Assimilation Suspended focuses on the lives of who migrated to the after the 1967 Israeli military occupation of the and Gaza and their American-born children. The community written about is one that is physically dispersed across parts of , NY and . Based on 7 years of participant observation that ended in 2009, followed by periodic return to the field for data collection in 2012, 2014, and between 2017- 2019, this book begins with the observation that Palestinian proudly identify as Palestinian and American despite the inherent tensions in the two identities given the United States’ close relationship with . On the one hand, being Palestinian is associated with terrorism and a stigmatized identity, and on the other Palestinians reject American foreign policy in the region. Which begs the question: what keeps so many people unhappy with American foreign policy and treated as the “other” from becoming radicalized?

A partial answer is that Palestinian Americans have been able to integrate economically and are upwardly mobile across generations (realizing the American dream). Assimilation Suspended argues that a more accurate answer is that Palestinian American assimilation is based on their ability to be, become, and raise Palestinians. In other words, feeling American is based on a community’s ability to celebrate itself and maintain ethnic boundaries. Yet, I describe their assimilation as suspended because this group is continuously called upon to reaffirm its commitment, and yet do not turn away from striving to belong to the larger polity. To this end, Assimilation Suspended explains the interaction of three levels of politics from the macro that brought Palestinians to the United States after 1967 and transformed them into self- proclaimed exiles; to the meso-level in the form of American public opinion especially after 9/11 that reinvigorated rejection and in turn demanded reincorporation; and finally to the everyday identity politics of boundary maintenance. The book makes three primary arguments: 1.) when studying more recent immigration, the political situations of the place of origin and destination must be considered in assessing assimilation; 2). the desire to belong is strong even among stigmatized communities; 3.) and the ability to construct a space, no matter how nominal, to celebrate one’s ethnicity (understood as nationalism) reinforces allegiance to and membership in the American polity.