Category Archives: Immigration Issues

Women and Peacebuilding in Yemen

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Gender and Sexuality, Immigration Issues, Yemen

Women and Peacebuilding in Yemen: challenges and opportunities

by Najwa Adra, NOREF, 12 November 2013

This expert analysis explores hurdles facing and opportunities available to Yemeni women in light of UN Security Council Resolution 1325’s guidelines. Yemen is rich in social capital with norms that prioritise the protection of women, but internal and external stresses pose serious threats to women’s security.

Despite these hurdles, Yemeni women continue to participate in nation building. In 2011 women led the demonstrations that ousted the previous regime. At 27%, women’s representation and leadership in the current National Dialogue Conference is relatively inclusive. Their calls for 30% women’s participation in all levels of government have passed despite the opposition of religious extremists and the Yemeni Socialist Party. To provide the best guarantee of women’s security in Yemen, international agencies must, firstly, pressure UN member states to desist from escalating conflicts in Yemen, and secondly, prioritise development over geopolitical security concerns. Literate women with access to health care and marketable skills can use their participatory traditions to build a new Yemeni nation.

Downlad the pdf of this report here: http://www.peacebuilding.no/Regions/Middle-East-and-North-Africa/The-Gulf/Publications/Women-and-peacebuilding-in-Yemen-challenges-and-opportunities

Najwa Adra , PhD, is a cultural anthropologist with long-term research and consulting experience in Yemen. She has worked with FAO, UNICEF, USAID, the World Bank and DfID. In 2000-03 she piloted the highly successful Literacy through Poetry/Heritage, an adult literacy project in which learners’ own oral traditions formed the texts from which they learned to read and write. Her academic publications and development reports cover tribal identity and customary law, women in agriculture, social exclusion and adult literacy.

SULU SULTAN DEAD BUT NOT SABAH CLAIM

Immigration Issues, Philippines, Terrorism Issue


Relatives and supporters pray before the remains of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III (right) at the Blue Mosque in Maharlika Village, Taguig City. Kiram died Sunday at the age of 75. by NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

By Marlon Ramos, Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 21st, 2013

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/510943/sulu-sultan-dies-sabah-claim-lives-on#ixzz2iMXdXXVi
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The ownership claim of the sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo to Sabah will not be buried with Sultan Jamalul Kiram III.

Kiram made this clear to his family before he died at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City early Sunday, according to Abraham Idjirani, the sultanate’s secretary general and spokesman.

The 75-year-old sultan, the 33rd crowned ruler of one of the oldest sultanates in Southeast Asia, died from multiple organ failure due to complications of diabetes at 4:42 a.m.

Malacañang offered its condolences to the family of Kiram, who tried to force the government to press his clan’s claim to Sabah through an armed intrusion into the oil-rich territory in North Borneo in February, an adventure that left dozens of Filipinos and Malaysians dead.

But the death of Kiram does not mean the end of the Philippine government’s claim to Sabah, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

She said the government’s study of the claim that President Aquino ordered in March was still going on.

Kiram’s wife, Fatima Celia, said her husband died in her arms at the hospital. She said that before he died, he ordered his family and followers to keep alive the historic territorial claim to Sabah. Continue reading SULU SULTAN DEAD BUT NOT SABAH CLAIM →

Passport Blues

Gender and Sexuality, Immigration Issues, Yemen

Yemenis seeking American citizenship pay exorbitant dowries in lucrative marriages of convenience

by Nadia Haddash, Yemen Times, March 7, 2013

Getting a visa from the American embassy in Sana’a is not easy for Yemenis hoping to travel to the U.S., and is especially hard for young, single men. So, many seek an alternative route: marrying a Yemeni-American woman.

By doing so, they typically become American, too, but could be in debt for years—they often have to pay huge dowries for their dual citizen brides.

Walid Al-Asimi, 28, met his wife, a Yemeni-American, in an English institute in Sana’a.

“When I knew that she would travel to America I decided to marry her,” he says. “I was surprised when her father asked me to give $30,000 as a dowry.”

The majority of Yemeni youths who marry women with dual citizenship pay very high dowries, ranging between$10,000-50,000, or around YR 2 million- 11 million. By comparison, a typical dowry paid to a bride’s family in Sana’a is around $4,000 or YR 800,000. The dowry paid to brides’ families in rural areas of the country is much less still. Continue reading Passport Blues →

Bodega Yemeni Style in Brooklyn

Immigration Issues, Yemen


Photo by Kiran Sury

Yemeni Immigrant Saga
Every time you buy a beer or a lottery ticket at a bodega run by Mohamed Mohamed or one of his countrymen, you tap into a story of ethnic succession and a struggle to reconcile one culture with another

by Kiran Sury, The Brooklyn Bureau, Monday, Jan 7, 2013

On the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Glenwood Road in Brooklyn, Mohamed Mohamed runs Gold Star Deli Grocery with his father Mohamed and another employee, also named Mohamed, all of them from Yemen. This unique situation arises from Arabic nomenclature. “The customers get confused, but not us,” jokes the younger Mohamed. His father, whose full name is Mohamed Abdullah Alrohani, has come up with a more pragmatic solution: just call him Alex.

Across Glenwood Road, Sadek Almontaser mans the counter of the recently opened Glenwood Deli, a corner store. Cigarettes are sold behind the counter, drinks and chips line the walls, and a small deli section offers fresh sandwiches – staples for any bodega.

But to the discerning eye of a corner-store connoisseur, there are several features that are not so standard.

As Almontaser deals with a steady stream of lottery ticket buyers, he happily discusses how Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn’t a bad man, just misunderstood. His uncle Ali, who runs the deli station, is 11 years his junior, a genealogical feat made possible by his grandfather’s four wives back in Yemen. Ali will be happy to make you a BLT, though he may forget to mention that the bacon is made of beef, not pork. And every so often a man will enter the store, nod to Almontaser, and make his way downstairs. Not every bodega has a prayer room in the basement.

Across the street yet again, on the other side of Flatbush Avenue, the eponymous Yafai Deli and Grocery is run by Saad Yafai. He shares it with his brother Nabil, who is currently back home in Yemen. His entire family is in Yemen, and he and his brother take turns staying in America and running the family store.

Most New Yorkers would agree that the deli/convenience store, once the exclusive purview of Jews, Italians and Germans, has come to be associated with Latinos. The word bodega, which is used interchangeably with deli, is Spanish for “warehouse” or “cellar”. According to data from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the number of firms in the borough classified as supermarket or convenience stores almost doubled during the first decade of this century. But the three stores on the corner of Glenwood Road and Flatbush Avenue show that Latinos are no longer dominant, as shifting demographics have opened up a new ethnic segment of the market. An influx of Arabs has brought a corresponding increase in Arab storeowners, each eager to pursue his own version of the American Dream.

* * * * *

Clifton Clarke, professor of finance and business management at Brooklyn College, says that shifting populations opened a void for new businesses to fill, and that companies often change according to their target market. When Arab immigrants started to populate new neighborhoods, it made sense for them to manage the corner stores as they could better cater to Arabic needs. “Ethnicity, population, drives the type of businesses that are developed,” he says. “And these bodegas, which are now mostly run by Arabs, just fit in nicely.” Continue reading Bodega Yemeni Style in Brooklyn →

The high social price of humanitarian dissimulation

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Syria


By Estella Carpi

A few months ago, while conducting my PhD fieldwork in North Lebanon, I shared my ideas on the current humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees with a journalist working in Lebanon. I reported that I was told by some Lebanese from Halba that their neighbors threw stones at humanitarian workers during the food kits’ distribution for Syrian refugees in a little town in ‘Akkar (North Lebanon). Apparently it was just an outburst of tension because of the sudden massive presence of humanitarian organizations in loco. In the past they have always neglected this area in Lebanon due to lack of political interests, since the Israeli occupation and the consequent local impoverishment were primarily vexing the south of the country (1978-2000).

The humanitarian agency that the journalist was working for at that time first decided to omit such information before publishing the article. After that, in order not to be accused of censorship, with a cringe-worthy diplomatic move, they published it by elegantly modifying the content of the stones episode, and contending that local people in North Lebanon would definitely warm up if aid were provided to them too. This is a human dynamic that, unfortunately, I had never got the insight of in the field. The humanitarian agency at issue declared that this “information amendment” was carried out in a bid not to generate further frictions between the Lebanese and the Syrian communities. My “Wikileaks philosophy” pushes me instead to broach out the subject overtly and try to analyze it. Continue reading The high social price of humanitarian dissimulation →

Letters to My Son, #3

Ethics, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Literature, Poetry


Lebanese village by Saadi Sinevi

by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D.This is part three of a series from my book: The Return of the Hero and the Resurrection of the City, originally written in Arabic and translated by George N. El-Hage and edited by MaryAnn Del Vecchio, Ph.D. For part one, click here. For part two click here.September 1988Monterey, CAThird LetterI plant you in my eyes, a song of virgin longing, and I draw your smile over my sails bound towards the future.I am longing for return, and you are my hope and the eternal truth.Your two hands, my little one, are the cradle of love, and I am but a Sufi drowning in the deluge of meditation.I wear the gown of pain, and my feet are rooted in the glowing clay of creativity.May peace be upon you the day you were born and the day you embraced me and I felt that I held a bouquet of innocence and embraced a flaming sword.Glory be to your miraculous childhood.You are the lamb of peace, the joy of life, the tear of yearning and the hope of resurrection.My letters to you are but the embers of my burning thoughts, for you are the flame of prophecy and the wings of inspiration.You carry me to the world of the unknown and plant me in the fields of lilies and poems.You throw me on the sidewalks of the past and desert me on the shores of faraway islands.There, I metamorphose and transform into tropical plants, exploding with pleasure and burdened with forbidden fruits.I take off the tied gown of civilization and become naught but the flame of truth.I become one with the elements and melt like dew in the eyes of bereaving mothers. Continue reading Letters to My Son, #3 →

Letters to My Son, #2

Ethics, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Literature, Poetry


Lebanese triptych by Joseph Matta

by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D.
This is part two of a series from my book: The Return of the Hero and the Resurrection of the City, originally written in Arabic and translated by George N. El-Hage and edited by MaryAnn Del Vecchio, Ph.D. For part one, click here.

July 1988
Monterey, CA
First Letter

In the name of God, I preface my first letter to you, my son. You are the stream of tenderness that flows in my heart and fills my cup. You are my provisions for the coming years and the lantern of my future. You are the most precious possession that I have in this world. You were gifted to me at my most blessed moment of contentment and peace. That day, you were formed in my conscience, a graceful thought, and in your mother’s womb, a clot of blood. That day, I was very conscious of what I was doing. To your mother, I said: “Come, my love, let us create a son, and his name shall be Nicolas.” I knew that the newcomer will be you. An inner feeling and a sense of the mystical awakened inside of me an unmistakable realization of your arrival, my joy, my boy, whose playground is the wide world while you remain ever present with me and within me.

Your wide open eyes are two lakes of emeralds. You are not of flesh and blood. You are the essence of love, the expanse of light, a river of warmth and the glimmer of hope. Let time stand behind us because we existed before time. As for me, you are my whole existence. Your smile permeates the world with joy. Your little hands are the perfumed lilies of the fields and your face the shining sun of light and truth. As you embrace me, time stops, and within me, the glory of the Lord shines bright. I declare to you our eternal relationship: You, me and your mother. Let all others who have populated my books come out. They are naught but a mob of “unnecessary duplicates.” You are not alone. I am with you forever. I give you more soul from mine, more love from my love and more heart from my heart. Your presence overfills my existence and leaves no space for any other. You, alone, are my preoccupation, and at your feet, time stops. You are ever-present in my memory. You are my fruit, my roots and my future. You are my glorious history. Continue reading Letters to My Son, #2 →

Petition for a Kahlil Gibran US Postage Stamp

Contemporary Art, Immigration Issues, Lebanon, Literature


Sign the Petition for a Kahlil Gibran US Postage Stamp!

Why Gibran?

Since his passing, fans of Gibran Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) have called for a fitting tribute to the poet, author, artist, and philosopher, who remains one of the most renowned figures in the world literary landscape. For Arab Americans and Arabs daunted by political, financial and social uncertainty, Gibran holds a valuable place as the immigrant voice in America. Arab Americans and Arabs have long ago claimed Gibran’s achievements as their own, proudly holding his life and works close to their hearts.

Perhaps this protective emotional engulfing has to do partly with Gibran’s own quest to belong. Early on in his childhood, the Lebanese born poet was rendered homeless after his father was sent to prison for tax evasion, and his property was impounded. Shortly thereafter, the family emigrated to Boston’s South End, where non-English speaking Gibran was told he should Anglicize his name, and refer to himself simply as Kahlil Gibran. Continue reading Petition for a Kahlil Gibran US Postage Stamp →