Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade

Edited by Nabeel Abraham, Sally Howell, and Andrew Shryock
Contributors explore the trauma, unexpected political gains, and moral ambiguities faced by Arab Detroiters in post-9/11 America.

FORTHCOMING Wayne State University Press
Pub Date: September 2011
6 x 9, 424 Pages, 20 Illus, Paper: $24.95
SBN 978-0-8143-3500-0

“Arab Detroit 9/11 offers a balanced, engaging, and comprehensive account of how the
post-9/11 backlash has transformed ‘the capital of Arab America.’ This interdisciplinary
volume examines how a vibrant and highly diverse ethnic community has confronted the
unique challenges of the ‘Terror Decade’ and occasionally even turned them into new opportunities.”
— Mehdi Bozorgmehr, City University of New York

“Major shifts in populations and politics are documented in this follow-up to the earlier
classic, Arab Detroit. The editors and contributors make Detroit’s Arabs visible in new ways, many of them as Muslim Arabs linked to other Muslims and all of them as citizens struggling for respect and recognition. The volume argues compellingly that, for Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. today, the discipline imposed by inclusion is as significant as the challenge posed by
exclusion from full citizenship.”
— Karen Leonard, professor and chair of anthropology, University of California–Irvine

“Arab Detroit 9/11 makes a superior contribution to the field of Arab American studies. The volume is timely and necessary and fills an enormous gap in the literature of how Arab Americans react to, live with, and are perceived because of the horror of 9/11. It is a primer on ethnogenesis, identity development, and the effects that changing sociohistorical circumstances have on ethnic group continuity, acceptance, and social integration.”
— Philip M. Kayal, professor and director of the interdisciplinary Social and Behavioral Sciences program at Seton Hall University

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Detroit’s large and nationally prominent Arab and Muslim communities have faced heightened prejudice, government surveillance, and political scapegoating, yet they have also enjoyed unexpected gains in economic, political, and cultural influence. In Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade, a follow-up to their volume Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream, editors Nabeel Abraham, Sally Howell, and Andrew Shryock present accounts of how life in post-9/11 Detroit has changed over the last ten years. Abraham, Howell, and Shryock have assembled a diverse group of contributors whose essays range from the scholarly to the artistic and include voices that are Palestinian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and Lebanese; Muslim and Christian; American born and immigrant. The book is divided into six sections and begins with wide-angle views of Arab Detroit, looking first at how the community fits within greater Detroit as a whole, then presenting closer portraits of Arab Detroit’s key ethnonational and
religious subgroups. More personal, everyday accounts of life in the Terror Decade follow as focus shifts to practical matters such as family life, neighborhood interactions, going to school, traveling domestically, and visiting home countries. Finally, contributors consider the interface between Arab Detroit and the larger society, how this relationship is maintained, how the War on Terror has distorted it, and what lessons might be drawn about citizenship, inclusion, and exclusion by situating Arab Detroit in broader and deeper historical contexts. In Detroit, new realities of political marginalization and empowerment are evolving side by side. As they explore the complex demands of life in the Terror Decade, the contributors to this volume create vivid portraits of a community that has fought back successfully against attempts to deny its national identity and diminish its civil rights. Readers interested in Arab studies, Detroit culture and history, transnational politics, and the changing dynamics of race and ethnicity in America will enjoy
the personal reflection and analytical insight of Arab Detroit 9/11.

Contributors: Nabeel Abraham, Kristine J. Ajrouch, Khadigah Alasry, Hayan Charara, Yasmeen Hanoosh, Sally Howell, Amaney Jamal, Lawrence Joseph, Kim Schopmeyer, Mujan Seif, Andrew Shryock, Abdulkader H. Sinno, Matthew W. Stiffler, Eren Tatari, Rachel Yezbick, William Youmans