Event Date
This talk is based on a new ethnographic study of the impact of the pandemic, Trump’s Muslim Bans, counterterrorism policies, and the war in Yemen on Yemeni Americans who own many small grocery stores in Oakland. It explores the experiences of these Arab/Muslim American essential workers on the frontlines of the pandemic, the impact of the lockdown on their work and families; and their relations with the largely low-income, Black and Brown communities in which they are situated. The talk will discuss how corner stores are a prism for questions about neoliberal capitalism, public health and safety, war, humanitarian crisis, surveillance, and policing.
Sunaina Maira is Professor of Asian American Studies, and affiliated with the Middle East/South Asia Studies program and the Cultural Studies Graduate Group. Her research and teaching focus on Asian, Arab, and Muslim American youth culture, migrant rights and refugee organizing, and transnational movements challenging militarization, imperialism, and settler colonialism.
Maira was a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellow for 2019-20 and has been doing transnational research project focuses on Arab refugees and immigrants in the Bay Area and in Athens, Greece. Her new community-engaged project is focused on Yemeni Americans in Oakland and the impact of the pandemic, the Muslim Bans, and the war in Yemen. Her ethnographic research highlights the experiences of Yemeni corner store owners and their families who were essential workers on the frontlines of the pandemic.
Zoom link here.