Beware of Cultural Dilution: An Anonymous Letter from an Arab American

By: Anonymous / Arab America Contributing Writer
To My Fellow Arab Americans,
I write to you not as an outsider or a critic but as one of you. I write with affection, not accusation. With concern, not condescension. And with the hope that perhaps, together, we can reflect on where we are and where we’re headed.
Arab American culture is beautiful. It has held us, comforted us, and given us a space to belong in a country where some often misunderstand us. It was born from necessity – a way to stay connected to who we are when the oceans and generations stretch between us and the Arab world. But in our effort to preserve our identity, something curious has happened: some of what we’ve clung to has become more symbolic than substantial, more representational than rooted. Folklore.
We gather for community iftars, but fewer of us know how our families practiced Ramadan back home – or what traditions were tied to specific villages or cities. We hang calligraphy in our homes that says “Inshallah” or “Alhamdulillah” – but often as decor more than daily vocabulary or as ways of thinking. We play songs by Abdel Halim or Um Kalthoum at parties, yet rarely sit down to understand the poetry or political histories behind their voices. We name our children after our grandparents, but sometimes, we can’t tell their stories beyond a few sentences.
Even our food – as rich and essential as it is – has become one of the final frontiers of our identity when once it was only one part. Mloukhia, kibbeh, hummus, and mansaf are certainly shared and celebrated. But are we also passing on the idioms, humor, worldview, and even the contradictions of the people who created them? Or are we just stopping at the neatly arranged plates?
This isn’t a scolding. After all, many of us inherited fragments, not full narratives. We are the children of displacement, migration, and survival. Some of us were born here, raised here, or arrived young and had to assimilate quickly. Many of our parents worked multiple jobs and tried to pass down what they could. Some of us lost our languages in the shuffle. Some never had the privilege of traveling. This is not our fault.
But it is now our responsibility.
Because culture is not a museum piece. It’s not meant to be frozen in time, reduced to wedding dances, embroidered thobes at festivals, or nostalgic anthems played at community centers. Culture must breathe. It must be re-rooted, watered, challenged, and renewed.
And for that, we must look beyond Arab American culture alone. We must reach for the source – the Arab culture itself. Not just our homelands in memory, but our homelands in constant motion.
What does this look like? It means listening to Arab voices today – the ones writing, singing, creating, protesting, and dreaming from Beirut, Ramallah, Cairo, Amman, Aden, and more. It means seeking out media, films, and books made in the region, not just ones made about it. It means practicing our Arabic, even if we fumble. Asking our families deeper questions, even if it’s uncomfortable. Engaging with our culture in complexity – not just the sweet parts, but the painful ones, too. Perhaps especially the painful ones. Our politics, our temperaments, our contradictions, our pasts, and our fractured presents. There are as many ways to connect as there are people who try.
This connection to the source doesn’t mean rejecting the Arab American experience – far from it. That experience is valuable and real. But it’s incomplete if it becomes a substitute for the living, breathing, evolving cultures we came from. Without that deeper tether, we risk raising generations who inherit only a facsimile – a diluted version of identity that offers pride, but not enough depth. Symbols lacking substance.
This letter is a call inward. A reminder that we are more than the curated version of our culture often packaged for the American gaze – or even for our own comfort. We are descendants of prophets, poets, philosophers, shepherds, kings, farmers, mystics and more. Let’s honor them not just with pride – but with conscious identification, intentionality, curiosity, and cultural perpetuation.
Respectfully,
One of you
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