We Gather Together

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So, of course, were Arab Americans, many of whom suffered that day and have suffered since from a special pressure and scrutiny from neighbors and strangers alike. Jamal Baadani, a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps who was born to Yemenite parents and raised in both Egypt and Michigan, knows this intimately. "I was out to dinner with one of my fellow Marines in uniform," he says, "and someone went up to me and started talking to me about what was going on, and she said, 'Yeah, those Arabs are all knuckleheads,' not realizing I was one. And another day, a woman came up to me and said, 'Where are you from?' I said I was born in Cairo. She said, 'You must be a terrorist then,' and she said it very seriously, so I asked her with expletives to leave my presence." Since the attacks, the Los Angeles resident has launched the Association of Patriotic Arab-Americans in the Military, just to drive home the point.

For the first time in 31 years, Thanksgiving this year falls during Ramadan, the month-long period of fasting and thanks celebrated by Muslims all over the world. So in many households this year the two holidays will merge. Muslims in Iowa--old families from Lebanon and Syria and new immigrants from Turkey, Tunisia, Pakistan and Afghanistan--will gather in Cedar Rapids at the oldest mosque in North America and break their Ramadan fast with a Thanksgiving feast of turkey and stuffing, grape leaves, flatbread, cranberry sauce and kibbe--a Lebanese dish of cracked wheat, meats and spices.

GETTING AND SPENDING

In addition to food and faith and family, Thanksgiving, of course, also marks the official start of the holiday shopping season, and because our malls are our museums, you can get some sense of where we are by what we buy. Sales of sewing machines, the perfect apocalypse accessory, are way up: stay home, save money, sew your own drapes and dresses. Craft sales in general are up in a nesting nation, as are sales of roasting pans, squishy furniture, New Age music, DVD players and anything to turn your home into a movie theater so you don't have to go out to a real one. Beer sales are up nearly 7% over the same period last year; bottled water is up 20%. Pet adoptions are on the rise; so are sales of purebred puppies and teddy bears. The marketing can get desperate: a Denver furniture company advertises its mattresses with a picture of "Mike Ziegler, Area Fire Fighter" and the tag line "This is Mike. He can't afford a bad night's sleep." Maureen Wilkinson, owner of Acorn Travel in River Forest, Ill., sharpened her sales pitch. "Are you uncomfortable leaving your family behind?" asked the ad. "Take them with you! Family reunions are great fun on an Alaskan Cruise."