Reflection 7

I thought Andrea Shalal did a great job talking about Arab-Americans. This was the first that I was in a class that Skyped someone from Germany. I was envisioning more difficulties regarding Skype, but it went smoothly for the most part. Andrea is a journalist, and studied literature in college. She made a good point that until 2010, Arabs were categorized as white, but treated as people of color. I also remember talking in class about the importance of poetry and how children memorized the Koran, which Andrea mentioned in her lecture. I also learned that getting something published is not easy as there are only a few publishing houses that dominate the market. When we learned about Khaled Mattawa, a translator of numerous books of poetry from various Arab countries, I learned that word choice matters and it is important to keep the meaning of the poem. For some translators, English may be a second language, therefore, this makes translating poems more difficult. She also talked about Mohja Kahf, who uses social media to spread news about issues (war in Syria). She showed us a video of Omar Offendum, a rapper on YouTube who brings awareness of issues in the Arab world. Andrea talked about a number of other famous Arab-Americans who have made an impact on the world today. I liked one of the speakers doing a Ted Talk, but I can’t remember her name. She was only 20 years old, and was able to shed light on stereotypes of Arabs, and Westerner’s reactions, which I found funny. I had a great time listening to Andrea speak, and learned a lot from her lecture.