In Their Own Words

Based on more than two years of fieldwork conducted in a Yemeni community in Dearborn, Michigan, this unique study examines Yemeni American girls' attempts to construct and make sense of their identities as Yemenis, Muslims, Americans, daughters of immigrants, teenagers, and high-school students. Offering a distinctive analysis of the ways ethnicity, culture, gender, and socioeconomic status complicate lives, Sarroub examines how these students view their roles within American and Yemeni societies, between institutions such as school and family, and between ethnic and Islamic visions of success in the U.S. Providing a valuable background on the history of Yemen and the migration of Yemeni people to the U.S., this is an eye-opening account of a group of people we may hear about but about whom we know very little. The final chapter offers a rich and important discussion of how conditions in the U.S. may encourage the rise of extremism and allow it to flourish, raising pressing questions about the role of public education in the post-September 11 world.