The Presence of the Absence: Displacement of Home and Identity in Selected Literary Texts by PalestinianAmerican Woman Writers

Dr. Aseel K. AL-Rikabi, Lecturar.

	The Presence of the Absence: Displacement of Home and Identity in Selected Literary Texts by PalestinianAmerican Woman Writers
AL-AMEED JOURNAL
Article 1, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2017, Pages 19-46
Author
Lecturar. Dr. Aseel K. AL-Rikabi
Abstract
Abstract The present research studies the problem of displacement of home and identity in selected literary texts—“Hamadi”, and Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by the Palestinian-American woman writers, Naomi Shihab Nye and IbtisamBarakatrespectively.Approximately quarter-million Americans of Palestinian descent began coming to the USA in the latter part of the 19th century. Refugees suffer from loss of both the self and home. What is lost in exile is not just a physical place, but it is a displacement of selfhood and one’s history. However, the eradication of homeland and identity urges Palestinian writers to look for their geographical homeland of Palestine and for a restoration of identity. Arab American writers diagnose the absence, invisibility, and /or the exclusion of their history within the American culture embracing the Arab-American identity, after trying in vain to assimilate to the American culture as a form of homecoming. Through their artworks, Naomi Shihab Nye and IbtisamBarakat seek not only the need for homecoming and identity retrieval, but also seek to forge an understanding of home to contain all facets of their identities as Palestinians, as Americans and as women. Israel occupation influences them and makes them sensitive to all issues of injustice. Nye and Barakat depict new visions of their Palestinian homeland and identity and try to counter exile to claim a whole self.Both writer try to wipe out the various kinds of discriminations believing in the power of poetry to reform society and present solutions to solve its problems. They explore their relationship to the Middle East and construct a new sense of home with a Palestinian identity. Writing helps them to recreate home and restore their identity by giving voice to the silencing of Palestinians. Being of mixed heritage encourages both writers to oppose violence calling for peace, compromise and acceptance even of the enemy. They believe that the task of the writer if to find a comprehensive language between the warring parties, and that to come back home is to recover the genetic self. They are trying to achieve a holistic oneness through their writings by including all minoritiesand the warring sects. They believe that demonstrations and revolutions are unprofitable. They hail foe cohabitation and friendship between the conflicting parties. What Nye and Barakat try to say is that true happiness is not dependent on a geographical space but it is an intellectual matter; Jerusalem may be lost, on the geographical level, but it may dwell intellectually in the mind and in literature where nobody can extract it.

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