Arab Americans respond to exclusion with quiet self-exile rather than rebellion

Evidence

But the loudest silence in the book concerns those young Arabs, a minority, who have abandoned their ethnic roots or religion out of either shame or fear or both. They have changed their names and try to pass as other-than-Arab—Latinos most often. Perhaps it is fitting that “The Biography of the Ex-Arab Man or Woman” is present here only by its absence. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 58 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

But lately his circumstances kept bringing him back to the importance of his Arab roots. … So he decided to go to the campus meeting. There he met the other Arab students at his college and began hanging out with them, partly from the ethnic tribalism that pervades much of higher education (and American society at large) and partly in a search for new friends. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 180 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Second-generation Arab Americans greeted the 2006 Lebanon war with resignation rather than outrage; Arab Americans experience a position parallel to earlier black marginalization; Arab and Muslim Americans are forced to perform loyalty and apologize for others’ acts (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Some Arab-Americans change their names and pass as Latino to escape stigma. #exemplifies (0.92) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 58
• Opposition to the Iraq war drew even apolitical Arab Americans into ethnic organizing #complicates (0.82) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 180