How Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008)

Rasha is the third youngest of four children from a Syrian-American family, including Reem (her older sister), Munir (her older brother), and Wassim (her younger brother). She is a petite, fine-boned woman with an aura of modesty and what Bayoumi describes as “a hard fragility,” explaining, “If you drop her, she’ll break, but she’ll cut you, too” (16). 

Rasha spends most of her childhood—eighteen years, collectively—living in New York, staying mostly in Brooklyn. She is born in Hafez al-Assad’s Syria and comes to Brooklyn when she is 5 years old. Her family stays in the United States, attempting to gain political asylum, until Rasha turns 13, at which point they are forced to move back to Syria. While going through middle school in Syria, Rasha is subjected to scrutiny and comes to appreciate her liberties in the US as a result. No one in her family is happy in Syria, so her father obtains another tourist visa and moves them to the US. 

After September 11th, Rasha’s life in America changes. Her family is seized in a 2002 raid, then imprisoned as a “precautionary” response after the 9/11 attacks. She spends four months in prison with her mother and sister, angry that she is being held even though she has not committed a crime.