"The haboobs are coming! The haboobs are coming!"

The line between national pride and patriotism on one side and small-mindedness and bigotry on the other can be perilously thin. Some Arizonans, however, have stumbled over the line where it is thicker than the annotated Federal tax regs,

The Arizona natives are objecting to local weathermen adopting the Middle Eastern term haboob to describe the small dust storms that have bedeviled Arizona this summer.  Haboob is a wonderful word, considerably more colorful than its Arizona equivalent, which is—-wait for it—“dust storm.” Nonetheless, the newspapers and local talk shows have been been awash recently with complaints like this letter to the editors of the Arizona Republic:

“After living here for 57 years, I have seen an “Arizona dust storm” or two. What irritates me is the growing trend to call our Arizona dust storms “haboobs.” While other countries in the world may call them that, this is the United States. Even more, this is Arizona, not some Middle Eastern nation. I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob. How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term that is clearly an Arizona phenomenon? Dust storms such as we have are as unique as cacti and diamondback rattlesnakes. Keep it as it is – an Arizona dust storm!”

You have to admit, the writer has a point. I would imagine the nadir of a returning serviceman’s return to the U.S. after serving gallantly overseas would be the realization, as he enjoys his shishkabob, hummus, boiled artichoke,orange slices and candy, that his hard combat had zero effect stopping the invasion of Arabic and Middle Eastern words into English and the American culture. Alas, the genie is definitely out of the bottle; no talisman or magic elixer will overcome it, and all that he can do now is retire depressed to his mattress or perhaps his sofa, scarlet with fury over the knowledge that the zenith of our ascension in the world is past, and that this is truly checkmate for American exceptionalism.

This is more than language niggling. The complaints over haboob are symptoms of a particularly ugly strain of insecurity and xenophobia, mixed with startling ignorance of the American experience. Soldiers are not fighting in foreign lands to keep America safe from Middle Eastern and Arabic influence; to the contrary. They are fighting to keep America a dynamic culture that accepts and welcomes, as it was designed to do, new ideas, traditions, thoughts, and words in the spirit of free expression and an evolving culture unrestricted by censorship, religious edicts, doctrine and oppressive laws. The English language, the most versatile force for creativity and free thought in communication ever devised, is a bulwark of our culture, and its generous use of words from every source imaginable has been part of its strength, and thus part of our strength.

Strange as it seems, rejecting haboob because it hails from foreign lands does not protect American culture, but rather  endangers it. The hostility also embarrasses the United States, for the word is no less than a symbol of Middle Eastern and Arabic people, who have as much to contribute to this country as any of the hundreds of other nationalities who have eagerly dived into our melting pot, changing the American admixture significantly and for the better.

So welcome, haboob; glad you’re here. And don’t mind the small-minded boobs trying to run you out of Arizona. They’ve always been part of the American experience too, but when the nation is healthy, they are nothing to worry about.