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Chapter 2 American Sojourners Between Honor and Shame A modern ‘‘ethnography’’ of conjectures, constantly moving between cultures, does not, like its Western alter ego ‘‘anthropology,’’ aspire to survey the full range of human diversity or development. It is perpetually displaced, both regionally focused and broadly comparative, a form both of dwelling and of travel in a world where the two experiences are less and less distinct. —James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture There exists a strong relationship between the Yemeni American students and their land of origin. Layla, for instance, and the other hijabat and their families are sojourners, with one foot in the United States and the other in Yemen. This connection between their country of origin and their home in the United Statesis key to understanding these Muslim youths and their families. The home world is much more than the physical space of a house in which the girls live. Home is not only a space; it is also a set of relationships and ideas that proffer a different set of expectations from those of school. The home world might mean living with parents and/or a husband and extended family, or it might simply mean the future possibility of a new home in either their U.S. community or Yemen. Importantly, home is really what the Yemeni American girls envision it to be and how they perceive its connection to school. As such, the notion of space becomes a relevant analytic tool for demarcating religious, ethnic, and gender boundaries. These boundaries, both social and physical, describe the spaces from which networks and identities emerge (Metcalf 1996). In other words, these spaces, whether they are religious (Muslim) or cultural (Yemeni and American), depict personal and community lives engaging with one another at multiple levels at different sites and on different continents. I examine the mechanisms for such engagement in the case of Layla and her Yemeni American peers, as I do the impact of these multiple spaces on their school lives. 22 Chapter 2 Yemeni migration is part of a larger historical trend, as Arabs from the Middle East have immigrated to the United States for more than a century. The early Arab immigrants assimilated American cultural norms and the English language easily because they came from JudeoChristian traditions and immigrated with the intent of making new lives for themselves and their children (Naff 1985, 1994). The most recent immigrants, those who have immigrated in the last twenty-five to thirty years, have typically been Iraqi or Yemeni and represent the ‘‘peasant’’ classes in their countries. Many moved to the Detroit area because they could find work in the large shipping and auto industries. Unlike earlier Arab immigrants, they have persisted in preserving both their Muslim ways of life and their Arab identities in the United States. Most of the Yemeni immigrants did not have any formal schooling in Yemen and are illiterate or semiliterate in Arabic and, in most cases, English. These immigrants have kept strong ties with their motherland, buying land in Yemen with the intention of going back, visiting for long periods, and sending their children there to marry. Consequently, in the United States, the children of these immigrants straddle two worlds, the literate world of school and the home world of religious and cultural values where text (the Qur’an) sanctions behavior, certain language use, disposition , and cultural norms. Classic sociological theory maintains that a sojourner is one who remains attached to his or her own ethnic group while simultaneously living in isolation and staying apart from the host society. The sojourn itself is conceived as a ‘‘job’’ in which one travels back and forth during intervening years to the homeland (Siu 1952). Unlike a more common work schedule in which the worker returns home at least once a day, a sojourner may return home once a year or once in several years, and a successful sojourn, much like a successful job, entails sending money home to support one’s family. While the notion of a sojourn as a job is compelling and commonly describes the migratory movement of immigrant populations in the United States, it is difficult to operationalize, especially when certain immigrant populations, such as the Detroit Yemeni, not only travel back and forth to Yemen but also settle in the United States. Most Yemeni enter the United States legally and become naturalized citizens and, importantly, settlers. Nonetheless, the notion of sojourner is a useful analytical tool in the case of Yemeni...

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