Again a common thread that appears through these stories, or so it seems to me, is a young person trying to find there identity amongst their culture and their surroundings. In this story Eli is bombarded with propaganda that his Uncle Joe spouts off constantly, but he does not really feel the need to speak up and rebel until he meets Nour. SHe is a kind quiet woman from Lebanon who tried to aid as best she could in difficult times, but she is attacked towards the end of the story by Uncle Joe in which he wildly criticizes her actions. Eli yells at Uncle Joe and runs out the door. Although he felt embarrassed and ashamed at what he had done I think this was a self defining moment that we haven't seen in some of the other stories and this really helped Eli in the end know what he stood for and know that he could stand up to someone.

nour is in many ways an obvious foil for uncle joe (and vice versa). Before her arrival; we see nour as a mysterious nun in a far away land and do not know much about her, whereas uncle joe is illustrated as a boisterous americanized performer. Nour is anything but boisterous, upon her arrival she is described as having "big sad eyes", and this description spills over to her overall persona as well. She is a person with alot of depth and sadness,a private person. Even once Uncle Joe "finds religion" he does not practice in a way that is similar to Nour. Essentially his religious nature is very opposite from Nours; while she is private and spiritual he is more outward and forceful in his nature (religious or otherwise) in general. Also; nour is always shown as being a source of calm/peace to Eli whereas uncle joe is always associated with loudness/uneasiness.

Eli was a teacher in the Bible, the high priest of Israel, in other words, an extremely adept, wise man. In the beginning of the story, it appears that the Eli of the story is the opposite, a scared, confused, easily influenced young man. By the end of the story, however, he seems to become intensely affected by Nour, his immigrant aunt. In the beginning of the story, he cannot even bring himself to argue with his teacher that he disagrees with, and reports no actions (or even feelings) in response to a classmate directing a racial slur at him. However, by the end of the book, after spending time with Nour, he erupts in front of his family, which surprises everyone, especially his mother, who is surprised he yelled at any time, especially in front of family. Because of this facet of the story, I believe the author was trying to show the reader the emotional growth of Eli.

I found Lugman's character particularly interesting. As many people in class have pointed out, he is negoiating both his dual identity as an Arab American and his transistion between child and adult. I found the dialouge with Ann about her identtiy especially telling. Lugman is desperate to talk about these issues and to find some common ground about identity conflict with an American. He is so interested in this that he seems to momentarily lose sight of the fact that Ann's in a negligee It is also obvious that Ann is very uncomfortable about seeing herself in anyway Mexican. Although i think in Legman's eyes, and in the story in general, this makes her come off as shallow and uninteresting. However, having personally sat through the "it's a shame you don't know spanish conversation" uncountable times i can symphise. The stigma of not knowing Spanish cuts both ways, I mean either you know spanish and run the risk of an accent or you don't know spanish and are exiled from that part of the cultture( and constantly bereated for it) by other mexicans and white folks alike. My father stopped speaking to me in spanish when I entered school at about four years old. In the public school in LA where he grew up he would have his mouth washed out with soap if he spoke in spanish. As for adolescence... I'm 25 and find my memory of this part of my life less than intact. The parts I do remeber aren't pretty and I'm glad to be done with them.

The short story "Arabic lessons" seems like a complete potrayal of what Lisa Majaj recommended. She states that Arab-American writers should write novels "that will translate political reality into human terms"- which is exactly what "Arabic Lessons" translated. She said people are ignorant about things happening in the Arab world and so it is up to the writers to not only inform their readers but also in the process to bring a sense of emotion that the readers can connect with. In the story the reader can feel what Eli is going through (having nigthmares after nightmares) after hearing stories about his family being killed in Lebanon. As she said, "we need historically-grounded novels..., that will tell a compelling but also informative story." and though some parts of the story sound poetic (Ruhe ou ruhik, ya ruhi...etc)it still nevertheless has the makings of a good story about family and growing up.

I think, as we have all learned, that in any culture adolescence and “growing up” is hard enough. In the stories about Eli and Lugman, we see even more challenges that they face, that many of us may or may not have seen before. For one thing, Eli has this struggle with his faith and his thoughts about the war. There are many people my age out there that have never had to question their religion or their beliefs or anything else, perhaps because they just have so much faith in them, or that they know not to challenge their ancestors, but for some of us, there have been things that happen in our lives that make us question a lot of things, especially religion. Eli faces this problem growing up, as well as the common childhood experience of having your parents not really listen to what you have to say, or trying to hide things from you. Most of the time, like in Eli’s case, they will be hush hush about things or even talk in a different language so as not to let the kids hear because they don’t think they can handle it, something I’m sure we’re all familiar with. In contrast, it seems like in Lugman’s family, perhaps because it is all boys, everything is brought out into the open (i.e. the condom incident). Of course they don’t want the neighborhood to hear, but when it comes to family, everyone gathers around and is included, which only makes it more embarrassing for Lugman. He faces the challenge of lust, not only with a girl which is bad enough, but an Amryekan. It’s sad at the end when the girl that he thought he had something with, turns out to just blow him off. This is another aspect that I know everyone can relate to, fear, rejection, lust. I think that overall, Eli and Lugman’s culture plays a huge role in shaping their situations. For instance, I would not have been chastised for liking a boy, but my culture is not as strict as Lugman’s. We have all had to go through tough times and decision making growing up, as we will continue to, and I think that our families and beliefs are there the whole way to guide us, no matter what direction they take us.

I was touched by the scene where the narrator and Uncle Joe are discussing about the lebanese history and Joe retorted to her comments of the world religions at one time talking civilly with eachother bringing about the idea of 'romantic love'. His implications were that the concept of the religions working together is as frivolous as romantic love and life is more brutal. This, to the narrator, was very hurtful because there were still hopes that something beautiful like romantic love wasn't a dream. She then connects this reality with the sad truth that America, the land of the free, isn't as it is supposed to be, instead, if you don't pay, you don't survive.
This rude awakening to the truth that things are not as they are dreamed can be directly related to the way I felt when I was told there was no Santa. This helped me transform into an adult through the death of a part of my imagination.

I find that the common denominator between Lugman and Eli in their adolescent experience is navigating between the surfaces of the dual worlds they live in: that of the insular home and that of the experimental. Both of them try desperately to express a sense of the individual, and Eli demonstrates typical adolescent behavior with surges of anger and sadness. Though I cannot identify with the experience of being raised by immigrant parents, I think that the disappointments of reconstructing an imperfect world during adolescence is a shared experience most people relate to. Something I found interesting was that because both Eli and Lugman did not have access to their mother’s worlds, we see in the stages of their development a very gendered (is this in itself a construct?) notion of what it means to grow up.
-Sarah

“Arabic Lessons” provides direct contrasts in the characters of Uncle Joe and Cousin Nour. While Uncle Joe was the unstable “wild child” Cousin Nour was the calm, responsible former nun. While Uncle Joe loudly expressed his opinions on Lebanon, its problems, and the people to be blamed for them, Cousin Nour stayed quiet. Uncle Joe’s commentary on a situation from afar, are ironic, since Nour lived in, and suffered through the war. The contrasts between the two are also gender based, since Joe tends to take on an active leading role, while Nour is quiet in her influences.
Nour’s lessons to the children go beyond Arabic as a language, but also the Lebanese culture with the translation of the Arab saying, and calm with which Nour responds to Uncle Joe’s interrogation. Nour also helps Eli through his troubled dreams of Lebanon, explaining that his connection with the war across the ocean did not mean he was crazy.