Decolonizing culture

Nadine Naber writes about the cultural clashes her family and neighbors met when moving to the US from Jordan, and how it affected the way she was brought up. She talks about the "cultural war" between American and Arab values that she as a teenager had to endure, and the pain of feeling like she betrayed her culture when she chose to go against her parents rules. The issue of us vs. them is discussed throughout the chapter, as she and other Arab-Americans she grew up with or interviewed met the same attitudes from their parents, something she calls reversed orientalism. Naber explains the theory behind orientalism, and shows us how their immigrant parents turned it around to the favor of their Arab culture. Basically, whatever their parents did not want them to do, became part of the "American culture," which was morally bankrupt, sexually depraved and degenerate. Naber talks about how much stricter her and other immigrant parents were compared to her relatives in Jordan, and concludes that the "Arabness" she was brought up in is a reaction to the cultural clash her parents met when moving to America, rather than built on traditional Arab values. Through interviews, she discusses similarities between herself and other young Arab-Americans, to come up with theories about the historical conditions and power structures that have shaped their community.