You and Lamya
El-Chidiac, the trangendered Arab who wrote a letter to the
editor in the March 14th issue, may not realize that on page
55 of the same issue you profiled an Arab-American.
Yes, Christa MacAuliffe, first teacher in space, and
according to the two women who produced a film about
her a model of tolerance, was an Arab-American. The media in
the US presents consumers plenty of stereotypical
images of Arabs, painting us and our culture as
intolerant and homophobic. How nice to see in the
piece on MacAuliffe a more accurate image of an Arab -
educated, sophisticated and yes, tolerant. Perhaps
Christa inherited her compassion, love of education
and her sense of fairness from her Arab grandparents,
just as I did from mine.