The number of hate crimes committed against Arab-Americans has decreased since their peak immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to a new study by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. While the findings are seen as a step in the right direction, author Moustafa Bayoumi says other forms of discrimination continue to affect the lives of Arabs living in the US. In his new book, "How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America, Bayoumi reveals how "state oppression has impacted the lives of second generation Arab-American youth. The book chronicles the lives of seven 20-something Arab-Americans living in Brooklyn, New York who have encountered diverse problems in a post-9/11 America, ranging from employment discrimination to government detention. "I felt like there were stories to be told, but nobody was telling those stories, Bayoumi told Daily News Egypt at an interview in a Brooklyn coffee shop. "I really wanted to write a book about ordinary people, not about people who were already community leaders. What was ordinary life like, for one thing? There is so much ideology in the air that ordinary Arab-American life is mystified, he said. Bayoumi is of Egyptian heritage, but was born in Switzerland and raised in Canada. He has been living in New York City for over 15 years and works as an English professor at Brooklyn College. Bayoumi has written about Arab issues in North America for numerous years in outlets such as The Nation and The London Review of Books. The author claims that he is more optimistic now than when he started working on the book about three years ago. Through relationships developed with his interviewees, Bayoumi has come to see strength in the human spirit despite adversity. His characters understand that their stories do not stand alone in American history and that other minority groups have suffered similar discrimination in the past. At a young age, one of the book's characters, Yasmin, was invoking notions of Martin Luther King Jr's struggle for equality while she was being discriminated against at her high school for wearing hijab. The comparison with the American civil rights movement comes up often in Bayoumi's discourse. Another trend the author noticed is the tendency of second generation Arab-American youth to become religiously conservative post-9/11 - quite often more conservative than their parents. "If anything the young people have become more religious and more Arab identified, he said. "You want to be able to define yourself in a culture that's increasingly trying to define you. So you adopt an identity in order to combat the negative identity that is being thrust upon you, and you also are seeking out people who are likeminded. Bayoumi has not been free of criticism as a result of his writings. He's been particularly accused of lambasting the American government and American policy yet turning a blind eye towards problems they associate with the Arab world such as anti-Western sentiment and terrorism. Bayoumi, however, doesn't seem ruffled by such comments. "I think what critics illustrate is the need for the existence of the book, he said, adding that he's not saying the Arab world is guilt-free, but the purpose of his book is to shed light on the problems in American society. A shift in American foreign policy towards promoting peace instead of being the world's imperial power will have positive repercussions for the Arab-American community, Bayoumi said. And is such a change possible with the new Obama administration? "Well, I think that there is good reason to hope for change. Hope is the word. But I'm not 100 percent sure yet, he said.
