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Yasmin
The subject of Bayoumi’s fourth portrait, a Palestinian American college student who works at his family’s grocery store in a largely Caribbean neighborhood of Brooklyn. In high school, he is gregarious and popular, but he feels increasingly vilified and disconnected from the community where he lives in the years after September 11. When he goes to Palestine for a summer, he discovers a deep sense of connection to and pride in his heritage, but also feels exasperated at Palestinians’ mistreatment by the occupying Israeli military. He decides that he will have better financial, cultural, and social opportunities in Dubai than in the United States, and is planning his move there as of the book’s publication. Bayoumi sees Akram’s story as “about trying to figure your way in a world of progressive disenchantment”; his decision to leave the United States suggests that, at least for Muslims, it has failed to live up to its promise as an inclusive, multicultural land of opportunity.
Akram Quotes in How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?
The How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? quotes below are all either spoken by Akram or refer to Akram. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Akram
Quotes
What do you do when everything and everyone—from teachers to TV—is screaming that you and your culture just don't belong? You have to come up with your own solutions, and Akram has found his answer. He's quitting the United States and heading to Dubai, a newfound land of opportunity, a global oasis of modern wealth done up Arabic style. Dubai. It's the latest Arab-American dream.
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He's a curious mix that isn't so strange in Brooklyn, equally at home with Arabs, African Americans, and West Indians. He's a twenty-first-century United States American, absorbing and refracting all the ethnicities and histories surrounding him. What he loves most about Brooklyn is this heady human geography.
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American idiom: “IN ALLAH WE TRUST. EVERYONE ELSE MUST PAY—NO CREDIT.” The customers laughed.
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Akram Quotes in How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?
The How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? quotes below are all either spoken by Akram or refer to Akram. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Akram
Quotes
What do you do when everything and everyone—from teachers to TV—is screaming that you and your culture just don't belong? You have to come up with your own solutions, and Akram has found his answer. He's quitting the United States and heading to Dubai, a newfound land of opportunity, a global oasis of modern wealth done up Arabic style. Dubai. It's the latest Arab-American dream.
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He's a curious mix that isn't so strange in Brooklyn, equally at home with Arabs, African Americans, and West Indians. He's a twenty-first-century United States American, absorbing and refracting all the ethnicities and histories surrounding him. What he loves most about Brooklyn is this heady human geography.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
American idiom: “IN ALLAH WE TRUST. EVERYONE ELSE MUST PAY—NO CREDIT.” The customers laughed.
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