Book Reviews

The Arab Americans: A History 
Gregory Orfalea

New York: Olive Branch Press, 2006. 500 pages.

Since 9/11, Arab Americans have been the subject of much discussion in
both popular and scholarly forums. Books on the suddenly visible Arab-
American community have been published recently or are forthcoming, and
courses dealing with Arab Americans are gradually entering university cur-
ricula. This interest is cross-disciplinary, having become evident in numer-
ous humanities and social science fields. 

Yet this interest is bound largely to the political marketplace of ideas, for
an emergent Arab-American studies existed well before 9/11 and had been on
the brink of increased visibility on the eve of 9/11. It took 9/11, however, for
this body of scholarship to generate broad attention. In addition, 9/11 altered
the trajectories that had already been established, though not as dramatically
as an unaffiliated observer might believe. Gregory Orfalea was among the
group of scholars and artists who were assessing Arab America before 9/11
through his work as a writer and editor. Orfalea continues his contribution to
that project with his latest book, The Arab Americans: A History, a volumi-
nous text that mixes exposition, commentary, and analysis. 

The author’s cross-disciplinary book will be of interest to students and
scholars in the humanities and the social sciences, for it contains elements of
historiography, sociology, literary criticism, memoir, and anthropology. The
introduction and first chapter recount a trip he took as a young man in 1972
with his jaddu (grandfather) to Arbeen, Syria, his grandfather’s hometown.
Subsequent chapters explore a number of sociocultural and political issues
of interest to the Arab-American community, including the politics of the
Arab world, activism (historical and contemporary) in Arab America, the
relationship between Arab Americans and the American government at both
the local and federal levels, religious traditions in Arab America, and the
instability and diversity of Arab-American identity. 



This breadth of analysis is one of the book’s strengths. Other strengths
include Orfalea’s personal knowledge of many of the issues and histories he
examines, his humanization through engaging profiles of individuals sub-
sisting within a widely stereotyped community, and his condemnation of
draconian legislation targeted at Arab Americans and rationalized by an
Arab presence in the United States. At the start of the preface, he suggests
that “the past two decades are the most political, by far, in the Arab-
American community’s history, and a literary renaissance, if not naissance,
is unfurling by the day” (p. vii). The Arab Americans maps out this political
trajectory in great detail, paying attention to sociocultural phenomena and
also wisely moving beyond the political to assess the artistry of Arab Amer-
ica, particularly in the genre of literature. I use wisely to describe this move
because Orfalea makes certain his readers understand that reducing Arab
Americans to political metonymy or to imply that they have no form of
agency beyond grievance or protest is a serious disservice. To comprehend
Arab America fully and accurately is to acknowledge a complex positioning
on the American landscape. The Arab Americans provides that sort of
acknowledgment. 

Those interested primarily in Islam will likely find The Arab Americans
of interest. But the book is not about Islam or Muslims; rather, it is about a
multi-confessional Arab-American community. Orfalea places great empha-
sis on the Christian Arabs living in this country. Part of the reason for this
emphasis is the historical demography of Arab America; most of the first-
wave Arab immigrants to the United States, as Orfalea notes, were Christians
who came mainly from the Mount Lebanon region and Greater Syria.
Another reason is due to the author’s personal exposition throughout the
book, which contains a large number of anecdotes and stories drawn from
his own Syrian Christian family. Orfalea does not ignore Islam, however, but
treats it with nuance and admiration, especially in relation to its considerable
influence on the coalescence of an Arab-American ethnic identity. 

One of the book’s problems, however, is that the author reproduces the
widely cited Arab American Institute statistic that only 25 percent of Arab
Americans are Muslim, a number that has recently been disputed. Some
researchers believe that the number of Arab-American Muslims is at least 33
percent and may be as high as 50-60 percent (a number that I find believ-
able). Otherwise, the preponderance of personal exposition suggests that
The Arab Americans could have been spliced into two books: one a broad
history of the Arab-American community and the other a memoir of the role
played by Orfalea and his family in the community’s development. The
prose at certain points is uninspiring and sometimes merely whimsical, such

108 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:2



as when the author attempts puissance (e.g., “To this day I can drink the hot-
test substances without a flinch. Some lands give you a birth mark; others
give you a burnt mark” [p. 7]). As a result, the narrative’s personal empha-
sis and the book’s length might dissuade classroom use. 

Ultimately, though, The Arab Americans makes a strong contribution to
several fields and will advance the reader’s understanding of the diverse and
multi-layered Arab-American community. It provides not only a compre-
hensive – indeed, encyclopedic – reference of the individuals and institu-
tions found in Arab America, but also a valuable analysis of its many sub-
jects of inquiry. The Arab Americans is recommended to scholars working
in the areas of ethnic studies, Arab-American studies, Islamic studies, cur-
rent affairs, anthropology, literary criticism, and Middle Eastern studies and
would be appropriate for student use in a variety of settings. 

Steven Salaita
Assistant Professor, Department of English

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia

Book Reviews 109