Yemeni Americans
AIYS at Dearborn, Michigan's 33rd Commemoration of Yemeni
Unification Day Celebration
On May, 20, 2023, AIYS President Flagg Miller joined U.S. Congresswoman Rachida Tlaib, Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghaleb, and other community leaders in commemorationg Yemen's 33rd Anniversary of Unification. In addition to talking about AIYS's history, flourishing fellowship program, book award, and aims of connecting with Yemeni Americans, Dr. Miller spoke about what Yemeni Americans have contributed to our shared goals of advancing social justice both in the United States and abroad.
Challenges and Possibilities of Researching Yemeni Americans
At the annual MESA meeting in December, 2021, AIYS Board Member Waleed Mahdi organized a panel entitled Challenges and Possibilities of Researching Yemeni Americans. MESA has generously allowed for AIYS to share this recording.
Participants: Sally Howell, Waleed Mahdi, Ammar Naji, Gokh Amin Alshaif, Abdulhakem Alsadah
and Neama Alamri.
This roundtable explores the current limitations in the study of Yemeni Americans and foregrounds emerging research efforts to examine the complexity of researching Yemeni American past and present experiences. That Yemeni Americans are understudied in both area studies (Middle East studies) and ethnic studies (Arab American studies) should not be understated. Much of what has been published around Arab Americans advance understandings of identity based on the experiences of those who originate from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Despite their vibrant presence in and diasporic contributions to the Arab American community, Yemeni Americans have been the least theorized. This roundtable bridges this scholarly gap by forging a space for a conversation on the methodological challenges and research possibilities surrounding Yemeni Americans.
The roundtable features six contributors from various academic institutions that offer insights into their areas of research expertise. The first contributor examines the importance of histories of Yemeni American labor and migration, highlighting the connections between local challenges in the diaspora with global politics of empire. The second contributor contextualizes the history of Yemeni labor migration to the Great Lakes, its repercussions for family and community life, and the openings it creates in the present for new forms of social and transnational mobility. These two contributions lay a historical foundation for the other contributions that will focus on the contemporary heterogeneity of Yemeni American voices and experiences. This heterogeneity includes a reflection on the generational transformation among Yemeni Americans in Michigan, an examination of advocacy among Yemeni Americans in New York, an exposition of the resilience of Yemeni American females in California in seeking higher education, and a presentation of Yemeni American visual art in relation to questions of identity and agency.