{"id":151629,"date":"2026-03-03T21:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/151629\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:58:14","slug":"everyday-traces-of-nycs-swana-diaspora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/151629\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Traces of NYC\u2019s SWANA Diaspora"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art Review<\/a><\/p>\n

An exhibition at NYPL offers a window into life within this paradox where invisibility and visibility are two sides of the same coin. <\/p>\n


\n \"Natalie
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Everyday
\n Mahka Eslami, photographs from the Bodega Boys series (2023\u201324) (all photos Natalie Haddad\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

Of all the topics addressed in Niy\u016b Y\u016brk<\/a>, a small but significant exhibition at the New York Public Library, one should be especially familiar to anyone who identifies as Southwest Asian\/North African (SWANA) in the United States: the census. Unlike virtually all other non-European ethnicities, SWANA \u2014 or Middle Eastern\/North African (MENA), as used in the show \u2014 is grouped under \u201cWhite\u201d on the US census. It\u2019s not just the census, though. It\u2019s medical forms, college applications, just about anything with a check box for ethnicity. Efforts have been made to change<\/a> this, with some success. More institutions are adding a separate category on forms \u2014 and one might appear on the 2030 census<\/a>. But as of 2020, the census reads under \u201cWhite\u201d: \u201cprint, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I searched \u201cMENA census\u201d online, the AI overview read that the possible 2030 update is \u201ca change reflecting that many people in these groups don\u2019t see themselves as White.\u201d Well yes. But that\u2019s only part of the story. Neither do most White people \u2014 Indiana Jones<\/a> wasn\u2019t cheered on for slaughtering the \u201cbad guys\u201d because they were all cut from the same ethnic cloth. One easy way to rationalize racism is to erase the target from official existence, and being a person of SWANA descent in the US can feel defined by erasure.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lewis Wickes Hine, “A Syrian Arab at Ellis Island” (1926).\"\"Columbia Syrian Arabic Records (1920)<\/p>\n

The exhibition, which examines the history of that diaspora New York City, presents everyday presences, like the city\u2019s many SWANA-owned bodegas, as well as photographs of early immigrants (e.g. Lewis Hine\u2019s portrait of \u201cA Syrian Arab at Ellis Island,\u201d 1926), and archival documents: for instance, publications from the Organization of Arab Students in the USA, poetry and literature, and vinyl records. We\u2019re introduced to figures such as Ibrahim Farrah, a Lebanese-American dance scholar who founded the journal Arabesqu\u00e9, Iranian-American transhumanist author FM-2030, and the ArteEast film collective. An interview with the seminal Palestinian scholar Edward Said plays on a screen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Limited by geographic and institutional parameters (all materials are drawn from the NYPL\u2019s collection), curator Hiba Abid has composed a sensitive narrative of SWANA lives. It\u2019s validating to see yourself reflected in others, but the overriding message seems to be: The US has a SWANA diaspora, it\u2019s not new, and those who belong to it are part of the social fabric. That\u2019s not so much because of Abid\u2019s curating as it is where we are in US culture. Speaking as an Arab American, why do we still need to assert our presence? As many marginalized and diasporic communities make headway in transitioning from saying \u201cwe\u2019re here\u201d to presenting nuanced self-portraits, SWANA identity feels perpetually stuck in the stage of proving its existence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"“The ‘King Tut’ Extravaganza at Club Ibis (NYC)” (1978)<\/p>\n

The description on the NYPL\u2019s webpage for Niy\u016b Y\u016brk describes the diaspora as \u201coften overlooked,\u201d and explains that \u201cNew York City has shaped the lives, identities, and creative practices of MENA communities, artists, and writers\u201d before adding that the show \u201cemphasizes their enduring contributions to the city\u2019s cultural landscape and place in global culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

This framing of being shaped by the city before shaping it speaks to the paradox of being SWANA in the US: Invisibility can feel like a constant condition, yet seeking \u201cvisibility\u201d in a broader social landscape often means being subjected to longstanding Western colonial stereotypes of a \u201cbarbaric\u201d and \u201cbackwards\u201d people. The two most common tropes in US media representations of SWANA people are the \u201cvillain\u201d \u2014 which still circulates in film and TV<\/a>, sociopolitical propaganda<\/a>, and the Western imagination \u2014 and the \u201cvictim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Rhea Karam, (top) “Leporello #054” (2022); (bottom) “Come Together” (2021)<\/p>\n

The \u201cvictim\u201d portrayal has become more prominent since the start of Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza \u2014 and by \u201cvictim,\u201d I\u2019m referring to externally constructed images. The past few years have given us documentary films, art exhibitions, articles, and more that shed light on the genocide and the reality of the apartheid state. They\u2019re necessary and meaningful cultural records. But what\u2019s left when the media moves on to something else? Beyond this context, SWANA presence in American popular culture remains as minute as ever. (A low point for me last year was seeing Wes Anderson\u2019s The Phoenician Scheme, which reimagined the ancient civilization as a generic modern Middle Eastern country and featured a cast of colonialist and vaguely Orientalist characters, none played by SWANA actors. How does this still happen?)<\/p>\n

Niy\u016b Y\u016brk\u2019s most effective work is the short film “In My Own Skin<\/a>” by Jennifer Jajeh and Nikki Byrd (2001). In it are brief interviews with five Arab women in the US discussing their experiences as immigrants shortly after 9\/11. Instead of asserting their existence, they describe being forced to repress it, to prove their Americanism \u2014 in effect, to be invisible or White. The videos are available to watch online, which is worth doing. If you\u2019re part of the SWANA diaspora, you\u2019ll likely identify with them, especially if you were around post-9\/11. If not, they offer a window into life within this paradox where invisibility and visibility are two sides of the same coin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Still from Jennifer Jajeh and Nikki Byrd, “In My Own Skin” (2001)<\/p>\n

Niy\u016b Y\u016brk<\/a> continues at the New York Public Library (Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, Manhattan), through March 8. The exhibition was curated by Hiba Abid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Review An exhibition at NYPL offers a window into life within this paradox where invisibility and visibility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-151629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}