Loading ...Pathbreakers of Arab America—Emil Wakim
By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
This is the sixty-fifth of Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, arts, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our sixty-fifth pathbreaker is Emil Wakim, a Lebanese American stand-up comic, writer, actor, and son of a Maronite Christian Lebanese immigrant father and American mother. He made his “Tonight Show” debut at the young age of 24 and this fall joined the cast of ‘Saturday Night Live’ for its milestone 50th season as the first Lebanese American cast member. Emil is unafraid of poking fun at stereotypes of Arabs and addressing serious issues such as genocide in Gaza.
Arab American Emil Wakim’s social commentary and political satire of Arabs fall neatly into his comic toolbox
Emil Wakim was born on March 11, 1998, in Chicago to a Lebanese Maronite father and an American mother. Raised in Indiana as a Maronite Christian, his father taught Emil that he should not identify as an Arab Christian since some Maronite Lebanese consider their roots to be in a pre-Arab culture, such as Phoenician. Nevertheless, Emil identifies as an Arab American. He moved to Bloomington, Indiana for college and then to Brooklyn, New York for his comedy career.
In his earlier career, Wakim was selected as a ‘New Face of Comedy’ at the prestigious Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. What Emil feels was a stroke of luck, he was invited to appear on the ‘The Tonight Show’ with Jimmy Fallon in 2022. He said that “Doing Fallon was probably the highlight so far, especially for what it meant for me at the time I got it. I was new to New York and desperately needed a credit or something to feel validated and be able to get booked on things.”
But a few short years later, life for Emil got even better. It was announced in September 2024 that he was one of three new featured cast members on ‘Saturday Night Live’ (SNL) for its 50th season. He is the show’s first Lebanese American cast member and the third Middle Eastern cast member after Nasim Pedrad and Aristotle Athari. He will be what SNL designates a featured player, along with comedians Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline.
SNL has been an American television staple since 1975. The show is celebrated for its social commentary and political satire, features that fall neatly into Wakim’s comic toolbox. His material draws from social and political dynamics as well as his experiences growing up in an immigrant family in the American Midwest.
While becoming a cast member of the show marks a high point in Wakim’s career, the comedian, 26, has been steadily striding into the mainstream limelight over the past few years. Wakim confirmed the news on Instagram, “Too many words to say and too many people to thank. This is beyond a dream.”
Apropos of the divided character of the country and, simultaneously, Wakim’s sense of irony, he averred during ‘The Tonight Show’ that the situation is “tense racially. You can feel it in the country. I worry all the time about people in my life. My dad is an immigrant, so I worry every day that someone is going to treat him poorly because of the color of his skin. And my mum is a white lady from the suburbs so I worry that she’s going to be the one to do it. Dude! Every time my mom starts yelling at my dad for something now, I just start recording her on my cellphone.”
Wakim made clear an important source of his humor, namely the difficulty of going from years of suppressing his Lebanese culture to fit in. Now, he says his friends deride him for not being proud enough of his background, that now young people support Gazan and Palestinian people. Some of his younger friends go as far as to criticize Israel for committing its own genocide in Gaza.
On a personal level, Emil owns a dog and is a Chicago Bulls fan.
Wakim talks about young people supporting Gaza on SNL’s ‘Weekend Update’: “They just want the bombing to stop”
SNL’s ‘Weekend Update’ segment gave a spotlight to Wakim, who used his time to unpack young people’s support for Gazan and Palestinian people. News source ‘internewscast’ reported co-host Colin Jost’s interview with Emil. It involved the question of whether Gen Z views are more pro-Palestinian and less supportive of U.S. actions, with young people more likely to classify the Israel-Hamas war as a genocide. We quote the segment below.
“I don’t think people are being honest with stuff over there,” Wakim said. “Like a lot of young people now that are for gay rights and women’s rights will be like ‘Free Palestine, free Gaza,’ and then people on the other side are being like, ‘Oh, gays for Gaza, huh? Go be gay in Gaza and see how they like it over there. That’s why we’re going over there.’ As if that’s why America goes to war, because we love women and gay people so much? Also, if you want them to be gay, just stop bombing them — they’ll get to gay. Like, they’re busy. They don’t have time to be like, ‘Who am I in the deepest parts of my soul?’ You can’t watch your village get blown up and be like, ‘I think I’m bisexual actually.’”
Elsewhere during his appearance, Wakim, who has family in Lebanon, made jokes about his upbringing as a Christian Arab and dealing with his now-conservative immigrant father. “He made it so hard that he’s a Republican now,” he said. “That’s the real American dream, dude, to go from a village in Lebanon to being like, ‘No, no, don’t let more in. No, sorry about that. No, sorry, it’s white guys only. C’mon Kyle, let’s go play pickleball.’”
Wakim continued, admitting that his father worries about him openly talking about his identity. “He’s like, ‘You know, you don’t have to say we’re Arab — we’re not Arab; we’re Christian Lebanese, it’s different. We’re European, we’re like the French,’” Wakim said, mimicking his father’s accent. “And I’m like, ‘Ask the French if they think we’re the French.’”
Speaking to the complexities of growing up Christian as an Arab person, Wakim added, “No matter how liberal or conservative of an area I’m in, when people find out I was raised Christian, people just relax a little bit. Even in this room … They’re just like, ‘Oh, he’s cool.’ They’re just a little less afraid of you. Christian Arabs, we’re like Black dudes with anime backpacks.”
In a conversation with news source ‘Vulture,’ Wakim describes how his parents finally understood his job as a comedian. Emil depicts how, until then, “doing Fallon was probably the highlight so far, especially for what it meant for me when I got it. I was new to New York and desperately needed a credit or something to feel validated and get booked on things. It was also huge for my parents because it was finally a thing where all their friends and co-workers knew what it was, so it gave them a lot of closure that they could stop wincing when they tried to explain to their friends that a Jimmy Fallon audition was a big deal. A blurry screenshot from the YouTube video of me shaking Jimmy Fallon’s hand is both of their phone wallpapers still, which is cool but also a bit much. Every time I’m in town at a restaurant, my dad will show the waitress his lock screen and be like, ‘What do you think? He was on Jimmy Fallon. (Not Jimmy Fallon — Jimmy Fallon.)’”
Emil’s parents hadn’t even begun to dream of their son’s appearance on SNL! That was still to come. They would have to adjust their heads more once their son joined SNL. Not only did Wakim make his parents proud of his superb talent, but he was able to reflect his cultural roots in his humor and his passion for the Arab people, especially his support of the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza.
Sources:
–“Emil Wakim,” Wikipedia Series on Arab Americans, 2024
–“ Who is Emil Wakim? Meet the first Lebanese Saturday Night Live cast member,” INC, 10/2024
–“Newcomer Emil Wakim Talks About Young People Supporting Gaza on SNL’s ‘Weekend Update’: “They Just Want the Bombing to Stop,” internewscast, 11/20/2025
–“Emil Wakim’s Parents Finally Understand His Job Now,” Vulture, 9/6/2024`
John Mason, Ph.D., focuses on Arab culture, society, and history and is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.
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