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Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit in
Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit in | Ayser Salman
3 posts | 3 read | 1 reading | 9 to read
An Immigrant Love-Hate Story of What it Means to Be American You know that feeling of being at the wrong end of the table? Like you're at a party but all the good stuff is happening out of earshot (#FOMO)? That's life--especially for an immigrant. What happens when a shy, awkward Arab girl with a weird name and an unfortunate propensity toward facial hair is uprooted from her comfortable (albeit fascist-regimed) homeland of Iraq and thrust into the cold, alien town of Columbus, Ohio--with its Egg McMuffins, Barbie dolls, and kids playing doctor everywhere you turned? This is Ayser Salman's story. First comes Emigration, then Naturalization, and finally Assimilation--trying to fit in among her blonde-haired, blue-eyed counterparts, and always feeling left out. On her journey to Americanhood, Ayser sees more naked butts at pre-kindergarten daycare that she would like, breaks one of her parents' rules ("Thou shalt not participate as an actor in the school musical where a male cast member rests his head in thy lap"), and other things good Muslim Arab girls are not supposed to do. And, after the 9/11 attacks, she experiences the isolation of being a Muslim in her own country. It takes hours of therapy, fifty-five rounds of electrolysis, and some ill-advised romantic dalliances for Ayser to grow into a modern Arab American woman who embraces her cultural differences. Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as "Tattoos and Other National Security Risks," "You Can't Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You're Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom," and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.
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Come-read-with-me
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Pickpick

This self-deprecating and hilarious biography was written by a Muslim-American woman who grew up in Columbus, Ohio after spending her early childhood in Iraq. If you have ever felt like an outsider in any aspect of your life, this book will resonate with you! This is a great read.

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Lea
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This was a really enjoyable book. I love when authors narrate their books. It adds so much enthusiasm. The stories in this are mostly funny, I definitely LOL‘d a few times and definitely relatable. Ayser and her mother‘s back and forth really entertained me. #readwomen #diversereads #readingwomenchallenge - religion not my own

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ReadingisMyPassion
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Ayser writes of what it means to be an Arab and what it means to be an American. The transition from Iraqi Arab to American-Iraqi Arab often resulted in the feeling of being at the wrong end of the table. “You know that feeling of being at the wrong end of the table? Like you‘re at a party but all the good stuff is happening out of earshot?” Always trying to fit in yet always feeling left out.

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