Woodstook party

The Egyptian Woodstook party

This week I attended the annual Egyptian-American summer picnic (where?). For Egyptian-Americans, this is a moment of outdoor revelation: the time for settling accounts, for making your social mark, for defining your social status - a place where you will be judged not only by the way you are dressed or the type food you bring but also by the time you arrive at the picnic. First comes elshaab, the commoners who do most of the picnic work and complaining. Then comes the new middle class Afendiah, the professional Egyptians who have succeeded in working their way up the community's nearly impenetrable social ladder. After that come the Pharaohs, those privileged Egyptians who moved to America not to seek wealth or to experience the American dream, but to get away from the native Egyptian emerging middle class. They moved away from the common Egyptians who were closing in on their secluded suburbs, Healiopolis, Garden City and Maadi.
After a brief time of greeting and checking everyone's status, the guests settle into their self-designated tables according to their standing. The conservative men surround one table near the bathroom, listening to their Ameer (religious leader) talking about how faithful they all really are and hoping for quick end to this wasteful gathering. They don't mix with women, never see them talking nonsense, always act serious and reserved. These are the self-righteous Egyptian Mullahs who may not look for a conspicuous status now but are banking on their status in the hereafter.
The common Egyptian men's group gathers around a small table, making most of the noise at the picnic, not because they are conversing but because they are telling jokes and laughing. The laughter is mostly in sympathy, because they have heard most of the jokes hundreds of times before. This group represents the Egyptian-American working class, the real Egyptians who will never let go of their Egyptian-ness. You can take these men out of Egypt, but you can't take Egypt out of them.
A group of Egyptian women sits around the food table, talking about losing weight and buying the latest fashions. They dress like movie stars, ancient Egyptian movie stars if there were any. They dress themselves in many layers of clothes despite the hot Minnesota summer day, with jewelry and accessories that cover their faces and arms to show their status. If our husbands want to cover us, they think, then we will make them pay dearly for it. And based on the way they dress and the enormity of their egos, there is not a chance on earth they will be doing any outdoor activities besides sitting and talking.
Not far from this table you find the second generation Egyptians, teen aged girls and boys looking around confused about what they really are or want, torn between their parent's expectations and their own aspirations.
Then comes the American wives table, those brave women who for one exotic reason or another married an Egyptian man and lived to tell about it. They harbor one persistent question in their minds: why? The American wives reluctantly come to the picnic as a bargaining chip for future cultural arguments with their Egyptian husbands. If I go to his Egyptian picnic this time, he has to come with me to visit my family next Easter.
Another table holds the recent Egyptian arrivals who have come to visit their loved ones in America. These are the privileged Egyptian families who are rich enough to spend six months average Egyptian salary to come here to visit their beloved sons and daughters.
Although they love what they see in America and have even developed a taste for western materialism and consumerism, they just can't give up their social status to move here. "I can only live in the U.S. if I can find the same job that I have in Egypt," said the visiting Egyptian woman. What job was that? "I direct 25 people and with a flick of my finger I make them stand up or sit down as I please." "And what do you do when you are not preoccupied with your finger flicking?" I asked. "Nothing" was her response. "We have nothing to do." It would be very hard to find a job like that here in America unless you work as dog trainer, I thought to myself
Welcome to the Egyptian-Americans' summer picnic gala. Welcome to our Woodstock party, where the issue is not drugs, sex and rock & roll and the discussion is not about self searching or rebelling against war and the status quo. Rather, the Egyptian-American Woodstock party is all about who is a better singer, the great Egyptian Um-Kalthoum or the American legend Frank Sinatra, and the focus is on self-importance and the affirmation of status quo.