Content-Type: text/html Arab-Americans in a Nation's Imagined Community ARAB-AMERICANS[1] IN A NATION'S "IMAGINED COMMUNITY": HOW NEWS CONSTRUCTED ARAB-AMERICAN REACTIONS TO THE GULF WAR The rally-round-the-flag phenomenon presented by the media during wartime is the nation as an "imagined community"[2] par excellence. The news media, during the Persian Gulf War, for example, repeatedly showed images of yellow ribbons tied around trees in neighborhoods across America symbolizing how citizens were members of a "unified whole" and "patriotic community" (Kellner, 1995, p. 217). However, oppositional, contradictory or alternative discourses surrounding wars are expected and necessary if the democratic nation-state is to maintain its sense of legitimacy. This study sought to investigate how "alternative" discourses about the Gulf War were presented in the news media at that time through the case of the Arab-American community. Some people of Arab descent had different and unique concerns related to the war because of their national and cultural heritage. As a result, news attention to Arab-American reactions to the war would be one way to examine how the news media presented "different" discourses at that time. This paper was guided by the following research question: how did the news media construct Arab-American concerns during the Gulf War and how was this cultural community's relationship to the larger nation as an imagined community portrayed? The central point of this paper is that although Arab-American concerns were articulated through some news media, these discourses were constructed in ways that ultimately maintained and reinforced the hegemonic notion of America as an "imagined community" deserving of citizens' sentimental attachments and loyalties. This argument is based on evidence from a Arab-Americans in a Nation's Imagined Community critical textual analysis of "national" newspaper stories featuring Arab-American reactions to the Gulf War during that time. This paper's theoretical assumption is that the media articulate "different" or "diverse" ideological discourses in relation to the nation as part of the hegemonic process of nationbuilding. It is through this hegemonic process of nationbuilding that multicultural nation-states are constructed as imagined communities. Like other multicultural nation-states, the U.S. relies on a consensus built upon a limited set of hegemonic values or beliefs about what it means to be American that is abstract enough to accommodate differences and yet specific enough for the nation-states' elites to be seen as the most legitimate power holders. The ideological and cultural power of the news media, in constructing discourses about the nation, is implicit in this hegemonic process. Theoretical Context Nations as Imagined Communities After about the mid-eighteenth century, geographical spaces began to be defined as nation-states. The world has geographically been, to borrow Stuart Hall's (1982, p. 67) phrase, "made to mean" through these particular political units. Nation-states came into our imagination and continue to be socially constructed through many cultural forms, particularly mass media. How the nation-state is socially constructed is conveyed powerfully in Anderson's (1991) work on the origins of nations. Anderson's work showed how the interplay of economic and cultural forces in the 18th century led to the rise of the "imagined community." The historical context leading to the ability to "think" the nation, according to Anderson, was the decline of religious or sacred modes of thinking and the growth of print capitalism. During this period, the "religious" sense of time changed to the secular idea of "homogeneous, empty time" that measured time rationally "by clock and calendar" (p. 24).[3] As printing presses became profitable businesses, this sense of time along with the communication developments of the novel and the newspaper "provided the technical means for 're-presenting' the kind of imagined community that is the nation" (p. 25). The daily newspaper made it possible for reported arbitrary, random news events to seem related by the imagined linkages of time. Simultaneously, the nation became to imagined in a geographic sense because newspaper readers would begin to associate events and market information about the colony to the colony itself (p. 62). In this way, print capitalism was able to conceptualize the nation as a form in terms of time and space and to develop a national consciousness. Once national consciousness was brought into being through communication and commerce, the "imagined community" was in place. Thus, Anderson defines the nation as: imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members_yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion _.imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as deep, horizontal comradeship. (pp. 4, 7) Nationbuilding as a Hegemonic Process Anderson's thesis makes clear that nation-states came into being as socially constructed imagined communities. However, what is not emphasized is the issue of who holds the power to imagine the nation and, further, to imagine the nation in particular ways. Although Anderson may not have made this issue of power centrally explicit in how the nation-state was initially constructed, it is certainly implied. By describing how the forces of print capitalism played a major role in creating an imagined community, it is clear that elite classes and intellectuals of the time led those economic, political and cultural forces that made it possible to "think" the nation. Critiquing Anderson's work, Schlessinger (1991) suggests contrasting Anderson's almost too communal perspective of nation with a "refreshingly sceptical measure of attention to the socially located sources of division, and the place of contending views of what properly make up the field of national imagery" (p. 165). He states that what is left out of Anderson's argument is a "view of culture as a site of contestations," a view that "problematizes 'national culture' and interrogates the strategies and mechanisms whereby it is maintained and its role in securing dominance of given groups in society" (p. 160). To understand how an imagined community is constructed in particular ways that serve the interests of certain groups, we need to consider the relationship between social constructions of reality and social relations of power. We thus turn to key concepts of ideology and hegemony. Hall (1977b, 1982) elaborates on how ideology serves to maintain power relations in which certain classes and their ideas dominate such as the idea of the nation-state and what it symbolizes. Those in power (or in a strictly Marxist deterministic view, the ruling class) influence how certain ways of defining things or events become credible and legitimized and others are excluded or are portrayed as subordinate or deviant. The dominant ideology thesis is problematic, however, as Hall (1977b) suggests, when considering modern liberal-pluralist democratic capitalist nation-states. Such societies function through consensus among diverse groups of people even as the nation-state's interests often reflect limited elite interests. How is it then that nation-states are able to attain the consent of the governed in multiethnic nations with varying classes whose interests are not represented by the power elite's interests? To answer this question, Hall (1982) turns to, as he appropriately characterizes it, Gramsci's revolutionary notion of hegemony (p. 335). Hall presents Gramsci's notion as an improvement over Marxist ruling class ideology thesis because it introduces the notion of struggle for hegemony through a complex relationship between ruling and subordinate ideologies. Hegemony is attained through struggle between subordinate and ruling interests in which the ruling power must, to some degree, "articulate" subordinate interests to retain legitimate authority and maintain the status quo. In understanding the multiethnic nation-state, with its diverse groups and interests, the concept of hegemony is central. To elaborate, it is important to see that those whose interests are not represented by the dominant culture, such as minority cultural groups, may not passively accept the hegemonic construction of the nation. Thus, how a nation as an imagined community is defined by elite interests is continuously negotiated in the presence of competing ideologies and differences among minority cultural groups. It is a hegemonic process, simply put, in which the dominant national ideology incorporates subordinate ideologies as part of the process of legitimation, as a way to maintain consensus. It is a process, states Bennett (1995), in which "the bourgeois ideology is able to accommodate, to find some space for, opposing class cultures and values. A bourgeois hegemony is secured not via the obliteration of working class culture, but via its articulation to bourgeois culture and ideology so that, in being associated and expressed in the forms of the latter, its political affiliations are alte red in the process" (p. 351). Nations as imagined communities then are continuously negotiated nationbuilding projects. As Schlessinger (1991) points out, the nation is not static and should be studied as a "process of continual reconstruction than to an accomplished fact" (p. 165). The concept of hegemony is central to understanding societies because, as Newbold (1995) notes, it allows "for the dimension of struggle and opposition, of confrontation between differing cultures, where hegemony has to be negotiated and won" (p. 329). Other scholars agree that the cultural construction of nations need to be studied as dynamic hegemonic processes. Ang (1990) writes: what counts as part of a national identity is often a site of intense struggles between a plurality of cultural groupings and interests inside a nation, and that therefore national identity is_fundamentally a dynamic, conflictive, unstable and impure phenomenon. (p. 252) As a result, unity can only be achieved through differences in modern societies. As Hall (1977a) suggests "most societies with complex social structures achieve their 'unity' via the relations of domination/subordination between culturally different and differentiated strata" (p. 158). In fact, one has to define unity through difference (much like other meanings in a structuralist sense). We need to look "for that which secures the unity, cohesion and stability of this social order in and through (not despite) its differences," states Hall (p. 158). To study this "complexity-and-unity requires us to concentrate on the mechanisms of power, legitimation, and domination: of hegemony" (Hall, p. 158). Using Hall's work, I would like to add the theoretical concept of hegemony to Anderson's notion of imagined communities to conclude that nation-states as imagined communities in the world today are hegemonic constructions. To elaborate, the nation-state is far from being "always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship" (Anderson, 1991, p. 7) because of inequality and diverse interests among various groups. However, it is still the possibility of this imagined community that remains powerful. It is this imagined community that many still strive to belong to and are willing to die for even if "horizontal comradeship" does not exist. Power struggles may move us closer or farther from the ideal of "horizontal comradeship" as part of the hegemonic process of nationbuilding but the hegemonic construct of the nation itself has withstood civil wars and civil rights movements. This is not to say that nation-states are permanent and could not be replaced by other forms of imagined communities (supranational states, global organizations perhaps? -- the debate over the decline of the nation-state at a time of globalization is one sign of its instability). However, the nation-state still remains a powerful construct. Today, the mass media, and their proliferation in various forms and the numbers of people who attend to them, are powerful signifiers of this hegemonic process of nationbuilding. As Anderson's study of the newspaper's role in creating a sense of nation powerfully demonstrated, communication played an important role in constructing nations. The media's constructions of meaning are not "a functional reproduction of the world in language, but of a social struggle - a struggle for mastery in discourse - over which kind of social accenting is to prevail, and to win credibility" (Hall, 1977, p. 77). As such, the media in modern societies are an important site of ideological struggles, the site in which the definition of nation as an imagined community is negotiated, and the site in which the hegemonic notion of America as an imagined community is reinforced. America as an Imagined Community - A Historical Context of Nationbuilding as a Hegemonic Process To explore the hegemonic process of nationbuilding in the U.S. specifically, we can consider this nation's history of ideological discourses about what it means to be American "in and through" differences (Hall, 1977a, p. 158). What it means to be an American is a hegemonic process of negotiating changing political, economic and cultural circumstances between an elite group (historically, those of Anglo-Saxon origin) in relation to other groups. Because America was a diverse nation from the start, with no common culture, a national identity had to socially constructed.[4] During the time of the American Revolution, Anglo-Saxon political elites had to unite diverse groups politically and "rhetorically to a new kind of nationhood" promoting the promise of a new nation that would grant freedom and equality for all (Mann, 1998, p. 93). Mann defines the Revolutionary War as an "ideological movement" and, in fact, suggests that what resulted was the radical breaking of "the century-and-a-half-old hyphen in the Anglo-American identity, thereby releasing the full force of American nationalism" (p. 93). Once the war was won through a unity based on these political ideals, what resulted was a nation that was defined in terms of Anglo cultural dominance, privileging the "customs and values of established British and Protestant strands in the American social fabric."(p. 93). Thus, America was and continues to be defined variously through two main ideological constructions. Summarizing the theses of various scholars (Mann, 1998; Katkin et. al., 1998; Gleason, 1998), America as an imagined community reflects (a) the values of the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture and (b) embodies the political ideals of freedom, democracy, equality, liberal-pluralism and capitalism. Katkin et. al. (1998) suggest that the Anglo-cultural definition of America dominates ideologically during periods of xenophobia and racism and the definition of America through its political ideals of freedom an democracy dominate during more liberal times. And, as Dinnerstein and Reimers (1999) note, "[e]very succeeding immigrant group that came to the English colonies, and later to the United States, had to absorb these aspects of the dominant culture to be accepted as Americans" (p. 5). Thus the political ideals and the dominant culture were made to seem universal. The power of this is captured by Anderson (1991) when he notes, "the son of an Italian immigrant to New York will find ancestors in the Pilgrim Fathers" (p. 145). It is an understatement that this Anglo-centric political, cultural and economic interpretation of American nationalism did not reflect the interests or experiences of groups who were excluded from the imagined community through slavery and discrimination. As a result, the rhetorical discourse about equality for all promoted by political elites has been in effect practiced in an inconsistent, contradictory manner to serve elite interests. However, America as a nation has been and is continuously defined by its political ideals of freedom, democracy, equality for all and in general, the fulfillment of the American Dream. The theme of the United States as a nation of immigrants striving for the American Dream has evolved as dominant national historiography (Gabaccia, 1999). What this historical paradigm ignores, however, is the history of native and African Americans. Gabaccia's thesis is that the immigrant paradigm serves to exclude African and native Americans while also distorting and excluding immigrants' real experiences in the U.S. (p. 1122). In addition, America as a nation welcoming to immigrants is contradictory when considering the nation's history of immigration restrictions and exclusions, for both people of color and for people who are today have come to be considered "white." To elaborate, nearly each wave of non-English immigrant groups starting with the Germans and the Scots-Irish in the eighteenth century were not often tolerated. Dinnerstein and Reimers (1999) note that the English elite, especially in Pennsylvania, viewed the Germans "as dangerous elements" (p. 7). They quote Benjamin Franklin expressing his dislike for Germans by quoting this passage: "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?" (p. 7). Regarding the early Scots-Irish settlers, New Englanders perceived them as "uncleanly, unwholesome and disgusting" (p. 8). The German and the Irish, who today are considered assimilated, are a good example of how the hegemonic process of continuously negotiating the membership of an imagined community is accomplished. Importantly too is the hegemonic process of defining America as an imagined community through race, specifically the construction of America as a "white" nation. This process, notes Basch et. al. (1994), "has served to justify and perpetuate the subordination of the African-American population as well as to assimilate certain immigrant populations and exclude others" (p. 40). Thus, dominant political, economic and cultural groups in the U.S. have continuously used the ideological constructions of "race" and "ethnic" or immigrant groups in a hegemonic process of defining America as a nation to serve changing political, economic and cultural circumstances. It is important to understand then that although certain versions of national identity were and are simultaneously and continuously accepted and contested throughout America's history, the construction of America as an imagined community was and is not simply a process defined by powerful elites. So, for example, while assimilation efforts are undertaken, immigrant groups also empower themselves. They have always created their own institutions such as churches, schools, newspapers and organizations. Particularly during the 1960s civil rights era, many groups became more empowered and began to take pride in their identities, modeling the African-American struggle. As a result, cultural pluralism became another competing way to define the imagined community. Defined in this way, America was a nation of many diverse groups of people competing equally (Basch et. al., 1994, p. 43). By the 1990s, multiculturalism has become yet another contested way to define America as an imagine d community in which previously ignored groups sought more cultural power and inclusion within mainstream political, cultural and economic institutions. From this discussion we can see that this hegemonic process of changing national discourses about who belongs to the nation has been continuously negotiated. There are competing struggles between the dominant group and the diversity of ethnic groups to define themselves and the nation. Generally, these struggles have been historically characterized in the form of various labels. Arab-Americans To see how Arab-Americans fit into the nation as an imagined community, it is important to set a historical context. While Arab-American immigration is unique in many respects, it is important to keep in mind that their history also fits the pattern of other immigrant groups and their relationship to the nation. Most scholars of Arab-American history define Arab immigration as occurring in two waves - before and after World War II. From the 1870s until World War II, most Arab-Americans came from the Greater Syria region or present-day Lebanon and were mostly Christians (Suleiman, 1999, p. 1). The Lebanese Christians, in particular, had fled the Ottoman regime. Many worked as peddlers and were not so quick to assimilate, thinking they would return home eventually (Suleiman, p. 4). Earlier in their immigration, they did not identify themselves by national origin but rather by "village of origin" like many ethnic groups before them. With stringent immigration restrictions after World War I, few new Arab-Americans came. Consequently the Syrians and Lebanese that were here were mostly assimilated by World War II. After World War II through the present, Arab-Americans came from all parts of the world, but most were from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Yemen. Also, post-War Arab-Americans were largely Muslims, with Muslim Sunnis as the majority (Suleiman, p. 1). Like many ethnic groups, they came for economic, political, or religious reasons. After World War II, Arab immigrants who came were highly educated professionals or college students who stayed (Suleiman, p. 9). They came for economic reasons and to escape regional conflicts. Especially in the 1990s, many educated Arabs came as political refugees (p. 9). Many Iraqi-Americans also fled Iraq because of their opposition to Saddam Hussein's oppressive dictatorship. They settled in many different places, however the greater Detroit area has been known for having one of the largest concentrations of people with Arab descent, about 200,000 (Shyrock and Abraham, 2000, p. 18). Like other minority cultural groups, Arab-Americans' struggle to belong to the nation centered around racism. Arab-American history in the U.S. reflects a recurring racial theme of "not quite white" as immigration officials early on struggled over how to classify this group (Samhan, 1999, p. 210). Stereotyped images of Arab-Americans have been prevalent and have been documented in a number of books.[5] Scholars, such as Said (1979), have analyzed the representation of Arabs in general in relation to the West, suggesting that the Western world has created Arabs as a racial "other" in which Arabs are portrayed as dangerous, emotionally volatile, and backwards. In addition, Joseph (1999) suggests that political and religious representations about Arabs are distorted: The Western discourse on the Arab world represents politics in terms of the predominance of despotism, dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, the lack of civil society, democracy, citizens' political participation_.In popular representations, the image is that the area produces terrorists, suicide bombers, hijackers, and fanatics. (p. 263) Joseph points out "that Islam is the West's new evil empire_represented as a militaristic religion bent on jihad (holy war), inherently and historically hostile to the democratic, capitalist, Christian West" (p. 261) and counters that Islam is rather a "highly complex and diverse religion that has many different sects, legal systems, beliefs, and practices" (p. 261). By the late 1960s, a growing pan-Arab-American identity was developing, despite the many national, political, religious and cultural differences within this group, because of the growing need for political solidarity. Arab-American identity came to be known as such after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (Shain, 1999). According to Shain, "before the war, Arab-American identity was amorphous and dormant" (p. 96). Shain attributes this move towards pan-ethnic Arab solidarity as a way to counter the strong Israeli lobby in the U.S. as well as the "ethnopolitical awakening" that resulted from the civil rights movement in the late 1960s (pp. 96-97). Today, many in both the larger culture as well as Arab-Americans themselves see people from Arab countries as part of a larger Arab-American community (although this does not mean that the Arab-American community considers itself united internally). After the Arab-Israeli War, earlier generations of Arab Americans as well as newer immigrants became mobilized and formed such political organizations as the National Association of Arab-American Americans (NAAA) in 1972; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in 1980, and the Arab American Institute (AAI) in 1985. In particular, many Arab-Americans felt the increased tension as a community in the face of U.S. war against Iraq. While many Iraqi-Americans opposed Saddam Hussein, they were still not eager to see the U.S. bombing their native land. Furthermore, many Arab-Americans were targets of discrimination and harassment, despite the fact that the U.S. was engaged in war against Iraq with the support of some Arab allies in the Middle East. Examples of the threats and harm against this community include: FBI questioning of Arab-Americans; the vandalizing of Arab-American owned businesses; the beating of an Arab-American by a white supremacist mob in Toledo; death threats; and the banning by Pan American Airlines of Arab passengers (Kellner, 1995, p. 218). Method This research project sought to apply these theoretical premises to the particular case of Arab-Americans during the Gulf War. As indicated earlier, my main research question is: how did the news media articulate Arab-American community's concerns about the Gulf War and how were Arab-Americans "imagined" or constructed in relation to the nation. To address this research question, I conducted a critical textual analysis on newspaper feature stories that focused on Arab-American community concerns about the Gulf War. The time period I chose for news stories were those published during the Gulf War, which began on January 17, 1991 and ending on February 27.[6] To assess how an Arab-American community was constructed more concretely, I decided to examine stories tied to a geographical sense of Arab-American community. Thus, I chose news features that had a Detroit or Dearborn, Michigan (an area just outside of Detroit) dateline. The Detroit/Dearborn area was chosen because that area has the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the U.S. If journalists were to eager to get "Arab-Americans' side of the story" then they would likely seek stories from that region. I also chose to analyze stories from what would be considered "national" newspapers. Although the U.S. does not have a tradition of national newspapers per se, there are "local" newspapers known for having a national reputation and readership concerning national politics. Such papers include The Washington Post and The New York Times. The other newspaper, striving for a national audience that I considered was USA Today, though relatively new and less elite-oriented. Because of their national orientation, these three newspapers are more likely to do in depth stories that originate from various parts of the United States, other than Washington, D.C. or New York City, with less of a need to tailor stories in terms of their "local" angles or relevance. As such, these newspapers would, and did indeed, write individual stories focusing solely on the large Arab-American community in the Detroit/Dearborn area. Furthermore, because I wanted to examine how an Arab-American community was constructed in feature stories in national newspapers, I excluded news stories about the Gulf War in general that may have included Arab-American reactions as a subtopic; local angle stories about Arab-Americans in various "local" newspapers around the country; as well as brief news items about Arab-Americans. By doing a Nexis search using the keyword terms "Arab-Americans," the dates of the Gulf War, and "Detroit or Dearborn," I found five feature stories that fit my criteria: two from the New York Times, two from USA Today, and one from the Washington Post. Although the New York Times and USA Today did two stories each, I chose at random one exemplar from each national paper since, upon analysis, the themes were so similar in these additional stories and were, in fact, written by the same journalists. Following are the three stories selected for analysis: ù USA Today. Mimi Hall, (January 25, 1991). "Arab-Americans Feel Torn, Threatened." ù The New York Times. Peter Applebome, (February 20, 1991). "War in the Gulf: The Home Front; Arab-Americans Fear a Land War's Backlash." ù The Washington Post. Paul Hendrickson, (February 15, 1991). "Caught in the Middle: Detroit's Arab Americans: Fighting Stereotypes, Torn by Conflicting Loyalties." I analyzed these newspaper feature stories using a critical textual analysis approach. The first step involved multiple readings of the text to gain a general understanding of the stories, making notes as I read (by text here I mean the three national stories as a whole). Then, I read in a more detailed manner recognizing certain recurring topics or categories and labeling the text with these categories. To better work with the categories and the related textual examples, I inputted these into my word processor. As a next step, I began interpreting my topic categories and analyzing how they are related, looking for finer distinctions within them and/or broader connections among them (this process ended up in my collapsing five categories into three). All the while, I was interpreting the evidence keeping my research question in mind. Finally, I identified a broader overarching theme or conclusion concerning how the news coverage was constructed in relation to the theoretical assumptions of this paper. Discussion Three main topic categories emerged from the text. They were: "Feelings about the War"; "Feeling Threatened/Misrepresented/Misunderstood"; and, "Descriptions of the Arab-American Community." These three categories worked to construct a particular narrative of Arab-American concerns during the war. This narrative was one of ultimate reaffirmation of loyalty to the nation's imagined community. Arab-Americans were shown to be feeling much anguish over the loss of lives or harm to their fellow Arabs while at the same time they reaffirmed their love and loyalty to the U.S. The emphasis on emotionally evocative personal stories of Arab-American suffering served to depoliticize this community. The articulation of tragedy constructed Arab-Americans as passive apolitical actors in this political drama. Also, when discussing the community as a whole, the news text also tapped into the nation's broader "imagined community" historical narratives about immigrants. The discourse demonstrated Arab-Americans as similar to other groups' experiences in the U.S. Following is a detailed discussion of the three topic categories with textual examples for each from which these findings are drawn. After this discussion, the conclusion presents the findings in relation to the broader theoretical premises of this paper. Lastly, the paper concludes with a discussion of this study's implications for news and society in general. Feelings about the War The most prominent discourse in the news coverage focused on feelings about the war. It is important to note that all three stories were similar in beginning with and generally focusing on descriptions of the intense emotions Arab-Americans felt during this trying time. This is evident in the headlines themselves: "Arab-Americans feel torn, threatened" (USA Today; emphasis added); "Arab-Americans Fear a Land War's Backlash" (New York Times;emphasis added); and, "Caught in the Middle: Detroit's Arab-Americans Fighting Stereotypes, Torn by Conflicting Loyalties" (Washington Post; emphasis added). The stories' leads begin with a similar emphasis on emotional concerns. The most prominent discourse and emotionally evocative images in the news coverage showed that Arab-Americans were suffering anguish and despair at the thought of their relatives, friends, or fellow Arabs might dying because of U.S. bombing. The most poignantly conveyed Arab-American profile symbolizing this anguish was reported in the Washington Post story, which was the longest feature story of the three. The Washington Post went deep into the personal story of Intissar Ann Alkafaji, a criminal lawyer living in a Detroit suburb describing her incredible distress over the war: Her name is Intissar Ann Alkafaji, and the night the bombing started, she never went to sleep, barely let her eyes go off the TV screen. That was her birthplace by the Tigris lighting up like a pinball machine. Her 64-year-old mother, seven of her brothers and sisters, her cousins, her nephews and nieces, old teachers, childhood friends - they were all there in Baghdad, and she was here, 6,200 miles away, safe in her rich suburban Michigan home, and were any of them breathing now? She pictured them trying to get out from under burning rubble. (Washington Post) The USA today also conveyed a sense of despair in the following passage: Arkan Naman's days are consumed by desperate - and so far futile - calls to Baghdad to see if his brothers and sisters have survived the relentless allied bombing of Iraq. (USA Today) The text elaborated on this sense of despair and described how Arab-Americans were feeling torn between concern for "their people" who might be hurt in the war and a continuing sense of loyalty to the U.S. The logic of these recurring sentiments can be generally summarized as follows: a continual reaffirmation of loyalty to the U.S., while simultaneously feeling distressed about the war and its consequences for their fellow Arabs. For example, U SA Today reported on Abdallah Elachi, a Lebanese-born Arab fruit market owner's reaction as: "I'm a U.S. citizen as much as you are and I probably love this country more than anyone_But you're torn because you have relatives over there. (USA Today) Similarly, the Washington Post's in-depth personal story of Intissar Alkafaji included an account of her visit to Iraq in the past and her recollection of a discussion with her Iraqi nephew in which she affirms her love for America: "Tomorrow, Haider. I have to leave you. For my beautiful home sweet home America." She concludes with her painfully torn feelings by stating: "Part of my taxes are killing my own people. It's an irony that's so hard to bear" (Washington Post). Writing another profile, the Washington Post focuses on Joe Borrajo, a second generation Arab-American. Borrajo "was born here, loves Detroit." He is portrayed as an active and responsible citizen in the community: He's a member of New Detroit Inc., he's a Dearborn City Beautiful Commissioner, he's the chairman of the Arab-American Voter Registration and Education Committee" (Washington Post). The discussion about his feelings towards the war affirms his loyalty to the U.S. -- "I served honorably in the armed forces" -- while at the same time highlighting his opposition to all wars as destructive and this war, in particular, for its Arab death. He is quoted as stating: Even if it wasn't a Middle Eastern war involving my heritage, I'd still be against it. War is an outdated means of trying to solve a problem. It's primitive. This line of reasoning, "If you attack policy, you're not supporting our boys over there,' that's junk. I will not allow my loyalty to be questioned. I served honorably in the armed forces of this country. I am an American_This country was founded on the idea of honest dissent. I see the armies of the United States killing my people, I want to scream, 'My God, stop it!.' (Washington Post) Following are more textual examples that show this theme: This is the anguish of the nation's 3.5 million Arab-Americans. Fiercely loyal to this country yet nostalgic for their homelands, many feel torn - and threatened. For even as they affirm their allegiance to the USA, many quietly question its decision to attack Iraq. (USA Today) Says Naman, an Iraqi Christian who moved here 10 years ago and works in an Arabic meat market: "I like both countries. We don't want war. It's sad. We think about it all day." (USA Today) Even when the editor of The Arab American News, was reported to be "infuriated" that Arab-Americans were made to intimidated because of U.S. jingoism he was "quick to say" that: "If Iraq attacked the United States, Arab-Americans would stand and fight harder than any other Americans" (USA Today). It is clear from these recurring sentiments that are emphasized in the news that Arab-Americans are depoliticized in their reactions to the war. They were against the war because all wars were bad, war is bad in general because it results in death. Interestingly enough, there was not one Arab-American who mentioned the most common criticism of the war expressed in most media, that the war was being fought for oil interests, and that their fellow Arabs might have to die for oil. The articulated angst over Arab lives is interesting in the context of what is disarticulated. There were a few passages in the text in which Arab-Americans are shown to be more politically explicit, but in many instances, these political expressions were ambivalent regarding the U.S. For example, the following passage from the text indicates opposition to Hussein and feeling torn about U.S. policy because of its cost in Arab lives. For more recent immigrants, like Mr. Sitto and for a group of six people from five Arab countries who met recently to discuss the war with a reporter, there is a uniform opposition to the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But there is also a feeling that the United States is using excessive force in Iraq, an anger at the loss of lives and a fear of what it will mean for Arabs in this country. (New York Times) For many Iraqi-Americans, Iraq's oppressive government was a reason for leaving that country, and so there were political reasons for opposition to Hussein. However, even these political reasons were not explored other than in the above passage. In another case, even when there was Arab-American criticism of the U.S. it was in the context of critiquing both U.S. and Arab politics and culture: Although loath to criticize fellow Arabs, some of those at the discussion said the turmoil in the Middle East not only reflected what they saw as Western arrogance and blunders but also some tragic flaws in the Arab world itself. "When I look at the Arab world, I see societies which have in a sense, forsaken tolerance, pluralism and democracy," Professor Abraham said. "In the U.S., even though there is this jingoism that's all over the place in a flood, you still hear people say others have the right to a different opinion." (New York Times) This last passage clearly affirms the U.S. as a democracy representing ideals of freedom and Arab-Americans as part of America's imagined community of democracy, even in this time of crisis. In contrast to these feelings of being torn and the few ambivalent political statements, the news coverage also portrayed three Arab-Americans who were unequivocally pro-U.S. and anti-Iraq or anti-Arab. For example: For those whose families have been here longer, there is substantial support for the war and less anxiety about what the war will mean for Arab-Americans. "I fully support the President," said George Bashara, a prominent lawyer who is vice president and general counsel for Federal Mogul Corporation, a manufacturer of auto parts. His grandfather emigrated from Lebanon in 1897. "I'm absolutely convinced of the rightness of our cause. I believe Mr. Hussein is nothing more than an international thug." (New York Times) Also, Fred Motney, a 65-year-old car salesman and second generation Syrian, was quoted as stating he does not even like Arab people. He stated: "I'm totally 100 percent American_. I love this country, though like anybody else, at times I don't always agree with what we do. If there's a misperception of Arabs, I think it's our fault. It's not the WASP's fault. I think it's the Arab-Americans of today who, some of them, can be awfully obnoxious. I don't even like them, and they're my people." (New York Times) Another man, an Egyptian doctor, is even more blunt about his anti-Iraq feelings: "You have to flatten them ... that's all," he says. He means Iraqis. "This is the greatest country on Earth. ... Something will have to be sacrificed for something else. It's always the way. This man, Hussein, he is a madman. There are many fundamentalists over there. He may stampede them into some kind of panic. I think you have to go in and finish it quickly. It's sad but necessary. The problem, you see, is the American armies are being too kind." (Washington Post) As one can see the dominant discourse about the war involved feelings of either ambivalence or strong affirmation of loyalty and support for the U.S. There were only about two people quoted who expressed frustration concerning U.S. policy and support for the Arab world in Middle East affairs. One comment was by an Arab-American business owner, who came to the United States in 1973 from Bint Jbail, a town in southern Lebanon that is now occupied by Israel. "But the lack of respect is due to the U.S. historically aligning itself with a country that calls itself Israel that has committed so many atrocities against the Palestinian people, and the Arab people in general." (New York Times) By preceding this quote with the information that this man comes from an area now occupied by Israel, the story makes it clear why he would be anti-Israel, and by implication anti-U.S. policy. Another person quoted was a 34-year-old graduate student whose family immigrated from Lebanon about 40 years ago. She suggested that: The Jordanian leader "said it best when he said that the attack on Iraq is an attack on all Arab people." (New York Times) Feeling Threatened/Misrepresented/Misunderstood Another area of discourse highlighted in the news coverage was Arab-American feelings of being threatened and misrepresented during the Gulf War because of their Arab heritage. Arab-Americans are described as feeling fearful of U.S. jingoism. This discourse in the text constructed Arab-Americans as a minority community that is suffering because of harassment, stereotypes and misunderstandings stemming from the larger imagined community. What is ignored however is the history of Arab-American stereotyping throughout U.S. history and especially prominent in the 1980s. Instead, the threats and stereotypes are shown to be in relation to the Gulf War and, even though these incidences are upsetting, they are portrayed as expected or as a natural consequence of the War. In the text, for example, an Arab-American professor of archeology was quoted as stating: If it gets really ugly there, you will see more and more negative consequences for Arab-Americans here. If too many soldiers are killed and you see the body bags, that's what will really create difficulties for Arab-Americans. (New York Times) Others expressed fear to go outside of their homes, especially if they are conspicuously Muslim. On young woman states that her aunts and mother who are "scarved," i.e., who wear traditional Muslim head coverings are "scared to go out of the house." Another Arab-American professor suggested that Arab-Americans will go into hiding. He stated: I think most of them are going to head for the hills," Professor Abraham said. "That is to say that they 're going to retreat into a cocoon of family and denial of ethnic identity. You can see it in the store owners, who have these huge flags because they're worried they're a potential target." (New York Times) These passages show that the fear of growing anti-Arab sentiment in the U.S. during the war was palpable among the Arab-American community. These feelings seem justified as the news coverage reports on an increase in threats and incidences against Arab-Americans. Citing reports from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the New York Times reported that there were less than five harassment incidents before the war and more than 60 since the war began. The American Arab News offices had received bomb threats, according to USA Today. In addition, the USA Today reported other bomb threats in the Detroit community against residents and businesses and also reported that a high school, with mostly Arab-American students had to post guards at the doors. The Washington Post cited the "torching of a Jordanian American party store" in Detroit. In addition to anonymous threats and harassment, it was reported that The American Arab News editor, Osama Sibliani, was critical over FBI questioning of the Arab American community, according to the Washington Post. He said that: "it comes close to "harassment" (Washington Post). His wife was also quoted as stating: "I think it's been done to try to silence the community, to keep the community from voicing its dissent against public policy" (Washington Post). Sibliani also suggests in the following comment that Arab-Americans are intimidated to express opposition to U.S. policy, but that he is cited as stating that his paper's toll-free hot line "set up to give the community a place to voice fears and frustrations" has received 700 calls opposing U.S. involvement in Middle East affairs. The number of calls received by this editor opposing U.S. involvement in the Middle East is in sharp contrast to the preponderance of pro-U.S. sentiments found in the news coverage, as indicated earlier. What is interesting about these Arab-American reactions to the larger imagined community's sense of hostility towards them is that they, as discussed before, still remain committed and loyal to the abstract concept of America as a nation of freedom and opportunity. Even when broadening the discourse to larger discussions of racism, Arab-Americans were constructed as passive, misunderstood victims, instead of focusing on those who were taking action on behalf of Arab-Americans. For example, the New York Times, quoting Mr. Sitto, an Arab-American businessman, wrote: "Already you can hear people say, "Hey, Arab; hey, camel jockey.'" Another Arab-American, quoted in the New York Times, Mrs. Daher, attributed "lack of respect for the peoples of these areas" as the reason for Arab-American community problems. The Washington Post story cited an Arab-American's frustration with racism: "The social dimensions of skin tone, okay" (he is holding out his arms with the sleeves of his sweater shoved up), "the heredity of big bugged eyes, okay" (he is bugging his eyes), "well, all of this, things we were born with, things we can't help, made us feel somehow, just growing up here that we were inferior." (Washington Post) The text also highlighted the following blunt examples of actual Arab-American stereotyping from outside the larger community: For example, the Washington Post wrote: "these days in Detroit you see a certain poster flapping from telephone poles, from bulletin boards in laundromats. The poster says: "I'd Fly 10,000 Miles to Smoke a Camel. The Washington Post also reported on the racist remarks of a "young woman of Mexican descent" stating that Arab-Americans are: "obnoxious, they stink, they're dirty. They own all these gas stations, they come over here and make money off us, take our jobs. I hate them. I hated them before this war." This last passage suggests a larger story of racism concerning this community that is mentioned, but not elaborated or emphasized within a larger historical context of racism in America. Descriptions of the Arab-American Community The third topic category of the news coverage focused on descriptions of the Arab-American community and its diversity and its pattern of immigration to the U.S. All of the news stories highlighted the Detroit/Dearborn area as the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the U.S. early in their stories. The news coverage was detailed in its descriptions of the diversity within the Arab-American community. The news coverage highlighted the diversity of Arab national origins. The New York Times, for example, described the pre World II and post World War II differences in Arab immigration to the U.S. indicating that the first wave of immigrants were Christians such as the Iraqi Chaldeans, Yemenis, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Palestinians and Egyptians and the second wave included a mix of Christians and Muslims. The Washington Post also noted the diverse national origins of the Arab-American community including Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrian, Yemeni, Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and Iraq. In a sense, the news coverage following the dominant historiographical immigration narratives. For example, the New York Times, reported that "for those whose families have been here longer, there is substantial support for the war and less anxiety about what the war will mean for Arab-Americans" This suggests an assimilation narrative common to immigration historiographies, in which immigrants over generations become less attached to their country of origin and more attached to their new homelands. This is contradicted in the same New York Times story, however, when a source who is a 36-year-old third-generation Syrian is represented as active in Arab political organizing. The Washington Post, in particular with its longer feature piece, taps into common immigration narratives to construct the Arab-American community. They tapped into stories about immigrants coming to America for economic opportunity. The Iraqis, like the Palestinians or Yemenis or Syrians, didn't come to Detroit dreaming of taking over convenience stores or gas stations. They came -- like Germans and Poles and Italians and Czechoslovaks; like every other nationality who ever arrived at the shores of this 18th-century French fur outpost -- dreaming of getting on, getting rich, at Chevy Gear and Axle, at Chrysler Assembly, at the Rouge. That's the history of Detroit in the 20th century. This passage also equates Detroit history to the story of immigration, a typical historical narrative, in which America is portrayed as a nation of immigrants, a beacon of hope for the world. In another passage, Detroit was seen as the place that Arab immigrants sought out early in the 20th century because of the "phenomenal $5-a-day wage Henry Ford was willing to pay any hard-working man with a a back and two arms." Indeed, it seems that the Detroit/Dearborn area are portrayed as a symbolic microcosm of America. For example, the Washington Post describes Dearborn as the "Ellis Island of the Arab world," updating the geographical center for immigration to accommodate the Arab-American community's story in the 20th century. However, the contemporary problems of urban American including racism and industrial decline was reflected as affected this community as well as the general Detroit area, and symbolically America as a whole. One of the paradoxes about Detroit is that the thing that makes it so rich -- its amazing ethnicity -- is also the thing that seems to conspire to keep it down, keep it fractured and forever polarized. (Washington Post) Conclusion It was proposed that the news media are primary sources for defining multiculturally diverse nation-states as an imagined community through a hegemonic process of nationbuilding. This study seems to support this theoretical perspective. News about Arab-Americans as a minority cultural group with "different reactions" to the War were articulated in ways that ultimately re-presented Arab-Americans as part of the imagined community. The news coverage both accentuated their differences while emphatically reaffirming their allegiance and loyalty to the U.S. Thus a hegemonic construction of a united multicultural nation -- the U.S. as an imagined community -- prevailed. This is the hegemonic process of nationbuilding in action through the news media as unity is accomplished "in and through (not despite) differences" (Hall, 1977a, p. 158). Specifically, this was accomplished by constructing apolitical stories of personal tragedy, individualizing stories and disarticulating these discourses from macropolitical concerns and interests. Thus, this "different" cultural group reinforced and did not threaten the dominant U.S. national interests during the war. Their dual national identities and political-cultural "differences" resulted in emotional consequences of sadness and fear, as the themes of the stores indicated. The emphasis on the emotional consequences of the war eclipses macropolitical concerns or perspectives from this cultural group that might question the legitimacy of the nation-state's actions during this time. The news stories presented these passive tales of Arab-American suffering as circumstances of fate that must be endured or survived. Arab-Americans were shown to discuss their tragic situation among themselves in coffee shops, they wrote poetry, they prayed for the war's quick end. That Arab-Americans faced the loss of their mothers, uncles, cousins or other relatives constructs an emotional resonance of sympathy that allows for Arab-Americans to speak of "my people" in terms of family and friends without it being constructed as a threat to their association with the people of the United States. In addition, as the findings showed, the reactions to the war articulated in the news media were not based on political opposition or rationales, but ambivalence and ultimately reaffirmation of their loyalty to the U.S. Expressions of anger over the war or U.S. policy was depoliticized - war, any war, is bad or immoral, because of the loss of lives. It should be considered that, because of U.S. alliance with some Arab nations during the war, the pro-U.S. attitude articulated among Arab-Americans would not have been unusual. However, the complexity of Arab-American support for U.S. foreign policy was not articulated. Rather, this support was presented simply as patriotic expressions of loyalty. Whether the prominent reaffirmations of loyalty to the nation in the news stories could be explained in terms of actual Arab-American support for U.S. policy or whether Arab-Americans simply felt too afraid to speak out as some Arab-Americans suggested is not clear from the news stories. However, it is important to note that the political and economic motives raised freely in other news stories and indeed in popular opinion about the war were not raised in any of these Arab-American stories (e.g., that the war was being fought simply to protect U.S. supplies of oil and not the more lofty goal of liberating Kuwait). Deemphasizing these issues contributed to the depoliticized nature of the news coverage of the Arab-American community during the Gulf War. To conclude, the news stories did indeed portray Arab-Americans as part of America's diverse imagined community. The overall meaning of these stories is that Arab-Americans were loyal, good Americans, who, because of their "different" Arab origins were suffering differently to tragic inevitable circumstances, the inevitable Persian Gulf War. By articulating their particular circumstances and struggles through apolitical personal stories of tragedy, the news stories effectively disarticulated the macro political and cultural concerns that the Arab-American group as a whole represented and limited the range of political debate about the war. This is how -- to reiterate what was stated at the beginning of this discussion -- the hegemonic process of nationbuilding is accomplished "in and through (not despite) differences" (Hall, 1977a, p. 158). Through the news media, the multicultural nation-state of the U.S. is imagined as maintaining a sense of national unity through differenc es. REFERENCES Abraham, N. and Shryock, A. (2000). Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream. 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It is also clear, however, that the term lumps together many diverse people in a way that can be oversimplifying and stereotypical. [2] The notion of "imagined community" comes from Benedict Anderson's work and the definition and theoretical implications of this term is discussed in the next section. [3] The idea of "homogeneous, empty time" is also a concept Anderson borrowed from Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 263. [4] Some argue that America was ethnically homogeneous, consisting of mostly the English, in its early settlement days. Mann (1998) suggests that even as early as the 1700s, the English "were outnumbered by the combined arrivals from Ireland, Germany, Scotland, Wales, France, Switzerland, and Africa"(p. 90). See also Dinnerstein and Reimers' (1999) numbers on early settlers. They write that "[b]etween 1680 and 1760 dramatic growth occurred in the British mainland colonies as the population soared from approximately 250,000 to over 2 million" and these settlers included 250,000 Scott-Irish, 125,000 Germans, as well as untold numbers of Scots, Dutch and Swedes (pp. 1-2). [5] See Michael W. Suleiman's The Arabs in the Mind of America (Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1988); Edmund Ghareeb's (Ed.), Split Vision: the Portrayal of Arabs in the American Media (Washington, D.C.: American-Arab Affairs Council, 1983); and, Janice J. Terry's Mistaken Identity: Arab Stereotypes in Popular Writing (Washington, D.C.: American-Arab Affairs Council, 1985). [6] I used the official Bush administration dates to determine the beginning and end of the Gulf War, keeping in mind that U.S. bombings on Iraq continue sporadically.