the communitythatnurtured her.When I thinkaboutgiv ingupMohammed it's likegiving up one kindof happiness topreserveanother. My family and community'slove has rootsand gives me stability, whereasMuhammed symbolizes risk and daring and revolutionary uncertainty.That's what is causingmy identity crisis.My boundup in the livesof others. life is
Within Nicole's narrative, her peers' Orientalist representation of Arab

women as simultaneously associations veiled victim of Muslim and exotic goddess, men with coupled with the themes of her mother's dirty, horrible, habits with the terms, "backwards,
and uncivilized"
and Muslim
misogyny, illustrate the significanceof Orientalism tomiddle-class U.S. notions of identity andmodernity. Her peers reproduce an Orientalist
logic that renders Arab women tion, or liberation. Her mother, as requiring Western discovery, interven the in aspiring to avoid identification with
Ottoman distinctionsbetweenMuslims and Orientalist's Other, refashions

Christians and Lebanese nationalist distinctions between Lebanese and
Palestinians inOrientalist terms. Here, Ottoman distinctions between

Muslims difference despite Middle and Christians according are rooted in a framework for organizing in Arab social states, to religious the categories categories that persists
the establishment East history,
of nation-states.
(Within
the Ottoman
period of [with mul
"Muslim and non-Muslim"
NadineNaber
107
tiple subgroups] provided the predominant frameworkfor organizing dif ference,and civil rights were assignedand administeredby religioussect or
rite.)'0
At the intersectionsof Orientalism andOttoman frameworksfor orga nizing difference, the termsof Arab cultural re-authenticityshift.Nicole's mother deploys a selective assimilationiststrategy that on the one hand Arab cultural re-authenticityin termsof homeland notions operationalizes of cultural difference,such asOttoman distinctionsbetweenMuslim and Christians,while on the other hand, deploysOrientalist terms that deni grate behaviors and identities that are associatedwith pan-Arabism and This strategydisassociates Arab Christians fromArabMuslims, asso Islam. andwith "modernity," ciatesArab Christianswith the "West" and articu latesa desire formiddle-classU.S. nationalistnotions of identity that affirm that to be "modern"and "American" is to be "Orientalist." Nicole'smother thuspronounces a selectiveassimilationist strategythat reproducesthe sex ual politics of colonial discourse in termsof a rape/rescuefantasyinwhich the figureof the darkArabMuslim male rapistthreatens Western (includ ing WesternizedArabChristianwomen) and sexbetween Muslim men and Christian women can only involve rape."' ForArab Christians, the possibilitiesfor disassociatingthemselves from Orientalism have been made possible in that the "Westerntrope of the Muslim woman" articulated "as the ultimate victim of a timeless patri
archy defined by the barbarism of the Islamic religion, which is in need of
The significanceof Islam civilizing"has permeatedOrientalist discourses.'2 Christian within the refashioningof Orientalism amongNicole's Lebanese family isparticularlyclearwhen Nicole recalls the differencebetween her
parents' response to her ex-boyfriend Ben whose mother was a Jewish les
bian and their response toMohammed. Although Ben'smother's Jewish and lesbian identities can be hidden, or conflated with Western or civilized identity," Mohammed's identitycannot. "American Throughout her narrative,Nicole locates herself in between a seriesof binaries,such asAmerican vs.OrientalizedOther,Western modernity vs. Muslim vs.Christian,Lebanesevs. Palestinian,and indi religiousdiscourse,
vidualism vs. "connectivity."'" While she uses binaries as a coding for articu
latingher strugglebetween differentkinds of happiness,she simultaneous
io8
NadineNaber
ly articulatesher identityat the intersectionsof a constellation of loyalties that aremultiple, contradictory,constantly shifting, and overlapping.As these loyalties intersect, they produce a complex process that implicates
her (and her parents) within a desire for being with the man she loves in
Americanized norms such as freedom, individ the context of stereotypical

ualism, and loneliness, and for maintaining her ties to her family, which are
constituted by themultiple genealogies of Ottoman history,Western Christianmodernity, and U.S. Orientalism,multiculturalism, and racism. and Nicole's narrative thus redraws the boundaries between "Arabness"
"Americanness" binary along multiple axes of power and control; affirms that vs. formulations such as "Arabs" vs. "America," complex celebrations or "Christians"
"Muslims"
are "always more
than the straightjacket of hybridity
of identity that fail to and fic
politics might account
suggest";'4 and counters that essentialist
for the ways
categories, while
constructed
tive, operate
to support hierarchies of privilege and domination
and power
and control.
CONCLUSION Walking my usual down the street between women and men one of San Francisco's and the new dot-com walls. The largest popula yuppies, I did "FOR" in LES the word QUEER to
tions of homeless
skim of graffiti on Cafe Macondo's had been to the wall crossed behind me
BIANS FOR BUSH "EAT." As I turned ARABS marker
out and replaced with to find out whether an arrow, drawn
still EXIST[ed], my that pointed
eyes followed PROBLEMS.
in thick black
to the words QUEER ARABS another message
and was connected
the words, ONE OF MANY Looking ARABS closer, I noticed EXIST
superimposed between
over QUEER the words of the that
in faint blue
ink. A line was drawn
QUEER and ARABS word
and the letter "S"was added to the beginning times before I finally understood
"EXIST." I re-read it several
superimposed
upon QUEER ARABS EXIST, the new message,
in coupling
the words ARABS and SEXIST, implied that ARABS are SEXIST. I thought about my and my research and the resemblance research participants' everyday between the images on the wall Lulu's graffiti "veiled
experiences. While
confronted
the lumping of Arabs into the homogeneous
categories
NadineNaber
IO9
victim" EXIST
or "polygamous reinforced
terrorist,"
the defacement
of QUEER ARABS as Other.
the binary
construction
of "the Arab"
Similarly, while Rime, Lulu, and Nicole ic Arab American articulate complex and U.S. nationalisms nationalisms
burst the boundaries on multiple
of hegemon
fronts, they also re for amore are mu
hegemonic process
in binary terms as a coding
in which
the categories
"Arab" and "American" and in unison,
tually constitutive of immigration,
and exist both as opposites assimilation, glance and racialization.
in the context
As I took another
at ARABS ARE SEXIST, superimposed amuch
over
QUEER ARABS EXIST, I noticed another message, written in black letters in Spanish and English
smaller message
that framed the top right side
of QUEER ARABS EXIST. It read ES ALGO BUENO. IT'SA GOOD THING. -Naber, journal entry, June 2001
Notes to Suad I am Maria Reiker, Minoo Moallem, grateful Joseph, Kent Ono, Ella Ray, Martina for providing me with Andrea Smith, Rabab Abdulhadi, and Evelyn Alsultany invaluable to Iwas Iwould feedback and support while this article. like thank developing especially of Feminist Studies and the anonymous the editorial board members readers for their con to time and effort structive suggestions and the immense seeing this arti they committed I am indebted to each and every person who participated in this project cle in publication. to Eman Lilian Boctor, my mother, and I am grateful and my Desouky, Firyal Naber, the father, Suleiman Naber for their persistent support and encouragement throughout of field research. my period 1. This is not a literal translation, the message of my mother's words. conveys I have edited my research participants' into quotes as of the quote as much This the originality possible. but
Throughout a readable
the rest of this article,
form, maintaining and statements, the order of included process repetitive words cutting rearranging I have also altered names and and simplifying elaborate the narratives, explanations. in order to protect my research participants' privacy. places networks included local chapters of the American Association, Arab Anti-Discrimination the Arab Women's Students the Muslim Students' Solidarity for Justice in Palestine, and the Arab Cultural Center. and the Poetics of In and Ian Boal, "Multicultural Nationalism
2.
These
Committee, Association, 3. Minoo
Moallem
in Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminism, and the State, auguration," and Minoo N.C.: Duke ed. Caren Kaplan, Norma Moallem Alarcon, (Durham, 243-64. Press, University 1999),
110
NadineNaber
4.
I first became nizations Christian Muslim and
acquainted
cultural/artistic and Muslim religious
with my research participants orga by joining community and by attending functions collectives by organized and Arab and Arabic institutions, schools, language
were Palestinian, women research participants groups. Fifteen of the of six were Jordanian, and two were Lebanese. The greater number Syrian, common with women I interviewed of Palestinian descent whom represent a pattern commu "Arab American in what my research participants refer to as San Francisco's in Arab those active in which make Palestinians up the majority among nity," the Levant from affairs. American Nevertheless, immigrants (Lebanon, community to San of early Arab immigrants the majority and Jordan, Palestine, Syria) comprised a the establish networks of Francisco. They developed community through variety associations. These networks have organized ment of a series of clubs and community student seven were of origin in terms of village of origin (i.e., the Ramallah "difference" Club), country or Arab identity (i.e., the Arab the Lebanese American pan-ethnic Association) (i.e., to San Francisco, to their the vari of migration Cultural Center). Due early history com their overall socioeconomic and eties of institutions established, privileges they area from to Arab in the San Francisco and Bay living immigrants refugees pared as Yemen, and Morocco), the term "Arab" or other countries Iraq, Tunisia, (such Levantine Arabs, while either excluding often privileges "Arab American" community
5.
that were reiterated among my research participants "Americanness" that research my ways participants regularly associated and "Arabness" with family and connectivity. and individualism See Trinh T. Min-ha, Woman, Native, ton: Indiana University Press, 1989). my field sites, Palestinian Throughout Syrian and Lebanese Arab Americans factors
marginalizing Here, I use terms
or
"other Arabs." to illustrate with the
freedom
6.
Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism (Blooming tended and Jordanian Arab Americans as more "assimilated" than themselves. to view Several
7.
this "difference." Historically, have produced Syrian and Lebanese emigrated area in the to the San Francisco and Jordanians, Bay early 1900s, before Palestinians in the late 1950s. who first immigrated 8. 9. Borderlands: La Frontera (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), 17. in Arab families in of patrilineality definition Suad Joseph's in the Middle Middle East, ed. East," in Gender and Citizenship in the "Gendering Citizenship Suad Joseph (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 3-32. in the Ottoman and Tolerance "Difference 10. See Aaron Rodrigue, Empire: Interview by ed. Nancy and Sabra Mahmood, special issue, Stanford Nancy Reynolds Reynolds," Humanities Review 5, no. 1 (1992): 81-92. Gloria Here, Anzaldua, I build on 11. Here, ized, I borrow colonialist from Ella Shohat and Robert Stam's three axes of sexualized, racial discourse. and the Media See Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism:
Multiculturalism 12. Minoo Moallem,
York: 1992). (New Routledge, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and thePolitics
of Patriarchy 13.
in Iran
"Connectivity"
of California Press, 2005), 20. (Berkeley: University of "patriarchal here is from Suad Joseph's definition
connectivity"
in
NadineNaber
III
and Rationality in See Suad Joseph, Arab Families "Gender among Feminist Studies 19 (Fall 1993): 465-86. to in a Transnational 14. Ella Shohat, introduction Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism Age, ed. Ella Shohat (New York: MIT Press, 1998), 6. Lebanon. Lebanon,"

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Nadine Naber Arab American Feminities

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Arab American Femininities: Beyond Arab Virgin/ American(ized) Whore Author(s): Nadine Naber Reviewed work(s): Source: Feminist

Itwas a typical weeknight

at my parents' home. My father was asleep

sexualized and not referred to Similarly,

the trash culture-degenerate,

in. Al Arab (Arabs), on the other hand, were

research among middle-class in San Francisco,

ifornia,2 between ality circumscribed

January 1999 and August the ways my

2001, the theme of female sexu imagined and con

tested culture, identity, and belonging. The theme of female sexuality

rejection of an idealized notion loss and thereby negate

could sig this

family strategy.In policingArabAmerican femininities, this family strate

whore." I "bad virgin"vs. "American(ized) American(ized) girls,"or "Arab

ization. Arab cultural unspoken

is a localized, spoken, and that emerges as a

figure of an imagined the pressures and men.

"true" Arab culture

to the universalizing of assimilation,

of hegemonic racializa (white) U.S.

and the gendered

I use the term hegemonic

to refer to the official discourses and the notion of a universalized

claims for recognition

homeland American ments.

radical Arab of color hegemonic provides

queer Arab, and/or women on the margins cultural of both

feminist move U.S. nation a rich site from that cir

alisms and Arab American which to explore dominant

cumscribeArabAmerican femininities.Their narratives representhistori

althoughmy research participants(and theirparents)perceived their cul

that ispredicated entswithin a desire for a stereotypical"Americanization"

Americanness absolutely depend on each other to exist-as opposites and

the ages of twenty and and

thirty, both Muslim Syrian descent.4 My the 1960s, during

of Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, parents emigrated

research participants' most

to the U.S. in in the

secular Arab nationalism

Arab world. Although

research participants were

was a key mark of my

field sites. Most

research participants ofMuslim descent, for example, explained that

ally agreed community" Before

that their parents to the United involved and war

to the San Francisco Bay area as a consequence civil war) or emigrated

and Israeli colonization,

and the Lebanese

to the San Francisco Their parents did not

Bay area in the 1960s in search of economic mobility.

integrate into culturally whitened middle-class corporate communities

internal pressures of tight-knit, external fostered pressures an often

familial, and communal assimilation, reproduction

of Americanization, reactionary bourgeois

and racism have of Arab cultural

Cultural authorities-including parents, aunts, and uncles aswell identity.

culture" alongside a contradictorydesire for the "Americandream" and assimilationintoAmericanmodes ofwhiteness.

ized,gendered, class, and religious identities) mediate and break down an

a group of educated, middle-class,

racially/ethnically diverse location. Focusing on the narratives of three

take the specific ways that the coordi

tion of patriarchal student movements