Blint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States

Shakir, Evelyn. Blint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997. 226 pp.

Blint Arab, is reality told as stories. Its author weaves an impressive tapestry of women's lives displaying the extraordinary accomplishments and contributions of the early Syrian immigrants to the United States. While the primary aim of the author is to center her study on the Syrian immigrants (present Lebanon and Syria), she branches out to other Arab women, particularly Palestinian.

The book dispels two major misconceived notions: the weakness of Arab women and the concept of unity through a shared religion. It proves through examples taken from real lives, the role of women as the strength behind men's success in the New World. Furthermore, examples of friendship between women from the Christian and Muslim Syrian communities reveal the strong ties that bind people belonging to a common culture and go beyond religious differences.

The Syrian women immigrants discovered their true potential once outside the control of the male members of their families. Many of them moved to the US, alone, often accompanied by their children, leaving behind a reluctant husband. The solo trip and difficult beginnings in a new land and culture sharpened in most cases their hidden potential. They succeeded in securing jobs and even starting their own business, encouraging other family members to immigrate.

The first waves of women immigrants arrived in the middle of the nineteenth century as the Ottoman repression of Christians in Lebanon grew. They expected to be welcomed by their Christian brethren in America in a show of brotherhood based on a shared religion. They assumed, wrongly, that a shared religion superseded ethnic and cultural differences. They soon discovered their mistake, a position that strengthened and, in some cases, kindled their sense of Arab identity.

Shakir's decision to compile and write a book on Arab women immigrants to the US was motivated by various factors. Primarily, it was a way to fill the gap created by other books on the subject (Gregory Orfalea's Before the Flames: A Quest for the History of Arab Americans, 1998, and Alixa Naff s Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience. 1985) which did not stress the role of Arab women immigrants. Moreover, she wanted to set the record straight and correct the biased and distorted portrayal of Arab women in the American media. Having long felt that as Christian, she was not concerned by the stereotyping of Muslim Arab women, she finally realized that public opinion did not differentiate between Christian and Muslim Arabs. This awareness led her and many of the other women she interviewed, to revisit their Arab roots and heritage, a position few expected to adopt while planning to leave behind their country of origin.

Relating one's life to others is in itself a challenging endeavor. Making it interesting is a task that required great skills in order to avoid the pitfalls of the banal and the superficial. It is those qualities that give Blint Arab a special edge and great appeal. The personal accounts of the women are placed in the pertinent historical and socio-political context. She allows their word to run freely, conserving thus the authenticity and the natural flavor of the women's voices, a significant factor in itself. Shakir manages to provide an interdisciplinary approach in her work, giving the reader an insight into Arab customs and traditions, and into the women's intimate consciousness. Being inside and outside the field she studies, herself the daughter of Syrian immigrants, Shakir approached her subjects with great awareness and remarkable compassion. The book is a valuable reference on the America society seen through Arab women immigrant's eyes. Yet, while being a book on immigrants Blint Arab is a reflection of American society at a specific period of its formative years.

It is with great joy and interest that I read this book!

Aida A. Bamia University of Florida

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2000
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