Customer Reviews

I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing Up Arab in America

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To be able to write a good book,one must indeed have deep vision.Ray Hanania used humor throughout his book, to bring people into reality. He wanted his reader to see beyond,to have a clear vision about the painful,stressful way of life he endured.Yet,he wanted the reader to laugh off the sadness,but not forget the message.I found the book to be a great one.reading it made me realize how Ray is not only a great journalists but a great writer.I wish to read more of his work in the future.I encourage each person to read the book.It is a book worth getting.

Ray Hanania has penned a bittersweet narrative of his family experiences and coming to terms with his ethnic identity in the cultural milieu of Chicago. Amid the humorous anecdotes, one detects a feeling of sadness that dwells within the author, who by the way, is one of the city's most competent and respected journalists. This self-published volume represents years of dedication and hard work,and the commercial success of the volume stands as testament to that fact.

This book helps you understand Arab-Americans and the challenges one faces as an Arab-American. It's tough to be an Arab-American, especially a Palestinian, because of the huge, huge bias against Palestinians. I mean when Alex Odeh of the ADC was murdered there was little coverage of it in the US press, but when an elderly Jewish male was killed in a terrorist act that was covered a lot. Ray knows there is a bias and believes we must fight the power through the system and not throw our hands up and say there is nothing we can do and that the world is against Arabs. He also looks at prejudices from the Arab community against other Arabs including Christian Arabs, though many Arab Muslims don't think this way at all. Every community has narrow-minded people. Ray can help an Arab-American understand the prejudices that are not so visible in many ways to Arab-Americans like they used to be 40-50 years ago. More Americans are sympathetic vis-a-vis Palestinians and Arabs when compared to say 1967, when Ray was growing up. I think Ray should have proof-read the book more. Some of the writing was a little choppy. Also, I found he generalized too much. He said, for example, all Arab families eat Mensaff. They don't in North Africa or Egypt and also some parts of the Arabian Gulf. Maybe, he generalized to be comical. I am not sure. Ray is a very good human being, and I am glad he wrote this book, so I could appreciate more as a Palestinian-American, the struggles he and others went through in this country before my time.

Every Arab American has to read it

I found this to be a fascinating and sometimes humorous look at ethnicity. Although it is about Arab Americans, it is a mirror of my own HIspanic ethnic heritage.

I've never laughed so much, and felt so good about my ethnicity

I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist is an autobiography and collection of short stories and essays that help the reader understand the experience of discrimination. The author uses humor and reality to tell his stories. Humor is an excellent vehicle to help people understand controversial and sometimes social complex issues, like discrimination. The author does not have a chip on his shoulders, and instead tries to be frank about his experiences, although occasionally and unavoidably, politics does surface, although the book is not about politics. Overall, it is a good book. More than 4,500 have been sold through the USG Publishing label.

This book is almost unreadable. I remember Mr. Hanania's work in the Southtown Economist and the Chicago Sun-Times; he apparently had some very good editors. The stories are, at times, interesting, as when he talks about his childhood; most of the time, however, they are pretty annoying. The book suffers mostly from a serious lack of proofreading; also, most of the stories could benefit from a decent editor.