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Rasha
Bayoumi’s second (and only Christian) subject, who calls himself “the most far-off Arab you’ll find.” Born and raised in New York as the son of a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, he is immensely proud of his city, which he considers the most important part of his identity. He impulsively enlists in the United States Marines during his first year of college, just before the September 11 attacks. He serves two tours in the Iraq War, but is frustrated by his fellow marines’ racism and reluctance to see Iraqis as full human beings. During his second tour, he befriends translators and begins to learn about his Arab heritage, but also decides he can no longer support the war, which seems to serve the interests of those in power at the expense of American soldiers and the Iraqi people. When he returns home, he is unsure what to do with his future; he moves back to New York with his girlfriend Ana and goes back to college in 2006. Sami’s story shows the human consequences of the War on Terror, during which he feels torn between his identities as an Arab and an American, but also how he manages to make his these identities complementary rather than contradictory and reconcile them into a multifaceted but coherent sense of self.
Sami 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 Sami or refer to Sami. 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:
).
Sami
Quotes
“I'm like the most far-off Arab you'll find,” he complained to me one day when talking about his relationship with some of the guys in the club. We were sitting in the backyard of a Starbucks in Park Slope. “You have to be a Muslim to be an Arab. You have to listen to Arabic music all the time to be Arab. You have to be in love with going wherever your parents are from. You have to marry an Arabic girl to be Arab. Certain things. You're not a real Arab if you're like me. I don't listen to Arabic music. I don't watch Arabic programming. I hate going to Egypt. I hate going overseas. I date a Puerto Rican female.”
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Around this time he decided on the tattoo he wanted to have, once he'd saved enough money. With his large, muscular bulk, he has acres of skin to plow ink into, but he never wanted to stamp himself with the regular bulldog or the eagle, globe, and anchor symbol of the Marine Corps. If he was going to paint himself, he needed something that expressed who he is, something that really spoke to him. What he came up with was the New York City skyline as the tattoo's basis, but instead of the World Trade Center towers, two memorial beams of light will shine upward. The moon, vaguely imprinted with the marine emblem, will land high on his shoulder. The stars will spell out “N-Y-C.” Underneath, and in Arabic, will be written the words “Always remembered, never forgotten.” A little bit of everything—New York, Marine, Arab—to be put carefully together and marked indelibly.
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Get the entire How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sami 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 Sami or refer to Sami. 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:
).
Sami
Quotes
“I'm like the most far-off Arab you'll find,” he complained to me one day when talking about his relationship with some of the guys in the club. We were sitting in the backyard of a Starbucks in Park Slope. “You have to be a Muslim to be an Arab. You have to listen to Arabic music all the time to be Arab. You have to be in love with going wherever your parents are from. You have to marry an Arabic girl to be Arab. Certain things. You're not a real Arab if you're like me. I don't listen to Arabic music. I don't watch Arabic programming. I hate going to Egypt. I hate going overseas. I date a Puerto Rican female.”
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Around this time he decided on the tattoo he wanted to have, once he'd saved enough money. With his large, muscular bulk, he has acres of skin to plow ink into, but he never wanted to stamp himself with the regular bulldog or the eagle, globe, and anchor symbol of the Marine Corps. If he was going to paint himself, he needed something that expressed who he is, something that really spoke to him. What he came up with was the New York City skyline as the tattoo's basis, but instead of the World Trade Center towers, two memorial beams of light will shine upward. The moon, vaguely imprinted with the marine emblem, will land high on his shoulder. The stars will spell out “N-Y-C.” Underneath, and in Arabic, will be written the words “Always remembered, never forgotten.” A little bit of everything—New York, Marine, Arab—to be put carefully together and marked indelibly.
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