At El Mirage, an Arabic restaurant and meeting place in west Houston, a singer is on stage imploring the audience to listen to her in song. She sings a few lines then waits for a response. The audience erupts into clapping and dancing. The singer turns it on a little more. When the singer is certain she has the audience, she begins describing a love she once had. She makes sure everyone in this room on Westheimer sees a picture of a woman melting to meet her lover who, at the moment they reunite, pretends he doesn’t know her.
The singer has made her case. The audience claps, shouts and whistles in approval. The name of the song is “Esma Uly (Just Hear Me),” which was originally made famous by the Lebanese/Algerian singer Warda and which is descended from a classical Arabic musical form called mawwal. In the old days a singer would perform a vocal solo before the music would kick in, improvising and introducing listeners to the song about to be performed. This version of “Esma Uly” at El Mirage is just one example of how older forms of Arabic music endure in contemporary song — and in parts of the world far removed from traditional Arabic territories.
El Mirage is one of only a couple of places in town that books performers whose names usually inspire shrugs from most Houstonians, but who are legitimate superstars in the Arab world. “Possibly if the peace process succeeds, the American people would come to understand the Middle East better,” says Ahmed Robbie, a local professor who has lived in Houston for 27 years. “But as the peace process began, we began to be prouder of our background history and heritage. We have a great culture which has been ignored by the West in general.”
The local Arab-American community in Houston numbers about 70,000, according to the Arab Times. “Houston has probably the highest concentration of educated Arab-Americans in the country,” says Robbie, who has witnessed the growth, which exploded in the early ’70s. “We have some 270 Arab doctors and I don’t know how many hundreds of professors.”
Those thousands are just beginning to exert their collective influence. Case in point: The foundation of an Arab community and cultural center, which will be laid on a 13-acre tract near the Southwest Freeway and Beltway 8 on January 15, is symbolic of the community’s growing presence and confidence here. The center expands the number of locations, beyond El Mirage or Al Diwan Mediterranean Grill, where Arabs can feel at home in a foreign land.
Regardless of the place, though, music is the key to their community. “No matter if you are from the Gulf or North Africa, the music is part of the Arabic culture,” says Robbie. “It’s very similar to the Turkish and Greek musical cultures. The music plays a big role in social gathering. The musicians come from overseas, and what they play is authentic.”
The Ramadan crowd at El Mirage on this night is less noisy than its usual weekly audiences. The atmosphere is almost holy. There are more families present, and elementary-school-aged children run through the aisles. The bar, located at the front of the restaurant, is relatively empty. The majority of the patrons are abstaining from alcohol. “Most of the people here are fasting during the day,” says Mohad Farg, the Mirage Band keyboardist, “so it’s not a good idea to drink alcohol at night.” Like the mood and the food, the songs are associated with Ramadan, which ended earlier this month. There are some religious songs, but those are older, traditional pieces by singers such as Oum Kaltoum.
The audience at El Mirage loves “to hear music, not just to dance,” says Farg. “They choose the songs that get them back to their countries, old music and folk music. They’re more interested in the old songs. It gives them feelings like they are at home, of being with their friends, their families, not like strangers in America. Even if they are living all their lives here in America, this is the music they heard from their parents.”
Unlike, say, the Vietnamese, Chinese or Hispanic communities in Houston, there is no single neighborhood or section of the city where Arabs are prevalent. Socializing is done both inside and outside the home. During the first two weeks of Ramadan, says Robbie, his family broke the fast five times at someone else’s house, four times at his home and three times in a restaurant.
It’s common to see a number of Arabs patronizing places that provide authentic Arabic food and music. “The smart owner knows that the community is always here and will come back if they like your place,” says Robbie, himself a former hotel and restaurant manager.
But for all of Houston’s Arab-friendly amenities, this city is still not home. The Arabs here will forever be in exile. Not with family. Not with friends. Not with familiar countryside. So, like Nabil Ghannam, the first question one asks is: “Where can I meet Arabic people?” El Mirage, everybody says, is a good place to start.
“We don’t consider it a club,” says Ghannam, a member of the citywide Arab American Student Association. “It’s a place to come and see people you don’t see during the day. This is a place for family gatherings. It’s a place for young people to come and meet. Without this place, we’d get lost.”
Ghannam is a Jordanian who graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in civil engineering. When he arrived in Houston in 1993, he barely spoke English, knew no one in this country and was away from family and friends for the first time. “I felt alone,” recalls Ghannam. “I cannot even describe the feelings when I come [to El Mirage]. You hear your language and the music you’re familiar with. You come here to meet the people you know, and you come here to meet new people. It’s like home.”
El Mirage is located at 9350 Westheimer. Call (713)532-4900 for more information
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2000.