“This inordinately resourceful education text, while focused on the trials in the lives of Palestinian high schoolers since 9/11, is alternatively an examination of globality. In the current matrix of questions surrounding emotional/psychological belonging and physical juridical citizenship/non-citizenship, educational anthropologist Abu El-Haj provides readers with the contours. Immigrant parents from countries in turmoil actively seek to instill in their children a belonging to the ancestral home and its political history and current reality, while they are expected to use opportunities in the United States. Living two lives is a quagmire for these young people. Exploring the United States as a society with its own national imagery, ongoing empire building, and racism, Abu El-Haj addresses a national educational philosophy that is increasingly unable to accomplish the realities of globality. Though there is an acknowledgment of American voices espousing that this is precisely the problem, there is a retreat from giving them equal significance. One major question is how do the radical citizens actually participate in all aspects of a society that provides a cherished set of opportunities that rely on more than juridical citizenship. A must-read for educators and the general public. . . . Essential.”
 

Choice

“This is a highly original, extremely important, and compelling account of transnational citizenship. With her focus on Palestinian American youth and by fleshing out the concept of transnational citizenship, Abu El-Haj offers a unique book that will significantly push the anthropology of education forward and will take its place as one of the great educational ethnographies of our time.”

Andrea Dyrness, author of Mothers United: An Immigrant Struggle for Socially Just Education

“Revealing the work of nationalism in the racialization of Palestinian American youth, Unsettled Belonging is an important read for scholars interested in immigration/migration and citizenship in the twenty-first century.”

Stacey J. Lee, author of Unraveling the Model Minority Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth

“Abu El-Haj has spent years working closely with Palestinian American high school students to better understand how they understand themselves. Educators across the nation should pay attention to what she has uncovered. By investigating how schools reproduce a reflexive ‘everyday nationalism’ through their curricula and instruction, Abu El-Haj shows us how Palestinian American students are routinely misunderstood, maligned, and marginalized by faculty, administrators, and other students alike. But she also offers paths to progress in this valuable study. She proposes solutions where education and citizenship work together to alleviate injustice and inequality, both at home and abroad.”

Moustafa Bayoumi, author of This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror