Bassem Youssef’s America Bel Araby Highlights Arabs in America on Alhurra TV
On Friday, November 14, Alhurra Television will bring America Bel Araby to millions of viewers in the Middle East. The program roams the United States to tell the stories of Arabs in America through the eyes of 60 interviewees from all walks of life such as journalists, political activists and cab drivers, featuring their day-to-day lives. America Bel Araby (Arabic for “America in Arabic”) is hosted by Egyptian sensation Bassem Youssef, known as the Jon Stewart of the Middle East.
“We are extremely excited about bringing America Bel Araby to Alhurra viewers,” said Brian Conniff, President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which manages and operates Alhurra. “America Bel Araby is a ground-breaking and unique program that portrays America to our Middle Eastern viewers from an Arab perspective.”
America Bel Araby presents its audience with a mosaic of pictures from the diverse experiences of Arabs living across the U.S. from Washington to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities. The program which consists of 36 episodes, 30 minutes each, discusses the successes and failures of Arabs, their problems, ambitions, and dreams. It aims at destroying stereotypes between East and West and promotes mutual understanding, separating fiction from reality about the life of Arabs in the U.S.
America Bel Araby illustrates the meaning of diversity, and how Arabs handle differences in culture between their native countries and America. It explores the effect of native culture on the assimilation of Arabs in the American society, and the way Arabs in the countries where they came from view those immigrants who left their homes, families and loved ones searching for a new future in the land of opportunities.