How Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008)

The fifth chapter focuses on Lina, an Arab-American from a well-educated, wealthy family. The web of Lina’s immigrant legacy is extremely intricate, including moves to and from Kuwait and to different parts of Maryland, Iraq, different parts of Colorado, Brooklyn, and, ultimately, to Syria. 

Lina is born in Kuwait City, Kuwait. Professional opportunities for her parents—both Iraqi medical professionals—lead her family to Washington, D.C. when she is a child. Her father studies at Georgetown University with the help of a Kuwaiti grant while her mother works at the Iraqi embassy. Lina’s father’s vocal criticisms of Saddam Hussein, however, lead her mother to lose her job at the embassy. Their income takes a plummet as a result, and the family moves to Hyattsville, a working-class, African-American neighborhood in Maryland. 

Living in Hyattsville is formative for Lina, as she is a child and looking for somewhere she belongs. She feels at home playing with the African-American children in the neighborhood. They even identify with her Islamic background, making jokes about Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

When Lina turns 13, however, her father procures a job with a much higher income, and the family moves to an upper-class (and mostly white) suburban neighborhood in Elkridge, Maryland.