From Nostalgia to Critique: An Overview of Arab American Literature

Author(s): Tanyss Ludescher

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Source: MELUS, Vol. 31, No. 4, Arab American Literature (Winter, 2006), pp. 93-114
Published by: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS)
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From Nostalgia to Critique: An Overview
of Arab American Literature

Tanyss Ludescher
University of Connecticut

One major purpose of this special issue of MELUS is to intro-

duce scholars, critics, teachers, and students of ethnic literary
works to an understudiedand undervaluedarea of ethnic literature.
This essay provides an overview of the history of Arab American
literature,with particularattentionto the history of Arab immigra-
tion. In addition to introducingreaders to the major figures and
major themes in the literature, it also points to the future by
consideringunresolvedquestions and unexploredsubjects.
Arab Americanliteraturemirrorsthe patternsof Arab American
history,which scholarshave traditionallydivided into threephases,
based on the three distinct waves of Arab immigrantswho came to
the US.' The first wave (1880-1924) of immigrantswas made up
of Greek Orthodox,Maronite,and Melchite Christiansfrom Mount
Lebanonand the surroundingSyrianand Palestinianprovinces. For
the first several years, immigration documents identified these
Christians as Turks because they were subjects of the Ottoman
Empire. The immigrants, however, despised their repressive
Ottomanoverseers and preferredto identify themselves as Syrians.
Unskilled and often illiterate,many of these early ChristianArabs
found work as itinerantpeddlers, fanning across the country, and
often spending months on the road. It was a lifestyle which accel-
erated assimilation because it provided ample opportunities to
learn English and mix with the local populace. Later, the Syrians
settled in widely dispersed communitiesacross the country,where
many opened retail shops. Generallyhardworkingand law abiding,
the immigrantsenthusiasticallyembracedAmericanvalues.

MELUS,Volume 31, Number4 (Winter2006)

94 TANYSS LUDESCHER

Immigrationfrom Greater Syria came to a halt during World

War I, when famine and war ravaged the homeland. Although
immigrationresumed after the war, it came to a virtual standstill
when harsh quotas were imposed on Syrians and other unwelcome
ethnic groups in 1924. With immigration slowed to a trickle of
approximatelyone hundred people a year, the population of the
once vibrant, scattered community was not replenished. Despite
the publication in the United States of numerousArabic-language
newspapers, the Syrians were increasingly cut off from events in
their country of origin. As Alixa Naff notes, many Syrian Ameri-
cans were largely unconscious of the nationalistaspirationsin their
homeland that led to the formation of the new Lebanese state in
1947 (16).
The second wave of immigrationbegan in the decade following
World War II. Unlike the first wave, which was predominantly
Christian,the new wave contained a significant number of Mus-
lims. This second wave of immigrants consisted of educated,
skilled professionals,who were more likely to be familiarwith the
nationalist ideologies that permeated the Arab world. Unlike the
Syrian Christians,they staunchly identified themselves as Arabs.
Included in this group were a numberof Palestinianrefugees who
had been rendered stateless as a result of the catastrophic 1948
Arab-IsraeliWar.
The thirdmajorwave of immigration,which began in 1967 and
continues to this day, acceleratedthe trendsof the post-WorldWar
II immigrationperiod. In 1965, new liberalized immigrationlaws
abolished the long-standing quota system. As a result, large
numbers of West Bank Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims from
SouthernLebanon fled to America after the 1967 war with Israel
and the Israeli occupationof Palestinianlands. The Lebanese Civil
War in the 1970s and 1980s produceda furtherflood of refugees.
Imbued with anti-colonial sentiment and Arab nationalist ideas,
this new group was highly politicized. For the first time, Arab
American organizationswere formed to defend the Arab point of
view and to combat negative stereotypes of Arabs in the popular
press. Newly sensitized to their ethnic identity by worldwide
political events, the descendantsof first- and second-wave immi-
grantsjoined their newly arrived countrymenin support of Arab
concerns. The Palestiniancause became the centralrallying cry of
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 95

many Arab Americans,regardlessof background.The 1982 Israeli

invasion of Lebanon, the Gulf War, and the 1987 Palestinian
uprising against Israel (the First Intifada) further politicized the
ArabAmericancommunity.

The Mahjar Group

The Mahjar (Arabic for "place of immigration")movement in

literaturerefers to the body of work producedby diasporicwriters
in North and South America duringthe early part of the twentieth
century. The South American branch of the Mahjar group was
centeredin Brazil. On the whole, the group was more conservative
than its northerncounterpartand produced few innovations that
would challenge the prevailing neo-classical traditionof poetry in
the Arab world (Badawi, Critical Introduction 196). The North
American branchof the Mahjar group was centered in New York
and revolved around the forceful personality of Kahlil Gibran.
Unlike the southernbranch,it showed no reverence for traditional
Arab culture (Jayyusi 70). Freed from the conservativeconstraints
of the Arab world and bred on the American ideals of liberty and
progress, the northern Mahjar writers challenged Arab cultural
norms in ways that were heretofore unimaginable. Under the
influence of western Romanticism and American transcendental-
ism, this group inaugurateda new age of Romanticliteraturein the
Arabworld (Badawi, Critical Introduction203).
The unique blending of American and Arabic culture culmi-
nated in the formation of "the first genuine literary school in
modem Arabic"(Ostle 96). Banded togetheraroundal-Funun (The
Arts), an ambitious literaryjournal edited by Naseeb Arida from
1913-1918 and the twice-weekly newspaper al-Sa 'ih (The Trav-
eler), which was established in 1912 by Abd al-Maseeh Haddad,
the group developed a remarkablycohesive philosophy of litera-
ture and life. In 1920, the movement culminatedin the formation
of Ar-Rabitahal-Qalamiyyah,or "The Pen League," a revolution-
ary society self-consciously dedicated to literaryreform. Accord-
ing to poet and novelist Mikhail Naimy, the main theoretician of
the group, the purpose of the society was "to lift Arabic literature
from the quagmireof stagnationand imitation,and to infuse a new
life into its veins so as to make of it an active force in the building
96 TANYSS LUDESCHER

up of the Arab nations" (Kahlil Gibran 154). With these clearly

nationalisticgoals in mind, the group encouragedthe translationof
European masterpieces and sought the publication of its own
works as well as the works of other worthy Arab writers. In his
famous book on literary criticism, al-Ghirbal, Naimy articulates
the Romanticprinciples that guided the group (see N. Naimy 125-
40). The writer, he argued, is a prophet and a philosopherwho is
endowed with a special capacity for discovering the truth.Litera-
ture must be focused on content, not form, for the properprovince
of literature is life itself. He satirizes those writers who view
Arabic as a sacred heritage and insists that creative experimenta-
tion with the language must replace the empty exercises in imita-
tion prevalentamong the Arabwritersof the day.
Among the numerous qualities that united the group were a
focus on the subjective experience of the poet and a belief in the
transcendentpower of nature.They were also famous for their use
of biblical forms and imagery (Badawi, Short History 46). Indeed,
their use of simple meters and stanzaic forms left the group, many
of whom were self-taught,or the productsof sporadicand incom-
plete education (see M. Naimy, Sab'un 2:170-82), open to the
charge that they were not qualified for the rigorous grammatical
challenges required of classical Arabic. But perhaps the quality
that most distinguished the northern Mahjar writers was their
interest in Eastern religion and mysticism. The great majority of
writers and intellectuals in the Arab world were secular (Cachia
140). So the focus on Eastern religion by the members of the
Mahjargroupwas highly unusual.
Most northernMahjar literaturewas written in Arabic; how-
ever, threeprominentmembersof the group,Ameen Rihani,Kahlil
Gibran,and MikhailNaimy, also produceda significantnumberof
works in English. In addition to his Arabic works, Ameen Rihani
produced an English translation of The Quatrains of Abu'l-Ala,
(1903); a book of poetry called Myrtle and Myrrh(1905); a novel,
TheBook of Khalid (1911); a book of political essays, TheDescent
of Bolshevism (1920); a collection of contemplative essays, The
Path of Vision (1921); a collection of mystical poetry in the Sufi
traditiontitled A Chant of Mystics (1921); and three travelogues.
Gibranpublished seven spiritualworks in English: The Madman
(1918); The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems (1920); The
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 97

Prophet (1923); Sand and Foam (1926); Jesus the Son of Man
(1928); The Earth Gods (1931); and The Wanderer(1932). Mik-
hail Naimy, along with Gibran,the most spiritualmember of the
group, wrote one work in English, the religious parable The Book
of Mirdad (1948). In addition, he translatedthree of his Arabic
works into English: Kahlil Gibran:A Biography (1950); Memoirs
of a VagrantSoul (1952); and a collection of his Russian-inspired
short stories, Till We Meet (1957). Although these writers had a
profound effect on modem Arabic literature,they never attained
the same staturein American literature.Among the three writers,
only Gibranis well known, though his work is widely ignored by
American critics. This is unfortunate,for these writers produced
work of real qualitythat deserves a place in Americanliterature.
All three of these writers came from poor peasant families in
Mount Lebanon. Kahlil Gibran was bom to Maronite parents in
1883 in Besharri, a mountain village in northern Lebanon, and
MikhailNaimy was born to Greek Orthodoxparentsin Baskinta,a
small village in central Lebanon, in 1889. Like other Christiansin
the isolated Christianenclave of Mount Lebanon,they had little or
no contact with the Muslims who lived outside their community;
however, they grew up at a time when the close-minded Christian
sects of Mount Lebanon were just beginning to emerge from
centuries of isolation. Like Lebanese versions of the proverbial
EuropeanOrientalist,they longed to discover the mysteries that lay
hidden in the Arab world. For many, their first insight into the rich
civilization of the Arabworld would come in the United States.2
Certainthemes, therefore,appearagain and again in the lives of
Rihani, Gibran,Naimy, and the otherMahjarwriters.Among these
themes are the desperateneed to escape the mundanematerialism
of the peddler lifestyle; the importance of missionary school
educationin Lebanon;the effect of French,British, and/orRussian
cultureon the individualimmigrant;the desire to transcendsectar-
ian religious conflict; admirationfor American vitality and hatred
of American materialism;a desire for reform in the Arab world;
acute concern about internationalpolitics and the political survival
of the homeland;an obsessive interestin East/Westrelations;and a
desire to play the role of culturalintermediary.The Mahjarwriters
viewed themselves as cultural middlemen straddling the great
divide between East and West. As they saw it, their mission was
98 TANYSS LUDESCHER

twofold: to promote cultural, social, and political reform in the

East, based on the Western model, and to encourage a spiritual
awakeningin the West, based on the Easternmodel.

The Second Phase of Arab American Immigration

According to Michael Suleiman, World War I was a turning

point in the history of the Arab American community.Before this
date, most Arab American immigrants viewed themselves as
temporaryworkers,"peoplewho were in, but not partof American
society" ("Introduction"4). They planned to accumulate capital
and returnto their homeland.To this end, they saved their money,
lived in squalid, overcrowded hovels, and gathered in residential
colonies, where they encouraged intermarriage,associated with
relatives and people from the same town and religious sect, and
kept their distance from Americans.
All of this changedwith the advent of World War I. During this
period, communicationwith the homeland was rupturedand the
communityhad to fall back on its own resources.The introduction
of strict immigration quotas in the 1920s increased the commu-
nity's sense of isolation and encouraged a feeling of communal
unity and solidarity, which had begun during the war. Only after
World War I, notes Suleiman, did "the Arabs in the United States
become truly an Arab-Americancommunity"("Arab-Americans"
43). As it dawned on Arab Americansthat it was unlikely thatthey
would ever return to their country, they were forced to address
crucial questions about their identity as Arab Americans and their
relationship to America. The realization greatly speeded up the
process of assimilation and led to decreased sectarian conflict,
increased calls for unity, and more participationin the American
political process. During World War I, many fought alongside
American forces or joined the war effort by buying liberty bonds.
The experience augmented the community's sense of patriotism
and made them feel that they were now part of the American
community.
Most of the popular accounts of immigrantlife written during
the first and second phases of Arab Americanliteraturereflect this
process of assimilation.George Haddad'sMt. Lebanon to Vermont
(1916) is an immigrantsuccess story, which recounts the author's
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 99

love for his adoptedcountry.Ashad Hawie's jingoistic autobiogra-

phy, The Rainbow Ends (1942), describes his experience as a
member of the American ExpeditionaryForces in World War I.
The goal of the book is to promote the Syrian community in the
US by making the public aware of the brave efforts of this ethnic
group in the war effort. Syrian Yankee(1943), by Salom Rizk, is a
classic of the immigrantbiographygenre. Born an orphanin a poor
Syrian village, Rizk discovers at the age of twelve that his mother
is an Americanand that he is thus entitledto Americancitizenship.
The discovery is a turningpoint in his life. In the following years,
Rizk manages to reach America. Once there, he struggles through
the Depression and World War II, all the while attemptingto prove
himself worthy of his destiny to become an American citizen.
Eventually, Rizk becomes a lecturer. Sponsored by the Reader's
Digest, he travels around the country, touting the American
immigrant ideal. Finally, George Hamid's Circus (1950) is a
rousing but conventionalrags to riches tale that recounts Hamid's
experience as an acrobatand renowned circus owner. Recruitedat
an early age by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Hamid was only
one of many Lebanese young men who traveled to the US to
become acrobats, a profession that was dominated by the Leba-
nese.
Despite their enthusiasm about becoming Americans, Arab
Americans soon found that there would be impediments on the
road to assimilation in the form of charges that they were racially
inferior and thus not worthy of becoming American citizens. In
1914, Lebanese immigrant George Dow was denied American
citizenship on the basis that he was Asian and did not belong to the
white race. According to the NaturalizationAct of 1790, citizen-
ship could only be extended to "free white persons."The shocked
Syrian communitymanagedto resolve the problemby demonstrat-
ing that they were Arabs and thereforemembers of the Caucasian
race (see Suleiman, "Introduction"6-7). Although George Dow
was eventually admitted to citizenship, the problem did not go
away. The community would endure a series of court cases chal-
lenging their racial statusbetween 1909 and 1915 and again during
the 1940s. Duringthe process, notes Lisa SuheirMajajin her essay
"Arab-Americansand the Meaning of Race," a clear connection
was made between "western European, Christian identity and
100 TANYSS LUDESCHER

'whiteness'" (323) and "non-European,non-Christian and non-

white identity"(323).
The apprehension and concern that the attacks on the racial
status of the Arab American community caused are evident in the
early works of Arab American writers. As Majaj points out, the
authors of these texts tended to stress the aspects of their culture
that were acceptable to Americans and to downplay those aspects
of their culturethat were alien to Americans."In particular,"notes
Majaj, "they stressedtheir Christianidentity [and] their geographi-
cal origin in the 'Holy Land'"("Meaningof Race" 328).
Prime examples of this tactic can be found in two works by the
LebaneseAmericanProtestantministerAbrahamRihbany.3One of
the best of the early Arab immigrantautobiographies,Rihbany's
book A Far Journey (1914) is filled with biblical allusions that
place his life firmly within the biblical context. The Syrian Christ
(1916),4 a remarkablework, which explains Christ's life from the
vantage point of a Middle Easterner,makes the following startling
claim: "I was born not far from where the Master was born, and
brought up under almost the identical conditions under which he
lived, I have an 'inside view' of the Bible which, by the natureof
things, a Westernercannot have. And I know," he continues, "that
the conditions of life in Syria to-day are essentially as they were in
the time of Christ. . . . [W]henever I open my Bible it reads like a
letter from home" (5). Rihbany sanctifies the everyday customs,
language, and beliefs of the Middle East by associating them with
the life of Jesus.

The Second Generation of Arab American Literature

By World War II, the Arab Americancommunitywas virtually

indistinguishablefrom the larger American community, a process
that was facilitatedby their sharedChristianfaith and the fact that
they did not exhibit easily discernableracial or ethnic featuresthat
distinguished them from the general population. By the time the
second generation of Arab Americans came of age, most did not
speak Arabic and many had only a superficial understandingof
their Arabheritage.
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 101

As Evelyn Shakir, an Arab American academic who has

emerged as the main critic of the second generation of Arab
Americanwriters,notes:

The firstgenerationof Arab-American writers(as mightbe expected

of immigrantsof an age of rampantxenophobia)dressedcarefullyfor
their encounterwith the Americanpublic, puttingon the guise of
prophet,preacher,or man of letters.They could not hide theirfor-
eignness,but they could make it respectable.TheirAmericanborn
children-those who came of age in the 1930s, 1940s,and 1950s-
costumedthemselvesas "regularAmericans"and hoped to pass,
which may be why they produced so little literature.("Arab-
AmericanLiterature" 6)

The three major Arab American writers of this period, Vance

Bourjaily, William Peter Blatty, and Eugene Paul Nassar, saw
themselves as mainstream writers and did not identify as Arab
Americans. On the few occasions when they did address the issue
of their ethnic identity, they were hard pressed to know how to
deal with it because they were bereft of ethnic literarymodels to
draw upon. In "Arab-AmericanLiterature,"Shakir discusses the
different strategiesadoptedby these authorsto deal with the issue
of ArabAmericanidentity.
Vance Bourjaily,the son of a Lebanese fatherand an American
mother, exhibits little or no feeling of ethnicity in his two novels,
which deal with the Middle East, The End of My Life (1947) and
Confessions of a Spent Youth(1960). If anything, Bourjaily tells
us, his views were "vaguely Zionist" (Confessions 247). Quince,
the protagonistof Bourjaily's autobiographicalnovel Confessions
of a Spent Youth, explains that his paternal heritage "was not
particularlya secret, rathersomething which my fatherdismissed"
(238). In this book, Bourjaily does briefly explore the issue of
ethnic identitywhen he returnsto Kabb Elias, his father's ancestral
village in Lebanon. Welcomed with open arms by his great-aunt
Naife and her extended family, he experiences a feeling of kinship
and belonging that has eluded him in American society. But the
feeling of belonging is only temporaryand cannot provide perma-
nent relief for the modem American condition. In the final analy-
sis, Bourjaily's exploration of his ethnic heritage is only one of
many devices he uses to explore the quintessentially modem
102 TANYSS LUDESCHER

Americanthemes of alienation,rootlessness, inauthenticity,lack of

identity, and the tenuous and temporal nature of human commu-
nity.
If Vance Bourjailywas largely indifferentto his ArabAmerican
background,William Peter Blatty, the authorof The Exorcist, was
embarrassedand overwhelmed by his ethnic identity (personified
by his brash, loud, and domineering mother) and tried hard to
escape it (see Shakir, "Arab-AmericanLiterature"7-8 and "Arab
Mothers" 8-11). During his childhood, which he describes in his
hilarious autobiographyWhichWayto Mecca, Jack? (1960), he is
forced to endure the cruel jokes of neighborhood children, who
will not let him forget that he is alien and strange.The experience
produces a lifelong "fixation"with being Arab. Later, he tried to
become an actor in Hollywood but was rejected because he was
too "Biblical."Although he finally learns to appreciatehis Leba-
nese backgroundduringa tour of duty in Lebanonworking for the
US InformationAgency, he does not forget the insults he received
in Hollywood. In an uproarioussend-up,he disguises himself as an
Arabian prince and returns to Hollywood, where he uses every
romantic stereotype in the oriental lexicon to impress and ulti-
mately mock the gullible Hollywood bigwigs. Which Way to
Mecca, Jack? is a farce, a self-mocking parody of ethnic life,
which uses humor to dispel the angst of being different and for-
eign. By making himself ridiculous, Blatty can appearless fright-
ening and alien to his all-Americanaudience.
In a companion book, I'll Tell ThemI Remember You (1973),
Blatty comes to terms with the death of his strong-willed mother
and tenderly acknowledges the lasting role she has played in his
life. But he does not abandon his comic routine. To a modem
reader, this routine bears an uncanny resemblance to the ethnic
shtick used by BorschtBelt comics. This is not surprisinggiven the
time period and the author's connection to Hollywood; Jewish
humorwas the main model of ethnic humorduringthis period.
Eugene Paul Nassar's memoir of growing up in a Lebanese
American neighborhood in Utica, New York, Wind of the Land
(1979), is an unabashedly sentimentalportraitof an ethnic com-
munity (see Shakir, "Arab-AmericanLiterature"8). Nassar, an
academic and literary critic, makes no attemptto create a multi-
dimensionalportrait,which depicts the good as well as the bad side
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 103

of communal life. Nor is there any attemptto deal with anti-Arab

stereotypingor political issues, like the Arab-Israeliconflict, that
affected the community. Instead, he celebrates the people and the
enduringvalues of the community. The elegiac tone of the work
achieves a kind of urgency because he is describinga world that is
fading into extinction.

Phase Three: Embracing Arab American Ethnicity

The experience of poet and critic Lisa SuhairMajajin the 1980s

mirrorsthe experience of many Arab American authors searching
for a community of writers. In her essay "Two Worlds Emerging:
Arab-American Writing at the Crossroads," she discusses the
difficulties she faced as the child of an American mother and a
Palestinianfathergrowing up in Jordan,and later attendinggradu-
ate school in the United States. The experience left her feeling
marginalizedand alienatedin both societies. A turningpoint came,
as it did for many Arab Americanwriters,when she read the work
of Chinese American author Maxine Hong Kingston, Native
American poet Joy Harjo, and other ethnic writers.5Heartenedby
the experience, she began to look for Arab American writers who
would help her meld the disparateaspects of her own identity. It
was difficult to find the authorsbecause she had to look for them
under diverse ethnic categories such as Lebanese, Syrian, or even
Turkish,or under obscure religious categories such as Melchite or
Maronite.She was also struckby the lack of scholarly criticism on
the subject: "'Arab-Americanliterature'as a category was almost
completely absent from listings of immigrantand ethnic-American
literature"(69), she notes.
For Majaj and other Arab American writers, the defining
moment in the history of Arab American literaturecame with the
publication of two anthologies of Arab American literature, a
twenty-pagecollection called Wrappingthe GrapeLeaves: A Sheaf
of ContemporaryArab-AmericanPoets (1982), edited by Gregory
Orfalea,and the largerand more comprehensiveanthology, Grape
Leaves: A Century of Arab-AmericanPoetry (1988), edited by
Orfalea and Sharif Elmusa. The publication of the latter work,
notes Majaj, "was a major event. . . . [I]ts presence in bookstores
and on library shelves made it possible for general readers to
104 TANYSS LUDESCHER

discover Arab Americanwriterswithout first acquiringspecialized

knowledge. Moreover its publication established 'Arab-American
Literature' as a category on computer data-bases and in card
catalogues" ("Two Worlds" 71-72). In addition to poets from an
earlier age, Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-AmericanPoetry
introducedreadersto a large numberof Arab Americanpoets who
are still writing.
During the early 1990s, the modem communityof Arab Ameri-
can writers also saw the publication of one of its first works of
fiction. In 1990, Joseph Geha publisheda collection of shortstories
called Throughand Through: Toledo Stories, which explores the
intergenerationalconflicts in the Lebanese American community.
Although Elmaz Abinader'spoetry appearedin Grape Leaves, she
is most famous for her autobiographicalnovel Children of the
Roojme: A Family's Journey (1991), which is based on family
diaries and letters. Her realistic account of tyranny, famine, war,
painful family divisions, and the perils involved in the emigration
experience is a refreshing antidote to the idealized accounts that
are often found in ArabAmericanmemoirs. Moreover,Abinaderis
not afraid to explore the oppression of women and the different
perspectives that men and women bring to experience (see Majaj,
"Two Worlds"75-76).
One of the most gifted novelist in the Arab American commu-
nity is the JordanianAmericanwriter Diana Abu-Jaber.Her semi-
autobiographical1993 novel Arabian Jazz produced a flurry of
controversybecause it broke an unwrittenrule in the Arab Ameri-
can communitythat members should not criticize Arabs and Arab
Americans in public. In her imaginative and comic novel, Abu-
Jaber lampoons American society, attacking, in particular,anti-
Arab bigots, as well as Arab society. Despite her final acceptance
of both communitiesand her thoughtfulmeditationon the vagaries
of living with a hyphenatedidentity, some readerswere offended
by her grotesquestereotypesof Arabs.6This reactiondemonstrates
a perennial problem in ethnic literature,that writers who openly
criticize the community run the risk of being ostracized and
censoredby the group.
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 105

The Newest Generation of Arab American Writers

Arab American literaturereally began to flower in the mid-

1990s as established writers like Lebanese American poet David
Williams and Sephardic Jewish American poet Jack Marshall
continuedto publish new works, and new writers appearedon the
scene. Among the new poets are Lebanese AmericanHaas Mroue,
Detroit-born Hayan Charara, Palestinian American Nathalie
Handal,and Libyan AmericanKhaled Mattawa.Two female poets
in this group consider themselves Islamic feminists. SyrianAmeri-
can Mohja Kahf wears a head scarf, but is also known for writing
explicitly erotic poems. Suheir Hammad, a young hip-hop poet,
was born in a refugee camp in Jordanand grew up in an African
American and Hispanic neighborhood in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
She is most famous for her role as writer and cast member in the
2003 Tony Award-winning show "Russell Simmons Def Poetry
Jam on Broadway" (see Smith). Among the crop of new fiction
writers are Lebanese American Patricia SarrafianWard, Palestin-
ian American Kathryn Abdul-Baki, Jordanian American Laila
Halaby, Lebanese American Frances Khirallah Noble, Syrian
American Mona Simpson, and Egyptian American Samia
Serageldin.
In the last decade, in particular,the works of Arab American
writers were taught in the college curriculum, and conferences
were held that were specifically devoted to Arab American litera-
ture. Several anthologies devoted to this literature appeared,
notably Food for Our Grandmothers:Writingsby Arab-American
and Arab-Canadian Feminists (1994), edited by Joanna Kadi;
Post-Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing (1999),
edited by MunirAkash and KhaledMattawa;Dinarzad's Children:
An Anthology of ContemporaryArab American Fiction (2004),
edited by Pauline Kaldas and Khaled Mattawa; and Sche-
herazade's Legacy: Arab and Arab American Womenon Writing
(2004), edited by Susan Muaddi Darraj. In 1996, journalist and
broadcasterBarbaraNimri Aziz formally establishedthe Radius of
Arab-AmericanWriters,Incorporated,or RAWI (the word means
"storyteller"in Arabic), an organizationof Arab American writers
dedicatedto promotingand encouragingthe work of Arab Ameri-
106 TANYSS LUDESCHER

can authors. RAWI holds an annual writing workshop and pub-

lishes a newsletterthreetimes a year.
Two factors spurredthe growth of Arab American literature.
The first was the search for voices outside the traditionalcanon of
Anglo-American male literature,a search which led to the bur-
geoning interest in ethnic American writers. The second factor,
like so many things in the Arab American community,was politi-
cal. Recent events in the Arabworld combinedto raise the political
consciousness and solidarityof the Arab Americancommunity.In
order to combat the proliferationof anti-Arabstereotypes,writers
dedicatedthemselves to putting a human face on the Arab Ameri-
can immigrant population. Paradoxically, the events of 9/11
increased the public's interest in this heretofore ignored commu-
nity.

Issues Facing Arab American Writers Today

One of the most importantissues facing the Arab American

community today has to do with the question of what constitutes
Arab Americanliterature.Arab Americansare partof an extremely
diverse group, which includes third- and fourth-generationAmeri-
cans, recent immigrants, people from different countries and
religious backgrounds, and Arabic and non-Arabic speakers.
Should Arab Jews and non-Arabic speakers be included in this
group?What about writers like Sam Hazo, who do not identify as
Arab Americans,or writerslike Mona Simpson, who choose not to
write about their ethnicity, or writers like Naomi ShihabNye, who
write about it only some of the time? Should they be considered
Arab American writers?7 Furthermore,should Arab American
writers focus on the Arab side of experience, emphasizing the
traditionsand values of the Arab world, or should they focus on
the American side of experience, emphasizing American immi-
grantexperiencein the context of multiculturalism?8
Arab American women writers face their own particularset of
problems. When Arab American women criticize the patriarchal
natureof their society, they are often accused of abandoningtheir
own cultureand adoptingWesternmodes of thought(Majaj,"New
Directions" 75). This is exacerbatedby the fact that feminism is
associated with Western imperialism and is therefore viewed as
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 107

anti-religious and anti-nationalist(Darraj 193). Feminism is an

emotionally fraughtissue in the Arab world. Because the treatment
of women is often used as a weapon to attackArabs, any criticism
of patriarchyis viewed as a reinforcementof negative anti-Arab
stereotypes and an attack on the community. Finally, Arab and
ethnic women writers who confirm the popular prejudices about
the treatment of Arab women run the risk of pandering to the
commercialinterestsof the Westernmarketplace.As Amal Amireh
points out, works by Arab women are often "marketed"and
"manipulated"by publishers "to meet the expectations and as-
sumptionsof WesternReaders."9
One of the most painful issues that confronts Arab American
writers is how to react to the 9/11 terroristattacks.In a thoughtful
article published shortly after 9/11, editor Elie Chalala expressed
the shock and horrorthat many Arab American writers and intel-
lectuals felt. In one fell swoop, he notes, the terroristsdestroyed
the very thing that he and many others had spent years trying to
correct: anti-Arab stereotyping in American society.10 Although
some Arab American intellectuals have argued that they do not
need to explain themselves to the Americanpublic because they do
not sharethe views of the terrorists,Chalalafeels that explanations
are required to prevent a racist backlash. He also feels that the
Arab American community should reexamine its blind allegiance
to the political discourse of the Arab world and stop automatically
defending "any position taken by the Arab states" ("Rethinking
Ideas" 14). Similarly thoughtful responses to the terroristattacks
have been expressed in literature by writers Elmaz Abinader,
SuheirHammad,LawrenceJoseph, and D. H. Melhem.11
A final issue is the need for experimentationin new literary
genres. Indeed, it was the paucity of fiction, drama, screenplays,
and other genres that led the editors of Post-Gibran:Anthology of
New Arab American Writingto specifically ask for "cross-genre
experiments"(Akash and Mattawaxiii) from their contributors.Up
until very recently, most Arab American writers confined their
literary output to autobiographyand poetry. The autobiographies
tended to fall into one of two patterns:rags to riches American
success stories or nostalgic, sanitized accounts of family and
communal life. Most "serious" writers eschewed this simplistic
approachand tended to concentrateon poetry. Yet as Lisa Suhair
108 TANYSS LUDESCHER

Mujaj notes in "New Directions: Arab American Writing at

Century's End," poetry has its own limitations. The lyric works
best "for nostalgic celebrationsof family and community, and for
anguisheddepictions of war and suffering"(70), she argues, but it
does not provide the kind of in-depth analysis that is needed to
understandthe complexity of the Arab Americanexperience.Now
that Arab American writers have a stronger sense of community
and identity, it is time to "move beyond cultural preservation
toward transformation"(71), writes Majaj. This transformation
will require, among other things, the adoption of new literary
genres, a new sophisticated form of literary analysis, and the
courage to engage in communalself-criticism.

Conclusion

In a 2002 on-line interview published in The Iranian, Elie

Chalala, the editor of Al Jadid, summarizedthe current state of
Arab American literatureas follows: "Thereare a great numberof
Arab women writing outside of the Arab countries.This literature
tends to be very secular and critical of patriarchalnorms. The early
phase of these writingstended to be nostalgic. But I would say that
most Arab-Americanwritershave transcendedthe nostalgic phase.
There are a variety of genres presentin their writings;their work is
sophisticatedand multi-layered."
Although Chalala's optimism and enthusiasm are justified,
much work remainsto be done. There is still a paucity of criticism
on the first two phases of Arab American literature. Although
scholars have studied the crucial role that the Mahjar writers
played in modernizingArabic literature,very little work has been
done on the role that they played in Arab Americanliterature.This
means that key texts like Mikhail Naimy's three-volumeautobiog-
raphySab 'un, which contains a wealth of informationon the early
Mahjar writers, will need to be translatedinto English. There is a
similar lack of criticism on the second phase of Arab American
literature.More attentionmust be paid to the subtle and less overt
ways in which ethnicity is treatedin these works. One fruitfularea
of researchmight involve the study of ethnic humor.Although the
thirdphase of this writing has received more attention,most of the
critical work has focused on fiction at the expense of poetry.
FROMNOSTALGIATO CRITIQUE 109

Finally, there is an urgentneed for more high-qualityliterary

criticismthatmatchesthe standardsset by criticssuch as Evelyn
Shakir,AmalAmireh,andLisaSuhairMajaj.

Notes

1. See Suleiman's "Introduction"for an excellent overview of the three waves of

Arab immigrationto America.
2. Like Rihani, Gibran's first introductionto the Arab world took place in the
United States. He first became aware of the romanceassociated with the Middle
East throughhis contact with the artisticcommunity in Boston. Jean and Kahlil
Gibranargue that this contact caused the young poet to reevaluatehis place in
American life: "If American poets sang about the land where he was born, did
not his closeness to and reverence for that place confer on him some heretofore
unimaginedstature?"(58).
3. This tactic was also used by Gibran.See Shakir,"Arab-AmericanLiterature"
4-5.
4. See Shakir,"Arab-AmericanLiterature"5 and "Mother'sMilk"41-45.
5. See Shalal-Esa.
6. Abu-Jaberdiscusses this and otherissues in her interviewwith Shalal-Esa.
7. There are no easy answers to these questions. Steven Salaita argues in
"Vision"that it is "counterproductive" (14) to include writerswho do not claim
any identification with their Arab background, while Majaj argues in "The
Hyphenated Author" that "Arab-Americanauthors that on the surface have
nothing to do with 'Arab' or 'ethnic' themes may, upon closer examination,
reflect the impressof ethnicity"(3).
8. According to Majaj in "The HyphenatedAuthor,"there are two main points
of view on this issue, depending upon whether writers see themselves as
primarilyArab or primarilyAmerican. The main concern of the formergroup is
to preserve its political and culturalattachmentsto the Arab world. As such, it
views any dilution of this culturalattachmentas a "betrayalof Arab heritageand
hence of Arab-Americanidentity"(3). The lattergroupviews its Arab American
identity within "the American frameworkof assimilation and multiculturalism"
(3). As such, its members are primarily interested in exploring the Arab
Americanimmigrantexperience.
9. For a discussion of feminism in Arab American literature, see Amireh
"Publishing,"Darraj "Third World," and Leila Ahmed, A Border Passage,
chpts. 10 and 12. Also see the anthologies Food for Our Grandmothers,edited
by Kadi; Scheherazade'sLegacy, edited by Darraj;and Going Global, edited by
Amireh and Majaj.
10. Nye expresses similar views in her eloquent open letter "To Any Would-Be
Terrorist,"which was circulatedelectronicallyvia the internetafter the Septem-
ber 1 1thattacks.
110 TANYSS LUDESCHER

11. See, for example, Elmaz Abinader's "Profile of an Arab Daughter,"Suheir

Hammad's"firstwriting since," LawrenceJoseph's Before Our Eyes, and D. H.
Melhem's "September11, 2001, World TradeCenter,Aftermath."

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