An award winning hilarious, yet poignant, Colbert-like take on living in the crossfire of the conservative Arab and liberal American cultures
“As a Syrian-American who “survived growing up in the cross-fire of two of the most diametrically opposed cultures, the East and the West,” Khalil is no doubt an expert on the subject of assimilation. And though dealing with a potentially serious subject (especially considering the current xenophobic climate of our country), Khalil instead chooses a tongue-in-cheek approach, presenting her ideas as a self-help book—but one that relies heavily on humor to educate and help.”
– The Pittsburgh Magazine, June 2010
THE REAL WAR ON TERROR
"Don't let them fool you. The REAL War on Terror, my dear Arab sister, is the one inside your very own brain. It's the war between your conservative Arab and liberal American self.
At any given moment, completely out of the blue, when you least expect it, your Arab brain will sneak up on you and hijack your American brain...just like that! And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
- Dalel B. Khalil
FROM VEILS TO THONGS
An Arab Chick's Survival Guide to Balancing One's Ethnic Identity in America
Arabic women deal with very serious issues that they often feel powerless to change.
Western women are raised to be extremely assertive and even fight for her rights. One who is both Arab and American is very often, very confused. Her one foot is planted firmly in a traditional world whose cultural rules haven’t changed in over 2,000 years. Her other foot is skidding on a thin piece of ice, the mega-liberal free-for-all, called America. And she is trying to balance walking on both.
This hilarious, lighthearted survival guide explains how to retain one’s sanity in the battle of the ultimate culture clash, and offers hilarious explanations as to why we have absurd cultural rules such as arranged marriages. Best of all, Westerners not only finally have a practical tool in which to better understand us and our wacky ways, but they too, can find answers.
Like us, many Americans are struggling in this escalating socio-political cultural war. They are torn between conservatism and liberalism, tradition and progression, fidelity and fun, flats and pumps! It’s hard to balance it all. It really is. Contrasting Eastern traditions with Western ideas, V2T explains how to function when one’s conservative ethnic side is at war with their liberal Western side.
