Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging begins with stories of immigration and exile by following newcomers’ attempts to assimilate into American society. Editors Ghassan Zeineddine, Nabeel Abraham, and Sally Howell have assembled a cast of emerging and established writers who examine notions of home, belonging, and citizenship from a wide array of communities, including cultural heritages originating from Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen. The strong pattern in Arab Detroit today is to oppose marginalization through avid participation in almost every form of American identity-making. This engaged stance is not a byproduct of culture, but a new way of thinking about the US in relation to one’s homeland.
Hadha...