Arab-owned groceries serve as stepping stones up America’s economic ladder

Evidence

In many ways the store is what gives Akram this complexity. His gregarious personality comes alive there, endowing Mike’s Food Center with a kind of familiarity between owner and customer that strikes me as quite unique. But the immigrant grocery store itself is not uncommon. If you’ve spent any time in New York City, you’ve probably been in one of them. These groceries are rungs of commerce for immigrant entrepreneurs that they can step on and hoist themselves up America’s economic ladder. Arab-owned grocery stores in New York City number over two thousand, most with Palestinian and Yemeni proprietors, making them a central location of Arab-American life in Brooklyn. Sociologists call the entrepreneurs of these stores “middlemen minorities,” ethnic businessmen and -women who function as intermediaries between inner-city clients and the conglomerates that want to sell them things but don’t want to deal with them directly, and Arab Americans are among New York City’s most numerous middlemen minorities. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 472 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

“I’ve been rereading Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes,” he told me. “Without being so grand, they”—the McCourt family—“were worse in America than they were in Ireland. We’re becoming like that. I find myself becoming like that, more and more miserable, in a sense,” he said. “I’m tired of it. I love the diversity of this country, I really do, but the whole politics and the whole …” He paused, looking for the right word. He settled on “everything!” He took an exasperated breath before continuing his thought, paraphrasing Langston Hughes this time. “America’s not America anymore to me.” — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 565 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Arab-owned groceries serve as economic ladders for immigrant entrepreneurs in New York. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 472; Economic pressure outweighs political conscience in Arab American career choices; Shisha cafés and doughnut shops serve as refuge spaces for Arab-American men (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Arab-owned groceries serve as economic ladders for immigrant entrepreneurs in New York. #corroborates (1.00) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 472
• Some Arab Americans feel the American dream has reversed into misery #complicates (0.76) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 565
• Economic pressure outweighs political conscience in Arab American career choices #complicates (0.75)