Arab Americans

The story of Arab immigration to the United States has been a minor part of that great story until the past few years; in the last chapter of this volume for the Our Cultural Heritage series C. Ann Fitterer deals explicitly with how the terrorist acts by some people in Arab countries has meant Arab American have to face prejudice (even though the terrorists acts committed in the United States by Arabs are never, as nearly as I can remember, done by American citizens). This book is about how Arab Americans came to this country and what they have contributed to the American culture.This story is different because unlike other immigrants, reflected by the other volumes in this series, when we talk about Arab Americans we are talking about a people who are considered to be a race rather than a specific nationality as with Irish American, Italian Americans, and Vietnamese Americans. Fitterer explains how the first Arabs came from Syria while later came to the United States to escape war in the Middle East. Interestingly, in 1924 the U.S. government passed laws that let only 100 people per year come from Arab countries, indicating that prejudice towards Arab immigrants is not a recent development. Other chapters look at how Arab Americans maintained their culture in American life and made their own contributions. Young reader might have known that Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader was an Arab American, but they might be surprised to learn that Kahil Gibran, author of "The Prophet" was an early Arab-American immigrant and that Heisman Trophy-winner Doug Flutie and "American Idol" judge Paula Abdul are Arab-Americans. As always with these Spirt of America series, the book is richly illustrated with photographs tracing the history and culture of Arab Americans, most of the chapters have extensive side bars on key topics such as Islam and the holiday of Ramadan, and the margins contain Interesting Facts, such as Detroit, Michigan and Paterson, New Jersey, having the largest Arab-American populations. The back of the book contains a Time Line, Glossary Terms, Internet Sites and Books For Further Information, and an Index. Our Cultural Heritage is the third installment of the Spirit of America collection, and if they are not quite as good as the Our Presidents and Our People series, that is because the format has proven to be more ideally suited to biographical subjects rather than the larger story of immigration. However, young readers assigned to research Arab immigration will find this to be one of the few volumes available on the subject, which will provide a solid background on the topic.