Arab in America #[nn]

A young bearded man gazes out from a backdrop of red-and-white stripes and a field of stars — the American flag deconstructed into something intimate and searching — while Arabic script alongside the English title quietly insists on a dual identity. Toufic El Rassi's 2007 graphic work promises a personal, ground-level look at what it means to be Arab in the United States, told through art and inks entirely his own. It's the kind of comics memoir that earns its place on the shelf by saying something honest rather than something loud.