CHICAGO (AAMS) -- For most of his adult life, Ray Hanania has been
struggling to explain the Arab cause while helping his own community to stand
up to extremism and become more a part of American society.
That's not easy when most Americans don't understand and most Arabs are
afraid to belong.
After September 11th, that struggle became almost impossible.
And Hanania, a veteran journalist and author decided to put himself on a stage
and make people laugh.
"Stand-up comedy seemed to be the only appropriate answer to the
unprecedented levels of anti-Arab animosities that I and other Arab Americans
are facing today," shrugs Hanania who wrote his own comedy script and was
booked at Zanies, Chicago's top comedy club.
"Sometimes, laughter is the only way to break the cycle of hatred and
racism, and force people to really stop and look at what they are doing.
Actually, people use humor all the time to shock the system. To get an
audience's attention. To make people stop and think."
Hanania's act chortles its way right up to the edge of political
correctness.
"There are some jokes I just won't do. Jokes about religion. Jokes spinning
off of the September 11th tragedy. Jokes about serious political
problems like the suicide bombings or the military occupation in the Middle
East ," says Hanania.
"But, everything else is fair game."
And fair game includes his personal life. Hanania has been married three
times and his current wife is Jewish. He lampoons his childhood growing up
Arab, parodies the oddities of Arab culture, and pokes fun at his unusual
Palestinian-Jewish marriage.
"Things aren't so bad. Arabs get four wives. I've had three, if you don't
count the sheep," Hanania says to laughs. "It says so in the Arab Bible. The
owner-operating manual for 7-Eleven, Chapter 5. Anyone read it?"
Hanania then recites through his marriages.
"My first wife was American. The best 10 grand I ever spent. I got my
citizenship. No sex. And she left as soon as the check cleared. I Learned
about women quickly," he jokes.
"My second wife was Arab. I remember how beautiful she looked the very
first time I was introduced to her up at the altar. She looked so stunning in
he white burlap berqa. The gleam in her eye twinkled through the mesh that
covered her face. She had me at hello."
Airport security is always a problem, especially with profiling, Hanania
says. It was worse with his Arab wife.
"We'd go through security and they'd ask us all these weird questions like,
are you here on business or pleasure? Pleasure? My wife is wearing a berqa. I
have a towel on my head and it's 110 degrees outside. How much fun can this
be? Or, the other question. Did any suspicious looking people give you
anything to put in your bags? Ah, yes. My wife's mother, her brother and her
dad …"
Hanania notes that it is not uncommon for Arabs to marry Jews, although it
does cause some bushy eyebrows to raise.
"To some Arabs and Muslim Arabs, the fact that I am Christian is bad
enough. Add to that fact that my wife is Jewish, and suddenly I am a Zionist
Mossad spy working our community," Hanania sighs.
"But, the majority of Muslims and Arabs don't agree with that bigotry and
they have not forgotten the principle that Christians, Muslims and Jews share
much in common and we can live together. We just get a little emotional at
times."
Hanania jokes that he met his wife while they both worked in Cicero, a
former Italian town best known for its historical ties to mobster Al Capone
and recent Mafia related scandals. Cicero is now predominantly Hispanic.
"I didn't know she was Jewish and she didn't know I was Arab. She thought I
was a Mexican who hated Mexican food and couldn't speak Spanish. And I thought
she was just a cheap Italian," Hanania explains.
"At the wedding, her mother cam up to me and asked, 'What are all these
Arabs doing here? They can't all possibly all work for the banquet hall'. You
should have been at the wedding. There were 900 people. We sent out only 24
invitations. We had all the Arabs on one side and all the Jews on the other
side. We didn't have a bridle party, we had a U.N. peace keeping force right
down the aisle. And, there were 28 casualties, too. One Jew and 27 Arabs had
to be taken to the hospital."
Hanania was born in Chicago in the 50s. His father immigrated from
Jerusalem Palestine in the 20s and later served in the U.S. 5th
Army during World War II fighting the Nazis. His mother is from Bethlehem in
the occupied West Bank. His parents came together in an arranged marriage.
They knew each other less than four weeks.
Like most Arabs who lived in Chicago, the Hanania's lived in a
predominantly Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
"The irony is that Arabs and Jews really do get along, except when we talk
about politics, Palestine and Israel. Everything else is fine. We love the
same foods. Our cultures are very close. And we both feel like we are
persecuted by the societies around us," Hanania says.
"And, we also share one other common trait, or problem. The 'khay' sound, a
syllable produced by a rasping of the throat, almost like expectorating. After
the wedding, Alison's father came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go to a
Khubz game. I asked, What the kheck is a Khubz game?" he jokes referring to
the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Some words and images evoke laughter no matter how they are presented. One
of those words is "7-Eleven."
"People want to laugh about stereotypes and some trigger laughs that can't
stop. I figure, if I can show people that I can laugh about the stereotypes
they have of me that mold their understanding of me, then why should they take
those stereotypes so seriously?" Hanania asks.
Hanania says most audiences take to the humor and afterwards come up and
tell him how much they are glad to know that Arabs are "just like us."
"Some of the people in the audience who are Arab and went to the club not
knowing I would be performing, come up to me afterwards and say how glad they
are that there is an Arab American on stage. They feel good that we can be
seen as being a part of American society on other levels too," Hanania says.
"We need to present ourselves as something other than one dimensional
terrorists, the way we are portrayed in the news media and in Hollywood
movies."
Hanania says a major part of the challenge is encouraging the Arab American
community to become "more involved" in the American system.
" The majority of us live here physically. But mentally, we are living back
in the Middle East. We can't seem to reconcile ourselves as Americans. We are
caught in a tug-of-war between American society and Arab culture," Hanania
says.
"We have to show Americans that we can be a part of the society around us
and that in a sense, we are just like them. We have the same experiences as
ethnic Americans and as immigrants. We came here for the same reasons as the
rest of society. We are dedicated Americans and we served our country. And
while we have some views that are different when it comes to Middle East
politics, we hold dear many of the views that make America great, too."
Hanania started his stand-up comedy act in December performing at Riddles
Comedy Club in Orland Park. And he scripted out a
routine of jokes that her performed without any training at several comedy
club "open mikes." A friend contacted the owner of Zanies Comedy Club who booked him for several appearances including at the
Chicago ComedyFest, at Zanies Pheasant Run and at the main Zanies club on
North Wells Street.
"I've been inspired by the same factors that moved Jewish comedians. Jewish
humor was a perfect antidote to anti-Semitism. It didn't eliminate it but it
helped Jews cope. It also helped show other Americans that Jewish Americans
were good people and good Americans. I think Arab comedians can do the same
thing for their community, to show Americans that we are good Americans, too,"
Hanania argues.
Hanania is one of the only Arab comedians in the Midwest. There are two
Arab comedians working Los Angeles, an Egyptian American and a Palestinian
American. Their show at the Comedy Store is dubbed "Arabian Nights" and also
features performances by two other comedians who are not Arab but perform Arab
humor, too.
"Ever since September 11th, I think Americans really have sought
to learn more about who Arabs really are. They want to understand us. They are
more likely to sit through an Arab American stand-up comic than a boring
lecture by some of the brilliant Palestinian intellectuals whose books never
get read by mainstream America," Hanania argues.
"I think humor can be more effective in answering this need that Americans
have to understand the why and what of Arabs. And, I think that it can also
serve as self-therapy for the Arab American community."
Hanania says that these are very difficult times in this country for Arab
Americans and for Muslims.
"After September 11th, 14 Americans were murdered just because
they looked Middle Eastern. They were killed by 'average' Americans who might
never have committed acts of aggression or crime before if not for the
emotions and anguish related to September 11th. There have been
thousands of anti-Arab hate crimes against Arab and Muslim victims who, for
the most part, had nothing to do with September 11th at all, except
that they shared a heritage with the 19 fanatics who committed the crimes and
hijacked the airplanes," he says.
"Osama Bin Laden is a criminal. He is a maniac who tried to hijack our Arab
identity and claim it for his corrupt cause. I don't even understand what his
cause is, but I can't tell you how many Americans have come up to me since
September 11th blaming me and 'my people' for the terrorism."
Hanania said that it was as if he was forced to try stand-up comedy as a
response to the anger in the society around him.
"I don't think there was anything else I could do. How do I respond to a
neighbor who signs his name on an email and proudly says he is my neighbor,
though we have never met? And then proceeds to threaten me?"
Hanania cited examples of bigotry that still exists in society. He said he
drove into a parking lot at a mall near his home and saw a car that had a
warning painted by hand on its windows. It said, "If you want to see Ala or
Jahad, mess with an American."
"The person who wrote that on their car window -- which is bizarre in and
of itself, couldn't even spell Jihad or Allah, the Arabic word for God. And,
who was he writing that warning for?" Hanania wonders.
"Was he expecting Osama Bin Laden to come to Orland Park? Or, did he intend
it for the Arab Americans he knows live in that community?"
Hanania continues to write serious commentaries. He is the only Palestinian
Arab American writing a column for a major American newspaper, the Daily
Herald based in Arlington Heights in suburban Chicago. And his columns are
picked up by newspapers in the Middle East.
"I think I prefer stand-up comedy to serious commentary," Hanania pans.
"There is so much serious material out there, I wonder if people are not only
reading it but also understanding it all. Sometimes, I think it's easier to
get an angry person to stop, laugh and then listen with a joke. Humor is more
effective."
Never too far away from the shtick, Hanania returns to his stand-up comedy
act.
"The Israelis kept Yasir Arafat under siege in his bunker for six weeks. He
couldn't change his clothes. He couldn't take a bath. He couldn't shave. I
don't understand. What was the difference?"