AmericanEast

AmericanEast is a 2008 American drama film about ArabAmericans living in Los Angeles after the Septemberattacks. The story examines longheld misunderstandings about Arabic and Islamic culture, and puts a human face on a segment of the American population about whom most Americans know nothing, but who today are of particular interest to them, either from curiosity or suspicion.citation needed The story highlights the pressures under which many ArabAmericans now live by focusing on the pointsofview of three main characters.

Salwah, Mustafs sister, must also reconcile her traditional values and familial obligations with new American realities. Although she is grateful to Mustafa for bringing her to America when she was young, and allowing her to pursue an education, conflict arises between them when Mustafa insists upon fulfilling his duty of finding her a traditional, arrangedmarriage partner from Egypt. The arrival of this arranged suitor, her older cousin Saber Al Faris, throws her life into turmoil and makes her question her own beliefs and faith. Secretly, she is attracted to an American, Dr. John Westerman Tim Guinee, a young and attractive nonMuslim. Any caution she feels toward him, however, is thrown to the wind by the abrupt arrival of Saber and a possible impending marriage that she does not want. She becomes sorely tempted to experience intimacy with the young doctor outside of marriage, a taboo. While she undergoes this internal conflict, her suitor Saber is staying as a guest at the home she shares with Mustafa and his children, and the incompatibility between this traditional man, her future husband, and Mustafas Americanized family is another source of irritation adding to the mounting tensions underlying the story.Mustafas friend Omar Kais Nashef is a struggling actor and Habibes Caf regular, a young Egyptian man who supports his dream of becoming a film star by working as a parttime cab driver for Mustafas ragged, onecar taxi company. Because of his Middle Eastern looks and accent, however, he is constantly cast in the role of a terrorist in American TV shows that portray only a shallow understanding of Arabs and their culture. When an opportunity for a nonraciallydesignated role arrives, Omar feels his chance for successto be seen as an actor first and not a Muslimhas finally arrived. It is the break he has been waiting for on many levels a chance at the financial freedom necessary to marry and support his pregnant American girlfriend Kate Amanda Detmer, and a chance

Source: Wikipedia