Arab in America
Eloquent despite rather humdrum art and too many misspellings in the copious, hand-lettered text, El Rassi’s autobiographically based plaint couldn’t be more timely. As many as possible need to know what being an Arab in the U.S. is like, and El Rassi meets that need comprehensively. He portrays an existence harried by name-calling, threats of bodily harm, pervasive ignorance about Arabs and the Middle East, and such casual insults as being asked whether he speaks English after having spoken it first. Brought to the U.S. by Lebanese immigrant parents when an infant, he appreciates the injustice of that bigotry more keenly than older immigrants perhaps could, for, raised entirely in the U.S., he was able to presume normalcy until, in eighth grade, his typically Arab dark beard grew in (he draws himself with stubble throughout, starkly differentiating himself from non-Arabs, ultimately to poignant effect). Besides moving us with his personal testimony, El Rassi does a lot of teaching, some of the most devastating of it about the U.S. --Ray Olson