LYCEUM: How Does It Feel to Be A Problem

Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 4pm
Event held at the Asian American / Asian Research Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Fl., Room A&B (btwn 5th & 6th Aves), NY.
Featuring Moustafa Bayoumi and Terrence Cheng.
What does it mean when the people that the TV says are the enemy happen to look like you or your parents? After September 11th and the rise of China, many Americans imagine Asian Americans as the bad guy. Maybe the bad guy looks like Park51, which was never intended to be located at Ground Zero or be a mosque. Maybe the bad guy looks like the Chinese businessman threatening U.S. businesses. Come meet writers and professors Moustafa Bayoumi, whose book How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America caused a national anti-Muslim controversy, and Terrence Cheng, whose first novel tells the fictional story of the famous and anonymous protester who stood in the way of Chinese tanks at the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests.

Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (Penguin), which won an American Book Award and the Arab American Book Award for Non-Fiction.


Terrence Cheng's first novel, Sons of Heaven (William Morrow, 2002), was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick as well as a Borders Original Voices selection. He is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Lehman College-CUNY.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Moustafa Bayoumi
• Terrence Cheng
• Sons of Heaven
• AAWW