The newly revitalized Friend of Lulu blog has begun a series of interviews with up and coming cartoonists, starting with Marguerite Dabaie whose THE HOOKAH GIRL describes growing up in a Palestinian/Scottish household:

Throughout American war history, there is always the “other” race that is collectively hated by the general populous: The Blacks during the Civil War, the Japanese during World War II, and now the Arabs. It is an understandable gut reaction to any war, but that doesn’t make it correct. After my parents divorced and I moved away from my family, I spent a long time forgetting, in a way, that I’m a half-Arab, which led me to see what it was like on the other side of the wall. My childhood experiences may be different from the “average” American, but they really aren’t very different from any other intense, crazed family. My grandmother made lebnah and hummus instead of chicken pot pie or beef stew, but she still knitted me clothes, like any grandmother would. We had crazy uncles and loopy cousins, but what family doesn’t have that?