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

The first chapter of How Does It Feel To Be A Problem opens to a scene wherein 19-year-old Rasha travels to college on the subway. She makes eye contact with a homeless man sitting in her train car. She senses a connection between them and speculates later, while writing a poem, that this connection originates from her recent experience of being imprisoned. 

Bayoumi explains that Rasha spent most of her childhood—eighteen years, collectively—living in New York, staying mostly in Brooklyn. She was born in Damascus, Syria, and came to New York when she was 5 years old and her family was granted a tourist visa to the United States. Her family arrived in the midst of Hafez al-Assad’s rule, hoping to improve their lives and escape turbulent times in their home country. They stayed in the US attempting to gain political asylum until Rasha was 13, and Rasha’s mother gave birth to two sons (considered US citizens) while they were living in Brooklyn. After the Oklahoma City bombing, the US instituted even more anti-immigrant legislation, and Rasha’s father gave up on the slow process of trying to gain citizenship, and moved the family back to Syria. 

As she finished middle school in Syria, Rasha became more appreciative of civil rights and freedom of speech in the US. When she spoke her mind about Syria’s president Hafez al-Assad, her classmates were shocked that she would openly criticize a politician. No one in her family was happy in Syria, so her father obtained another tourist visa and moved them to the US.

Back in the US, Rasha excels in her classes and starts college in the fall of 2001. After 9/11, her relationship with the US radically changes. In February of 2002, her home is raided in the middle of the night by FBI agents and other police officers because the family over-stayed their visa. The agents handcuff the entire family and take them in for questioning. Rasha quickly realizes that she must have been under surveillance for some time prior to this raid. 

The family is strip-searched and held for three months in a dirty prison in New Jersey, where they are routinely subjected to racist treatment from their jailers. Out of necessity, the women in Rasha’s prison—including her sister, with whom she previously had a tense relationship—band together in support of one another. They find innovative means of surviving and helping each other feel cared for. 

Rasha’s family is released thanks to the help of a lawyer. Amnesty International later reports that they were one of thousands of families that experienced arbitrary detention after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Rasha’s experience inspires her to develop a strong interest in human rights and international relations. She interns with a United Nations-affiliated organization on Middle East peace and resolves to help others who face similarly unjust situations.