Zahr on stage at the comedy festival.

DEARBORN — “It was an English class, but I learned Spanish instead,” Arab comedian Moe Amer quipped to a crowd at the Arab American National Museum, describing his awkward transition into the Houston Public School System after his family moved to Texas from Kuwait.

“It’s great because I’m brown and now I speak Spanish,” Amer said. “So if anything breaks out, I can camouflage in any moment in time. Things can get rough in Texas.”

If there was one commonality shared amongst the 10 local, national and international stand up comedians who appeared at the “1001 Laughs Dearborn Comedy Festival”, held at the Arab National Museum November 21-22, it was finding humor in the stereotypes and lack of identity of Arab Americans in Western society. 

Headlined by Amer, the show included an impressive line-up of stand-up comedians, including Mike Batayeh, Mike Easmeil, Jennifer Jajeh, Ramy Youssef, Bryon Sadik, Eman Elhusseini, Khurum Sheikh and host Mona Aburimshan.

Despite all of the comedians coming from a broad range of backgrounds— Muslims, Christians, Palestinians, Iraqis and even Pakistani— they all shared stories of similar obstacles when interacting with everyday Americans. And their narratives were nothing short of hilarious. 

Dearborn stand-up comedian and author Amer Zahr has served as the producer of the comedy festival since it was conceptualized last year. Zahr, a former contributing editor at The Arab American News, has produced and headlined three of his own comedy tours in previous years.

Zahr recently completed production on his first documentary film, “We’re Not White”,  a comedic approach aimed at the lack of Arab American presence on the U.S. Census form. Zahr also runs a blog called “The Civil Arab.” 

Zahr told The Arab American News that he aimed to gather a line-up of both established and up-and-coming stand up acts of Arab and Muslim backgrounds, in an effort to inject humor in a community that often faces setbacks and hardship in both the social and political atmosphere.

Not only were the line-up of comedians diverse, but so were the people in attendance. Several of the comedians made it a point to randomly ask attendees their national background to highlight the diversity within the culture. 

Los Angeles-based comedian Ramy Youssef was caught off guard while he was randomly asking people that question during his stand up set.  

“I’m from the United States,” replied a man in the crowd.

“No really… I mean this isn’t like some sort of job interview, what country are you from?” Youssef rebutted, while the crowd abruptly burst into hysteria. 

The man continued to divert from answering the question.

“See now you are being weird,” Youssef said. “You are messing up my joke and I had a punch line… literally, I don’t care about the joke I was going to tell anymore. I want to know what country you are from.”   

While it may not be common for Arabs to hide their identities among each other, some of the comedians on the stage noted that it’s often a method they rely on when placed in settings around everyday Americans. 

Easmeil said his family deliberately changed his first name from Mahmoud to Mike while he was raised in Mississippi as a child, so that he wouldn’t have trouble blending in. 

“Can you imagine what it’s like for a little 8-year-old Palestinian boy to try and teach a redneck how to say Mahmoud?” Easmeil said. 

L.A.-based comedian Jennifer Jajeh described her predicament of being a Palestinian Christian among both Jewish Americans and Muslim Americans.

A majority of her stand-up routine highlighted her troubles in maintaining an interfaith relationship, after the dating phone app Tinder routinely matched her with Jewish men.

“The strange thing is, I keep getting matched up with a lot of Jewish guys,” Jajeh said. “Which, if you think about it, really makes sense, because I know they all want to get up in there and occupy my territory.”  

Near the end of the show, Zahr took the stage to thank the community for supporting the comedy festival. All four performances, spread across Friday and Saturday evening, were delivered in front of sold out crowds.  

“It really warms my heart that the community here is supporting comedy,” Zahr told the crowd during an intermission. “I know there are all kinds of comedians with all kinds of points of view; and sometimes it’s a little controversial and sometimes its not, but that’s comedy.”