Arab Culture in the U.S. (Hussein)

This study examines user-generated comments on the Facebook sites of Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC to better understand how people interpret and understand issues related to Palestinian Arabs. Facebook, as the largest social networking site, provides researchers a unique opportunity to evaluate how knowledge about Palestine is constructed. Facebook provides media consumers the ability to instantly become part of the conversation about domestic and foreign policy.

In my paper I analyze Diana Abu-Jaber’s “food memoir”, The Language of Baklava. From a cultural studies perspective I argue that the recipes in The Language of Baklava function as a trope for the characters in the text to define their national-ethnic identities in both Jordan and the U.S.

Dealing with Racism, Cultural Differences and Stereotypes: Language Brokering Experience among the Arab-American Youth.

Afaf Nash

Applied Linguistics, PhD Student

UCLA

Of course “al tikrar bi allim al himar” (by repetition even the donkey learns). This Arab proverb reveals how effective repetition can be when it comes to education; How we learn by repeating an exercise over and over again until we can respond almost reflexively. Students use repetition to memerize historical dates. Small children use repetition to learn numbers and the alphabet.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, there has been a marked change in immigration trends from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to the United States. While immigration from all regions to the United States dropped sharply immediately following the 9/11 attacks, this specific region has continued to exhibit downward trends in newly arriving immigrants. However, according to Annual Statistical Yearbooks of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the number of “immigrants admitted” to the United States from MENA countries has been rising on the whole.