How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?

By Moustafa Bayoumi

Just over a century ago , W.E.B. Du Bois posed a probing question in his classic The Souls of Black Folk: How does it feel to be a problem? Now, Moustafa Bayoumi asks the same about America's new "problem"—Arab and Muslim-Americans. The answers increasingly define what it means to be American today.

Bayoumi takes readers into the lives of seven twenty-somethings living in Brooklyn, home to the largest Arab-American population in the United States. He moves beyond stereotypes and clichés to reveal their often unseen struggles, from being subjected to government surveillance to the indignities of workplace discrimination. The experiences of these young men and women, who persevere through triumphs and setbacks, tell an unmistakably American story of race, religion, and civil rights, full of struggle and promise.