This is KPBS Midday Edition I am Maureen Cavanaugh. New Americans are expected to assimilate into the culture and often they do. It is easier said than done immigrants can find themselves and a half world where there old and new cultures combine and sometimes class. A new book of short stories describes that struggle through the voices of young Syrian girls in America. Joining me is Patricia Benke and appellate judge in San Diego and author of Qudeen the magnificent . The choice of Syrian immigrants is very personal for you. That's her family's heritage is in it? The book itself was written first as a novel eight years ago and I struggled and struggled with it. When I changed it first person it fell into stories. How closely do they stories as actually traveled from Pennsylvania to California matching family's troubles in America? In a gross sense timewise perfectly. My family came -- my grandparents in the early 1900s when there was the influx of immigrants to the call And a greater sense it is close A different girl tells the story each of these chapters. The story of girls coming to America from the Middle East and it indicates that she's part of a group that scatters all over the country. The stories are of girls but they are not related. Over the course of 1910 to 19 maybe 78 you have stories developing each of them hopefully on their own but telling a bigger story of immigration and universal themes that are faced. Who is Qudeen . It's based on a story my told me -- if you ever stopping her and he saw the four horses, and that's how they were treated they were members of the family. They had full run of the house. Qudeen was a horse who in his dedication to my great-grandfather he went to my great-grandfather's grave when he died and he stayed there and died there. He refused to eat. After that he was called Qudeen the magnificent. That fable stayed with the family the first as a true story then is available and each of the stories he appears as a different -- he has a very significant meeting. As a different entity -- and the second it's a meal and comes to the rescue than in the third he's a carousel horse and he moves throughout the assimilation of the Arabic culture and by the end of the book the readers are asking is is he real? We read was from one of the stories? This is from Scranton in 1938. Mice -- my father spends evenings them every night on the front porch they bought the went -- men coffee and cinnamon sweet rolls. Sometimes my father let me go with him if I promise not to say a word. Curled up on the porch invisible behind the men. The votes will -- slip me a piece of sweet roll and every once in a while she would put her finger to her lips and hand me the forbidden cup of coffee and caution do not tell your mother. The men sat in a circle their cigarettes tracing patterns in the dark. Each man drew his own design. I have come to the porch so many times I could tell who was speaking. Talk was mostly about religion and politics. For the elders it was the same thing. That is Patricia Benke reading from her but Qudeen the magnificent. This was before the issue that Syrian refugees became so political. What is your reaction? This was originally written in 2008. It is simply an accident of timing the reference of the story is -- to Aleppo is purely coincidental that's where my family is told us the castle from around which the city which I started writing the Syrians immigration is not the topic it is today. It is now. How do you feel like this resonates with the whole idea of coming to this country from the Middle East. Learned very new ways and very low latitudes. For me it is a matter of what is the immigrants heart and soul that's the heart and soul of this. When you have been here as my family has been for several generations what has happened to our heritage and culture. It is still there this great wonderful mixing pot that we have that we talk about does just that and the rule of the schools and in particular it runs throughout this book. For me it is a question of that kind of assimilation but it is deeper than that. The last story is a difficult story because that is the deconstruction as I were to sit down in this book and try to figure out the generations it would be a struggle and it would be something a lot of which I don't understand but it is in there because it was given to me. Part of it is fiction part of it is nonfiction biography autobiography that's what the book is about. I -- I have been speaking with Patricia Benke author of Qudeen that magnificent. Thank you.
A new book of short stories describes the struggle New Americans face in assimilating to mainstream culture.
Twelve stories of young Syrian girls in America are told in "Qudeen the Magnificent" by Patricia Benke, an appellate judge in San Diego. Benke's grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Syria in the early 1900s.
The "Qudeen" in the title is based on a fable that's been passed down for generations in Benke's family about the dedication of her great-grandfather's Arabic horse. The story goes, when her great-grandfather died the horse went to his grave and stayed there, refusing to eat until he too died.
Qudeen appears through each of the stories in the book as a different entity.
"In the second he's a mule who comes to the rescue, in the third he's a carousel horse," Benke said. "He moves throughout the assimilation, if you will, of the Arabic culture and by the end of the book I hope the reader is asking 'what happened to him', 'is he still real or has he disappeared?'"
Benke joins Midday Edition Thursday to talk about her book.
