As a board member of Mizna, I appreciated the fine article in the September issue by Leah Fabel on our recent literary gathering and journal release event (“Common Ground: Syria, Somalia and Soccer: The Arab world, as seen from the East Bank”)[Rakish Angle].
I would like to point out that there was more cultural diversity amongst the audience than the article indicated (Arab-Americans, African-Americans/Somalis, European-Americans).
My husband and I and a few others present may have been assumed to be of Arab background but we are not; we are of South Asian or other Asian backgrounds.
There also were people of other Middle Eastern backgrounds present: Iranians and Armenians, who are not Arabs either. There also were people of North African background present, who identify more as Berber than Arab.
We were all there as supporters of Mizna’s mission to explore Arab-American culture, with which we feel a certain strong affinity based on some common experience as members of culturally related American minority ethnic groups.
That does not make us Arabs, however, and we should not be assumed to be Arab just because we appear to fit a broad image (dare I say stereotype?) of what an Arab or Arab-American might look like.
Nahid Khan, Brooklyn Center
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