All American Yemeni Girls

Abstract

In her book, Loukia Sarroub offers an ethnographic account of the lives of six Yemeni-American girls by following them through public schools from 1997-2002 to “obtain a deeper and richer understanding of their day-to-day lives at home and at school” (p. 19). By observing them in the school, home, malls, and mosque, as well as at their community’s social occasions, Sarroub investigates the tensions between their lives and identities in the American public school system and their family lives at home, both in the United States and in Yemen, their land of origin. In the first chapter, Sarroub details the theories behind her ethnographic research, introduces the research background, reviews the research methodology, and gives an overview of the participants. In chapter 2, she chooses Layla, one of the Yemeni-American girls, as a representative of the group. As Sarroub explains, Layla struggled to find a space for herself, because “it was not always clear to her whether she was an American or a Yemeni, and her attitude toward her home and school lives reflected her consternation with both identities” (p. 30). Being an Arab Muslim woman myself and living as a minority in a western society, I can relate to the struggle between gender roles. The girls’ roles are prescribed by culture and traditions, and their gender identity is constructed in ways that have been influenced by American society. Therefore, I expected the author to provide a more detailed analysis of how adolescents construct their gender identity in both Arab Muslim Yemeni and secular American cultures ...