Arab-American Community

It has been already said that Arab-American community was different like my family. This difference was determined the difference of the culture of Arab-Americans from traditional culture of the US. Therefore, it would be smart to look at my family links of Arab-Americans to their cultural heritage, to their Middle Eastern ancestry and culture.

In this respect, it is necessary to underline the fact that my family was and remains to be culturally diverse. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish traditional Arab culture and other cultures which are associated with Arab-American community in the US.

Basically, many Arab-Americans represent immigrants and their descendants from countries of the Arab World. It should be said that this community has similar culture, religious views and beliefs, moral norms, etc. This is why it is actually possible to speak about the existence of Arab culture in its pure form in the US, but, on the other hand, this culture and traditions are substantially influenced by the surrounding reality, by social and cultural environment of Arab-American community.

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As the matter of fact, even Arab-Americans of the Arab origin cannot feel that they are a part of a community because representatives of other ethnic and socio-cultural groups are also included in Arab-American community. Nevertheless, Arabs attempt to preserve and maintain their culture and traditions. Therefore many of my family members still pay a lot of attention to religion, which is Islam and catholic and they observe their old traditions that may be viewed as a link of Arab-Americans with the land of their ancestors.

In fact, religion plays probably the most important role in my cultural life of Arab-Americans which is a strong factor, which, by the way, can unite not only people who are of Arab origin but also people representing different ethnic groups but who are Muslims.

In such a way, being of different ethnic origin, Arab Americans can unite themselves around their religious views and beliefs, which are not only a set of beliefs, but, instead, it is a philosophical and religious teaching that regulates practically all spheres of human life. Consequently, Islam as the major religion of Arab-American community still plays a significant role, defines the life of many members of this community and, what is even more important, constitutes a strong link between Arab-Americans and their ancestors, cultural heritage and contributes to the formation of their Arab identity.

At the same, it is necessary to underline that the life in the US, the country with strong democratic traditions and liberal views, could not fail to affect the culture and traditions of Arab Americans which make it possible to speak about the growing gap between the Middle Eastern culture and the culture of Arab-Americans that inevitably affects their identity. In this respect, on analyzing differences between the traditional Middle Eastern culture and Arab-American culture, it should be said that even the most conservative field such as religious is susceptible to significant changes and has distinguishable differences.

For instance, Nabeel Abraham (1989) lays emphasis on the fact that may Arab-Americans have different religious views. To put it more specific, the cases when there are Christians in Arab-American community are not rare. In fact, in the US people can chose the religious freely and, what is more, people immigrated to the US from different countries and represent different communities, including Christian ones. However, being viewed by Americans as members of Arab-American community, these people are supposed to identify themselves with Arabs, who are predominantly Muslims. At any rate, Arab-Americans live in a culturally and religiously diverse community, but Christian members of this community can hardly find their place in it because traditionally in the Middle Eastern countries, they lived in isolated community.