Contemporary Arab American Women Writers:  Hyphenated Identities and Border Crossings
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Contemporary Arab American Women Writers: Hyphenated Identities ...

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All of these Arab and Arab American women suffer from a sense of loss and displacement, living in two worlds and yet belonging to neither. Like Sirine and Hanif, these Arab and Arab American women are constantly on the run, looking for a sense of home where they can belong. However, they find only an in-between space that fluctuates between here and there and leaves them with an elsewhere that connects both their Arab and American worlds but is part of neither. Feeling rejected by an American culture that publicly disparages them, they look to their Arab culture for an alternative. However, they do not feel at home in the Arab culture either, since they cannot accept the restrictive patriarchal rules imposed on them. Failing to belong to the American culture, which always marks them as other and failing to become part of the Arab culture whose restrictions they cannot tolerate, these Arab and Arab American women find themselves always resisting Arab and American constructedness of their identity as Arab women. These women, all of whom search for an integrated hyphenated identity, straddle cultures, fight double battles, and recognize that any location comes closely intertwined with gender, racial, and political context.