| Muslim women -- United States -- Biography. |
| Arab American women -- Biography. |
| Salman, Ayser |
| Islamic women |
| Muslimahs |
| Women, Muslim |
| Women, Arab American |
Available:
Library | Shelf Number | Shelf Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Fairhaven-Millicent | 305.4 SAL 2019 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library | 305.4 SAL 2019 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Seekonk Public Library | 305.48697 SALMAN | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
An Immigrant Love-Hate Story of What it Means to Be American . "A rare voice that is both relatable and unafraid to examine the complexities of her American identity. " --Reza Aslan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
You know that feeling of being at the wrong end of the table? Like you're at a party but all the good stuff is happening out of earshot (#FOMO)? That's life--especially for an immigrant.
What happens when a shy, awkward Arab girl with a weird name and an unfortunate propensity toward facial hair is uprooted from her comfortable (albeit fascist-regimed) homeland of Iraq and thrust into the cold, alien town of Columbus, Ohio--with its Egg McMuffins, Barbie dolls, and kids playing doctor everywhere you turned?
This is Ayser Salman's story. First comes Emigration, then Naturalization, and finally Assimilation--trying to fit in among her blonde-haired, blue-eyed counterparts, and always feeling left out. On her journey to Americanhood, Ayser sees more naked butts at pre-kindergarten daycare that she would like, breaks one of her parents' rules ("Thou shalt not participate as an actor in the school musical where a male cast member rests his head in thy lap"), and other things good Muslim Arab girls are not supposed to do. And, after the 9/11 attacks, she experiences the isolation of being a Muslim in her own country. It takes hours of therapy, fifty-five rounds of electrolysis, and some ill-advised romantic dalliances for Ayser to grow into a modern Arab American woman who embraces her cultural differences.
Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as "Tattoos and Other National Security Risks," "You Can't Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You're Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom," and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Romantic struggles and strict immigrant parents inform a journey toward self-acceptance in this fast-paced, funny memoir by an Iraqi-born film editor and producer. Throughout a nomadic childhood spent in Iraq, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia, Salman was often the new kid. But family and faith remain constants in this series of vignettes that follow her through childhood, film school, and her career in Los Angeles. The chronological structure wears away as Salman gets older, leaving space for philosophical musings and slices of life: a heartfelt open letter to President Trump, a questioning of her Muslim practice, and a meditation on how long Iraqis take to say goodbye. But these chapters are, while colorful, too short and numerous to pack the same punch as the narrative parts. The last section of the book, focusing on dating, picks up the chronology and once again allows Salman's voice and humor to shine; she has a gift for chapter titles ("Land of the Free, Home of the McMuffin"), recounts funny anecdotes (including a conversation in which she and her mother decide she could never marry Salman Rushdie because it would be too confusing to be "Mrs. Ayser Salman Rushdie), and uses footnotes to great comic effect. Unevenly structured but always funny, this enjoyable and heartfelt book is great for a plane, the beach, or a free afternoon. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Fitting into her new home of Lexington, Kentucky, was not going to be easy especially with a name like Ayser. Her parents had moved their family from Baghdad to America when she was three years old. What followed was a series of culture clashes that Salman comically recounts, from the perils of bringing food from home to the school lunch table to what type of Egg McMuffin is acceptable for a Muslim. Salman convincingly states that her parents traded one fascist regime for another of their creation, where, for example, she was not allowed to date until she was 19, when it was time to find a husband. Laced in her offbeat takes about immigrant life, dating, and measuring up to her parents' demands are vivid descriptions of what it is like to be a Muslim in America, including a letter to President Trump begging him not to turn the country she loves into the Iraq she left behind. Humorous and heartfelt, Salman's story reflects the best and worst that her new country has to offer an outsider.--Bridget Thoreson Copyright 2010 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Foreword | p. xi |
| Preface: With Thanks & Apologies to Mom | p. xvii |
| Part 1 The Kids' Table | p. 1 |
| 1 "Playing Doctor"-Is This What Happens in Day Care? | p. 3 |
| 2 My Trouble with Men | p. 9 |
| 3 Land of the Free, Home of the McMuffin | p. 13 |
| 4 Eh-French Eh-Fries | p. 16 |
| 5 Fuck Off, Ian | p. 19 |
| 6 Star-Spangled Rodeo | p. 23 |
| 7 "Hate Crime" or Random Bee-Stinging Incident? You Decide | p. 27 |
| 8 Sibling Rivalry, or: How to Stop Your Sister from Getting the Western Name | p. 31 |
| 9 The Saudi Years: Pt. 1 ("Xanadu," a Place Nobody Dared to Go) | p. 36 |
| 10 The Saudi Years: Pt. 2 ("We Go Together") | p. 47 |
| 11 The Saudi Years: Continued ("Close to You") | p. 53 |
| 12 How to Be a Rock Star | p. 60 |
| 13 The Saudi Years: Final ("Livin' On a Prayer") | p. 63 |
| 14 Then There Was the Time I (Unknowingly) Became a Lesbian | p. 74 |
| 15 "Let It Be": the High School Years, Continued | p. 81 |
| 16 The Almost Lunch Date | p. 85 |
| 17 If Google Existed in My Teens, I Could've Had a Better Dating Life | p. 91 |
| 18 "Much Making" | p. 98 |
| 19 It (Sorta) Gets Better after High School | p. 104 |
| 20 I-raq Star | p. 113 |
| Part 2 Table Manners | p. 119 |
| 21 California: Finally I'm Home | p. 121 |
| 22 The Weinstein Years: The Best of Times / The Worst of Times | p. 129 |
| 23 A Dark Period | p. 135 |
| 24 #WhenWeSpeakUp | p. 140 |
| 25 The World's Worst Muslim? | p. 144 |
| 26 An Open Letter to President Trump | p. 149 |
| 27 An Intersectional World, or: My Postelection Observations) | p. 156 |
| 28 Hookah Bars Aren't Doing Arabs Any Favors | p. 161 |
| 29 Iraqis Take Forever to Say Good-Bye | p. 168 |
| 30 Grapes Are Eaten One by One | p. 171 |
| 31 Aloha Means "the Sign" in Arabic | p. 174 |
| 32 Christmastime in the Salman House | p. 177 |
| 33 Too Much Hair to Manage | p. 178 |
| 34 My Father, International Man of Mystery | p. 180 |
| Part 3 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? | p. 185 |
| 35 That Brief Moment I Was Mrs. Salman Rushdie | p. 187 |
| 36 Broken Engagement, a.k.a. Muslim Divorce | p. 192 |
| 37 A Bunch of Lines about a Bunch of Guys | p. 196 |
| 38 None of My Exes Live in Texas | p. 207 |
| 39 "You Can't Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You're Going to Be a Crazy Bitch" and Other Advice from Mom | p. 210 |
| 40 Neurosis Is the Mother of Invention | p. 216 |
| 41 A Conversation with God (When You're Sick as Hell) | p. 221 |
| 42 Love & the Search for Meaning in the Universe, Pt. 1 (The Wrong Kind of Saddle) | p. 225 |
| 43 Love & the Search for Meaning in the Universe, Pt. 2 (The Cockblock, or My Life as a Rom-Com) | p. 229 |
| 44 Love & the Search for Meaning in the Universe, Pt. 3 (The Nice Guy in the Haystack) | p. 233 |
| 45 Tattoos and Other National Security Risks | p. 240 |
| 46 The (First) Penultimate Chapter (A Rebel without Approval) | p. 245 |
| 47 Moving Over to the Right End of the Table | p. 248 |
| Epilogue: It Takes a Village | p. 251 |
| About the Author | p. 257 |