Arabic Students in the United States

I come from a town of approximately 12,000 people, with two main streets and a lot of farm land. In no way would I consider my hometown to be big, much less diverse. Surprisingly, however, it holds the second largest Arabic population in the state (second to Dearborn, which is HUGE). When I found this out I was shocked. I knew of a small group of Arabic students in my highschool and they all stayed in the same classroom all day with a bilingual teacher, rather than move to 6 different classes throughout the day like the rest of the student body. As a result, the presence of the Arabic students in our school really was not made, except for 3 girls. These girls were the first Arabic females to earn a high school diploma in my town; not because we wouldn't let them or anything like that, but because they simply were not allowed to. One of the three was actually involved in the sit in a couple of weeks ago in attempts to speak with Senator Carl Levin (I saw that this incident was mentioned in Anne's blog also which I thought was kind of exciting). Anyways, back to my high school. While majority of the Arabic students "layed low", these three girls definitely did the opposite. They took all of the honors and AP classes available and involved themselves in organizations such as student council, class council, and all of the other student groups you can think of. As I've gotten older and learned more about the experiences in the Middle East, I have a much greater appreciation for my classmates and their achievements.
Although I'm not exactly sure of the year, the girls all came over from Yemen while we were in middle school. After high school, they would decide whether or not they wanted to go back and marry and start a life. While they were all doing such great things at the high school, I had a conversation with one of the girls that definitey shocked me. She was telling me how she thought I was lucky to be able to do sports and how she always wanted to but couldn't. She couldn't explain exactly why she couldn't.... she just knew that she couldn't! After that, she told me that she planned on going back to Yemen after high school. I was so surprised by this because she was making such huge steps with her education and had even showed that she wanted to be able to do the things that American girls are allowed to do, yet she wanted to go back, where she would have to get married and live a conservative life.
Especially now, I wonder how she felt when asked about living here in the US. While in high school, I just assumed that she wanted to embrace our ways of life. I just wonder how she dealt with questions of her identity, because while she was doing extraordinary things here, she still wanted to go back to Yemen where her rights would be more restricted. Reading Habibi made me think about my classmate in comparison to Liyanna. While Liyanna had to pack up her things and unwillingly move to Palestine, my classmate had to do the same... only she was coming to the US.
This is just a side note, but I thought it might be sort of interesting to mention....Of the three girls from my graduating class, two of them (including the classmate I had the conversation with) recieved academic scholarships to Grand Valley where they are still studying. The third is an MSU student who, like I said, is now famous for her recent protest....... Also, another interesting tid bit - of all the Arabic boys in my highschool, very few of them spoke fluent English. All of the girls not only spoke English but also did very well academically.