An Arab American Producer Fuses Music To Bring Cultures Together

[DudeAsInCool]

Dawn Elder grew up in San Francisco in the '70s on a diet of rock 'n' roll and her mother's Lebanese cooking. Her bedroom was the one with the Eagles and Beatles blaring from it. She hit clean octaves on the piano in the living room and skated neat figure eights at the local ice rink. Her exacting personality, teachers said, ensured her a promising career as a chemist.

Neither her science textbooks nor her taste in pop could explain the profound impact a strange musical experience would have the night her father, of Palestinian descent, took her to see a Lebanese diva perform in a San Francisco concert hall. Elder's lab partners in chemistry class never could have guessed that the California native was destined to fuse Middle Eastern music and American pop in recording studios all over Los Angeles.

Read more at the LA Times

[method77]

why do americans call their non white citizens whatever-american?

[DudeAsInCool]

why do americans call their non white citizens whatever-american?

I don't generally categorize people this way. Journalists seem to. I think it depends on the context. Totally proper here because of the woman's background and mission. But in general, we dont describe people as 'that colored fella," that "Arab dude", or whatever.

For whatever reasons, various ethnicities seem to hang together--whole neighborhoods an tagged "KoreaTown", etc. - that my influence the journalist's or other's coloring of their descriptions.