Shakir tells the long neglected story of the bint arab--the Arab woman--in the United States. Drawing on primary sources such as club minutes, census records, and dozens of interviews, she explores the experience of late 19th- and early 20th-century immigrants--mostly Christian peasants from Lebanon and Syria--and their American-born daughters. Later, she moves on to the well-assimilated granddaughters (many of whom have reidentified with the Arab community and begun to fight its political battles). The work concludes with those women--most of them Muslim--who have emigrated over...

Evelyn C. Shakir paints tales that are rich in history and background. She sets her stories in different eras, from the 1960s to the present, peopled with Lebanese women of different ages, sometimes writing letters, often reminiscing, looking back as far as the turn of the century.

In different ways, these first and second-generation women struggle with feminist issues overshadowed by the demands of dual cultures. In Young Ali a teenager tries to listen to her beloved father s time-honored tales of males in friendship and marriage. Aggie of House Calls is a deceased matriarch who...

Shakir tells the long neglected story of the "bint arab"--the Arab woman--in the United States. Drawing on primary sources such as club minutes, census records, and dozens of interviews, she explores the experience of late 19th- and early 20th-century immigrants--mostly Christian peasants from Lebanon and Syria--and their American-born daughters. Later, she moves on to the well-assimilated granddaughters (many of whom have reidentified with the Arab community and begun to fight its political battles). The work concludes with those women--most of them Muslim--who have emigrated over the...