The Sojourner Experience of Yemeni American High School Students: An Ethnographic Portrait

Abstract

In this article, Loukia Sarroub explores the relationships between Yemeni American high school girls and their land of origin. She also illustrates the tensions that often arise between immigrant students' lives and the goals of U.S. public schooling. Sarroub begins by providing historical background on Yemeni and Arab culture and international migration. Then, drawing upon a larger ethnographic study set in the Detroit, Michigan, area, she presents a case study of one girl's experiences in the contexts of home, school, and community in both the United States and Yemen. Throughout the study, Sarroub makes thematic comparisons to the experiences of five other Yemeni American high school girls. She uses the notion of the "sojourner" to highlight the fact that many Yemenis "remain isolated from various aspects of American life while maintaining ties to their homeland." Sarroub describes the relationships between Yemen and the United States as social and physical "spaces" from which high school girls' networks and identities emerge. She suggests that in this particular Yemeni community, which was fraught with ritual and sanctioned norms, public schooling was both liberating and a sociocultural threat. This duality sometimes led girls to disengage with home and school worlds and to create "imagined" spaces that could bridge their Yemeni and American lives. Sarroub's study provide a larger lens through which to understand the multiple spaces students must negotiate and the sojourner experience of this Yemeni community in the United States. (pp. 390–415)