البلقاء للبحوث Al-Balqa Journal for Research and Studies والدراسات

Volume 20 Issue 1 Article 9

2017

Naomi Shihab Nye’s Sitti’s Secrets: Poetics of Homeland

Lama Al-Mahadin University of Bahrain, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Al-Mahadin, Lama (2017) "Naomi Shihab Nye’s Sitti’s Secrets: Poetics of Homeland," Al-Balqa Journal for .Vol. 20 : Iss. 1 , Article 9 :البلقاء للبحوث والدراسات Research and Studies Available at: https://digitalcommons.aaru.edu.jo/albalqa/vol20/iss1/9

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Naomi Shihab Nye’s Sitti’s Secrets: Poetics of Homeland

ﺳﺮدﻳﺔ اﻟﻮﻃﻦ ﻓﻲ «اﺳﺮار ﺳﺘﻲ» ﻟﻨﻌﻮﻣﻲ ﺷﻬﺎب ﻧﺎي

Dr. Lama Al-Mahadin University of Bahrain

Sitti’s Secrets (SS) was published in 1994, one year after the Oslo Accords, which saw the sign peace agreements with Israel. The Accords, which led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, an interim entity to govern the and Gaza, “promised much, though in reality delivered very little that was tangible” (Hastedt & Lybeck, 2014,p. 71). But Nye was writing at a time when the Accords still exercised a hold on the global imagination with the promise of lasting peace in the region. This paper seeks to examine the story as an affective articulation of Nye’s vision of the past and the future of her father’s homeland. Nye uses the story to create an affective-discursive landscape that enunciates an essentialist, one might even argue reductionist, vision of Palestine, but such essentialism is deployed strategically to serve a political message about Palestinian rights, history and rootedness, and the hope for peace. Keywords: Children’s Literature; Ecocriticsim; Identity; Palestine; Shihab-Nye.

ﺗﺎرﻳﺦ اﻻﺳﺘﻼم: ٦/١٢/٢٠١٥ ﺗﺎرﻳﺦ اﻟﻘﺒﻮل: ٢٠/٤/٢٠١٦ 44

� � � � � � ن�ت قصة «أ�ار �سي�» �� عام ١٩٩٤ بعد مرور عام ع� توقيع اتفاقيات أوسلو �وال� �دت �ول مرة توقيع � �الفلسطيني� ع� اتفاقيات الس�م مع إ�ائيل، و�نت تلك ا�تفاقيات �وال� أدت إ� إنشاء السلطة الفلسطينية، ككيان مؤقت � � �� الضفة الغربية وقطاع غزة قد «وعدت بتحقق �الكث� �ولك�ا ع� أرض الواقع � �قق أي � �� م�وس» (هاستد و�يبك � � � � � � ٢٠١٤:٧١). ولكن �تبة القصة ألفت قص�ا �� الوقت الذي �ن ��ال فيه تلك ا�تفاقيات تؤ� بش� �كب� ع� ا�يال �العا� ووعود � � � � � � � �قيق س�م دا� �� ا�نطقة. يس� هذا البحث إ� دراسة القصة ��عتبارها �التعب� �العاط� عن رؤية ا�ؤلفة �اب �ي ��ا� � � � � � � � وحا� وطن والدها �الفلسطي� ا�صل، وتعكس �دية �اب �ي بنية خطابية/عاطفية جوهرية او ح� اخ�الية وظفت بش� � � � � � � � � � � اس� � �اتي� �دمة رسا� سياسية عن حقوق �الفلسطيني� و� �ر�هم وارتبا�م ���رض وا�مل �� �قيق الس�م. ﺍﻟﻜﻠﻤﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺘﺎﺣﻴﺔ: ﻧﻌﻮﻣﻲ ﺷﻬﺎﺏ ﻧﺎﻱ، ﺍﻟﻬﻮﻳﺔ ﺍﻟﻔﻠﺴﻄﻴﻨﻴﺔ، ﺍﺩﺏ ﺍﻟﻄﻔﻞ، ﺗﺤﻠﻴﻞ ﺍﻟﺨﻄﺎﺏ.

Introduction: developed briefly and brought with it, almost Naomi Shihab-Nye is a Palestinian- for the first time, a more positive emphasis American poet and novelist born in 1952 in on the portrayal of Palestinians in children’s the to a Palestinian journalist, literary works. In an “exhaustive survey who had immigrated from Jerusalem, and of U.S.-published books for young readers an American mother. She started writing at about the contemporary Middle East and a very young age and is the author of many North Africa,” Marston (2004a) explains that poetry books, short stories, and children’s most stories written for children and young fiction. readers before the 1990s either focused entirely on the Jewish settlers, ignoring At the age of fourteen, Shihab-Nye altogether the Palestinians who used to live visited her Palestinian grandmother for the there as if the land was completely empty, first time and a strong bond was formed referred to the Palestinians as “a nameless, between the two (Barenblat, 1999). This faceless, purpose-less threat” or just visit has greatly influenced the messages described the Palestinians very briefly in a reflected in her collections of poetry and degrading manner. Hopes for peace in the prose; it was “an experience that filled her mid-1990s brought a paradigm shift with with a deep sense of belonging, thereby, the appearance of some books for young displacement” (Gomez-Vega 2001,p.246). readers focusing on Palestinians directly, Lisa Suheir Majaj (1996, p. 282) explains “not just as a sidelight,” for example: Sitti that in her attempt to document the and the Cats by Sally Bahous (1993), Snow differences as well as the similarities in Jerusalem by Deborah da Coast (2001), between two divergent people, Shihab-Nye Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye (1997), in her work “explores the markers of cross- Running on Eggs by Anna Levine (1999), cultural complexity, moving between her A Stone in My Hand by Cathryn Clinton Palestinian and American Heritage.” (2002) and The Boy and the Wall by Amahl In the mid-1990s, hopes for peace Bishara (2006). between the Palestinians and the Israelis Sitti’s Secrets, which won the Jane 45

Addams Children›s Book Award in 1995, The grandmother, illustrated wearing a is considered one of the earlier books to be traditional, embroidered Palestinian dress, published following the peace agreement takes Mona to watch the men, also dressed between Palestinians and Israel in 1993. An in traditional peasant clothes with the long example of an attempt to combine Shihab- shirt and head cover, picking lentils. The Nye’s personal family experience with next stop is by a family that sells fresh global conflicts and cross-cultural concerns, cow milk. Despite the fact that very few it is not only a carefully-woven narrative women bake bread at home anymore, the about a personal journey, but also a canvas grandmother is involved in an elaborate for public discourse about peace, belonging, ritual of kneading the dough and making rootedness, and collective memory. While bread. According to Mona’s father, “She has Marston’s survey is concerned with the been baking that bread for a hundred years” depiction of Palestinians in literature written (SS, p. 14). Mona and her grandmother for young readers, this paper moves beyond are shown under a Lemon tree drinking these representations to focus instead on lemonade with mint, and eating apricots how nationalist dynamics were negotiated and almonds. Mona is fascinated by the in Sitti’s Secrets. Drawing upon insights variation in colour of her grandmother’s from discourse analysis, Affect Studies, hair which peaks from under her traditional and Ecocriticism, among others, this paper head cover, and asks if she could brush it. will demonstrate that Nye’s romanticised She describes the act of finding out how representations of a Palestinian idyll, which her grandmother’s hair was striped as if she exclude any reference to the conflict, or “knew a secret” (SS, p.18). In the evening, indeed Israel itself, is fraught with ideology Mona climbs the staris to the roof of her and underpinned by very specific nationalist grandmother’s house to enjoy the air, look sentiments. at the sky and take down the laundry. She spots the village women walking back form Sitti’s Secrets centres on Mona (an the spring with jugs of water on their heads, Arabic name meaning unattainable wishes), a ritual which her father says the women a five-year-old Palestinian-American like to do because “it is something from child on a journey with her father to visit the old days they don’t want to forget.” her grandmother who “lives on the other (SS,p. 20). The trip to Palestine ends with side of the earth” (SS, p. 2). Mona feels a very emotional farewell and gifts from an immediate bond with her grandmother her cousins (a sack of almonds) and from whom she is meeting for the first time, her grandmother (a hand-made purse with a despite the fact that neither understands picture of her lemontree) (SS, p.21). Mona’s the other’s language - Monas speaks only journey back home is spent reminiscing on English while her grandmother speaks her grandmother and her old green trunk in only Arabic. Mona is introduced to a way which she keeps, among other things, her of life completely different from the one husband’s rings, a photo of Mona’s father she is used to in the USA. Throughout the before he went to the USA, and a picture narrative, paradoxically enough, Mona of Mona when she was a baby. When Mona intimately explores how Palestinians used arrives home, she writes a letter to the to live before their country was occupied. 46

President of the United States about her the audience to whom the story is addressed. grandmothers, her lemon and fig trees, and The story itself carries with it the weight Mona’s hopes for peace. “Mr. President, I of a politically controversial message; the wish you my good luck in your hard job. Palestinians’ right to their own homeland. I vote for peace. My grandmother votes With a young Western audience in mind, for me” (SS, p.26). Mona concludes the Shihab-Nye seems to be weaving a narrative narrative by imagining the world as a huge that aims to avoid alienating both the young body tumbling in space, “all curled up like audience and whoever might be reading a child sleeping. People are far apart, but that story to such an audience. The political connected” (SS, p 28). overtones of the story were played down so as not to alienate or offend a western reader The Liminality of Sitti’s Secrets who, more often than not, is more exposed The barred Nation It/ Self, alienated to the Israeli point of view regarding the from its eternal self-generation, becomes a situation in the occupied lands of Palestine. liminal signifying space that is internally She completely avoids any mention of marked by the discourses of minorities, occupation or colonisation and presents her the heterogeneous histories of contending story in an insulated framework, thus the peoples, antagonistic authorities and tense reader is simply presented with a portrait locations of cultural difference. (Bhahba of a life that seems untouched by sadness, 1994,p. 147) suffering, and misery. As Marston (2010, Shihab-Nye’s narrative, although 9) explains: woven in English, depicts a world inhabited if a story shows characters confronted by Arab characters living on “the other with a dreadful situation over which side of the earth.” She appropriates a they have little or no control, there's a context of events (her grandmother’s life danger that the dreadful situation itself in Palestine) and creates a text aimed at an may set up a psychological barrier for audience that is quite foreign to the context the reader. It may be too big, too alien, of interpretation of that text. By virtue of and too difficult to incorporate into the her cultural membership -American and world that the young reader can deal Palestinan- she straddles two worlds and with. A deeper, more intense and lasting writes from the liminal space where the two response may arise when the reader can realities intersect. She is neither Palestinian identify with the people in the story. nor American but rather an amalgam of the two. One of the most striking aspects of The audience is quite central in cross- the narrative is the lack of direct mention of cultural stories which attempt to be sensitive Palestine. Instead, references to Palestine to readers’ expectations, sensibilities can be located within paralinguistic elements and schemata of knowledge. Indeed, such as the author’s dedication, author’s Shihab-Nye’s formulation of Palestinian biography, and the story’s blurb. One can life appears almost insulated, sanitised, only assume that the decision not to include idealised and paradise-like. The story is Palestine within the body of the text itself is not about Palestinian suffering, but rather a intentional and reflects a preoccupation with portrait of a Palestinian life, rights, history, 47 and traditions. Shihab-Nye did without best to explore the Palestinian perspective the ugliness to find hope, colour and joy without alienating the Western one. in an otherwise miserable existence under If Palestine is not represented as a occupation. Had she chosen to emphasise ‘colonised space’, it is even more striking armed struggle, it might have alienated her that it is not mentioned at all within the body western readers and most probably provoked of the text itself. Mona refers to Palestine accusations of advocating violence and and the US as “the other side of the earth” murder due to the great sympathy the West (SS, p. 2). This semantic ambiguity is meant feels towards Israel and the wide-spread to emphasise to the reader the vast physical distrust and suspicion of anything and space that separates the two countries. Mona anyone Muslim (See Marston 2004b). begins by saying that her “grandmother Bhabha’s quotation above refers lives on the other side of the earth. When to the classic position the Self finds itself I have daylight, she has night. When our in when confronted with membership in sky grows dark, the sun is peeking through two, often contending, cultural identities. her window and brushing the bright lemons This situation is further complicated when on her lemon tree. Your turn, I say.” For such memberships are located within the little girl, there is a sense of continuity an assemblage of coloniser/colonised. between her and her grandmother embodied Although Shihab-Nye as both Arab and by the chain of day and night that connects American does not place her strictly them. But that continuity/connection is not under the rubric of coloniser/colonised, without obstacles as Mona demonstrates nevertheless the situatedness of the when she continues, «between us are fish, Palestinian cause within western discourse cities, buses and fields, and presidents, and is one where sympathy leans towards the clotheslines, and trucks and stop signs and Israelis. As such, Shihab-Nye finds herself DO NOT ENTER and families and deserts in the all familiar positionality of having to and million trees.” Thus, Palestine and the continually negotiate her history/heritage as US are connected through the old woman a Palestinian within an American context and granddaughter but the physical space that is, all too often, hostile to the plight itself is interspersed with material entities of these Palestinians. In Sitti’s Secret, only such as cars, trees, shops, presidents and, one national constituency is presented, of course, stop signs and DO NOT ENTER. that of the Palestinians, but without the It is not quite clear what is meant by the concomitant reference to the fact that last two but a number of interpretations Palestine is a country under occupation. are possible. They could, for example, be Shihab-Nye’s knowledge of both American/ references to interdictions to entry imposed Arab cultures, inspired her to shift the focus at country borders, or possibly an allusion from one of opposition to the occupation to the realities of occupation which do to a chronicle about rootedness, belonging, not allow Palestinians access to their own and ritual. Such a shift would not have lands. The last page of the story repeats the been possible without the liminality that reference to her grandmother living on the furnishes her (hybrid) Self with schemata other side of the earth and the centrality of of knowledge about two cultures and how lemons in her grandmothers’ life (see below 48 for an analysis of the symbolism of lemons). grandmother are not merely separated by The juxtaposition between the connection physical distances but language barriers that exists between her and her grandmother as well - Mona speaks only English and and the distance that separates them is her grandmother only Arabic. Yet, as the meant to establish Mona’s relatedness to narrative unfolds, a bond is formed between Palestine despite the physical space that the girl and her grandmother, and her exists between them, a relatedness created homeland, in a manner that seems to have by history, memory, and the persona of her transcended the limitations imposed by the grandmother who stands for such collective lack of common language. Deprivileging points of convergence, which as will become language in Sitti’s Secrets created an evident in the following section, transcends economy of emotions grounded in affective language. rather than discursive communication. The Politics of Language in Sitti’s Michel Foucault is the French theorist Secrets most associated with the notion of discourse “Contemporary Thought has been haunted and discursive practices/formations, by the idea of Language” which he recognizes as “practices that (Shochat & Stam, 1985, p. 35) systematically form the objects of which they speak” (1972, p. 49). In essence, the Language has long been privileged as way we talk about things constructs not the tool of culture making par excellence, a only our perspective of them but the objects logocentrism that owes much to a number themselves. This revolutionary approach to of intellectual legacies that emerged since language redefined the second half of the 20th th the 18 century in Europe. And while century as it became gradually recognized language has seen been dismantled as a that “discourses structure both our sense of transparent tool of meaning construction, its reality and our notion of our own identity” centrality to Western thought has remained (Mills, 1997, p.15). But, as Whetherell relatively uncontested for a very long time (2012) demonstrates in her overview of (Stahl, 2002). Thinkers such as Saussure new approaches to affect, language is (1999), Barthes (1967), Bakhtin (1981), not sufficient to explain our perception of Foucault (1972), Heidegger (1962), and objects that make up our reality. She argues Bourdieu (1977) catapulted language into that new trends in social research aim to the heart of postmodernism by exploring infuse “social analysis with what could be its decisive role in constructing reality, called psychosocial texture” (2012, p. 2). shaping consciousness, regulating relations The turn to affect is an attempt to create a within a social order and creating networks paradigm shift where language is dethroned of power - what could be described as and supplemented with an emphasis on the a discursive approach to language. The emotional investment of social interactions. ‘fetizisation’ of language relegated other Whetherell’s book represents a recent components of meaning construction to exploration of a discursive-affective turn in second place, especially the role of affect/ social research; an approach that combines emotions in investing objects with meaning. language with emotional intensities in In Sitti’s Secrets, the young girl and her meaning construction. She argues that 49

“affective-discursive patterns are crucial her emerging selfhood as a Palestinian in part because they are the material from relegated language to second place as the which people select and build more global narrative exploded with colors, smells, subjective feelings of interactional and tastes, rituals and intensities, confirming relational direction and thrust” and adds that Whetherell’s argument that “discourse can “recognitions and anticipations of normative be defined exceptionally broadly to include sequences build sense of the evaluative and social meaning-making, or signification, in moral tone of an interaction” (2012, p. 84). all its modes including visual, tactile, aural, and other sensory modalities” (2012,p. 87). An engagement solely with the discursive in Sitti’s Secrets would mask If as Deleuze & Guattari announced the power of affect in shaping connections, “flows of intensity, their fluids, their creating bonds and situating Selfhood fibres, their continuums and conjunctions within the boundaries of the physical of affects, the wind, fine segmentations, space that is Mona’s homeland. The chief microperceptions, have replaced the question that emerges is; how does Mona world of the subject” (1987,p. 162), what become emotionally caught up in a culture processes, forces and expressions of that is not only alien to her own but speaks change did Mona encounter in her visit to a language so different from English. Mona Palestine, ones that transcended language speaks of how she and her grandmother to create what Colman (2010:11) refers to overcame the language barrier by inventing as an “incredible, wondrous, tragic painful, a language of their own (SS, p. 9). Mona destructive configurations of things and also played marbles with her cousins, and bodies as temporally mediated, continuous concludes, almost philosophically, “We did events.” not need words to play marbles” (SS, p. 12). The following section will draw upon Yet, the girl experiences a profound shift insights from Ecocriticisms to formulate in her ‘affective flow’ without necessarily some possible answers to this question. sharing a common language, emerging from the experience. How was this possible? If Contested Nature in Sitti’s Secrets Mona’s subjectivity could be perceived as a site of converge, then clearly language Ecocriticism is concerned with is one element of the forces that impose exploring the nexus between nature and themselves onto her psyche. She was equally representation, more specifically “the shaped by the smells, tastes, shadows, colors relationship between literature and physical and humans she came to perceive as her environment” (Glotfelty xxvii, 1996). “own people”. These sensory intensities, in Ecocritical approaches, which share the addition to the rituals of play, tea-making, contention that human beings are connected lentil-picking, bread-baking, lemonade- with nature and both affect and are affected squeezing, etc, featured more prominently by it, view the physical environment as than Arabic, which she did not speak, as a political space instrumentalised for the affective/intensive modalities that the purpose of achieving certain ends. imprinted themselves on her ‘experience’ Ecocriticism itself is a wide field and of Palestine. It is not surprising then that limitations of space do not allow for a full 50 account of the various thrusts that have with the continuous failure of peace talks shaped its approaches, so the arguments with Israel have resulted in the formation of that follow will focus on how (various) what has been called by Lindholm Schulz representations of nature in literature serve (2003,p. 2) “a homeland discourse, a process a political agenda within a colonial context. of remembering what has been lost.” This homeland discourse has, in turn, resulted in The ecology of colonization brings the treatment of Palestinians living in exile together issues related to social and as peasants or “Fallaheen”. Swedenburg environmental dominance through exploring (1990) explains that the peasant or “Fallah” the “complex interplay of environmental has become a unifying national signifier in categories such as water, land, energy, the Palestinians’ struggle against occupation habitat, migration with political or cultural to such an extent that it covers all significant categories” (Mukhergee, 2006,p. 144). The cultural and social diversities among “imperial underpinnings of environmental Palestinians. Abufarha (2008, p. 345) practices in both colonizing and colonized also points out that such “representations societies of the present and the past” transcend space and class, bonding refugees (Huggan and Tiffin 2010:3) relate to and rural, urban, and diasporic Palestinian both how landscapes are reshaped by the communities.” experience of colonization and the discursive representations of these controversial To emphasise that there were people changes. Sitti’s Secrets is a vivid example of living there and that their life was deeply how Palestinians have sought to lay claim to connected to the soil, the idea of the their lands by utilizing certain types of trees, peasant came into existence as a reflection rituals, and foods as primary discursive sites of memories and traditions. In fact, it for rejecting the epistemic violence of Israeli legitimates to Palestinians and to the outside colonization. Palestinian national resistence world the reality of their right to their own to occupation has been accompanied by the land. reconfiguration of cultural imagery centered the overwhelming cultural presence of on symbols such as olive, lemon and the fallah flows from the endangered orange trees, poppies, cacti, lentils, rituals status of the Palestinian nation. It is a such as bread baking, olive picking, olive nation imagined but unrealized, a people pressing, and other practices that express whose relation to their territory has both rootedness and historical traditions been severed again and again, whose (Abufarha, 2008; Swedenburg, 1990). identity is tenuous and constantly under Sitti’s Secrets is a celebration of threat. The figure of the peasant serves Palestinian land, rather than an account of as a crucial ideological weapon in the individuals. The Palestinian diaspora or Palestinian confrontation with Israeli dispersal (known in Arabic as Shatat), hope colonial policies. (Swedenburg, 1990, of returning one day to the homes they were p.19) forced to leave (known in Arabic as Hadq What strengthened the attachment al-aAwdah) - especially after the 1948 to the soil and the creation of a unified Nakba - and the disappearance of this hope nationality is that “the Palestinians were 51 seen by the colonialists’ eyes as Arab They always involved a figtree. shepherds, part of the landscape frame Even when it didn›t fit, he′d stick it in. but not necessarily having any conscious Once Joha was walking down the road relationship to it” (Abufarha, 2008, p.356). and he saw a fig tree. The Palestinian identity has become Or, he tied his camel to a fig tree and went intertwined with the land and cultivation to sleep. to the extent that the land has become the Or, later when they caught and arrested him, primary site through which Palestine of the his pockets were full of figs. Nakba and afterwards has been kept alive In Sitti’s Secrets, Shihab-Nye sheds in the Palestinian memory and imagination. a light on this very important aspect of the Poetry was written about the Palestinian Palestinian life, though, for the most part, peasant, political speeches were delivered it no longer exists. She draws a romantic celebrating the Palestinian peasant, and picture by going back to the time before paintings portraying the Palestinian the Nakba, the time, which over the years, landscape and its fellaheen were drawn. It has become idealised and paradise-like. It is as if with the Nakba, time has stopped may be argued that Shihab-Nye has opted there and then. to create such a romantaicised idyll because In Sitti’s Secrets, Shihab-Nye of the nature of picture books which always emphasises this standstill point of history. try to insulate children from war-related As a Palestinian-American herself, she issues, but that would be reductionist. may have never felt as a refugee. However, Celebrating the lost Palestine had to be done she was born to the first generation of the by reflecting how life used to be and not exodus, whose memories of their lost land how life is at the moment: “Remembrance and living in exile were very vivid. Her and longing imply a fixation of the land; the statement “My father’s entire life was homeland in the mind remains forever as it shadowed by grief over loss of his home in was. There is no change” (Lindholm Schulz, Palestine in 1948,” left a strong impact on 2003, p.99), a strategy which Bardenstein the way she handled the whole Palestinian (1998:148) reveals has been adopted by both issue in Sitti’s Secrets. Shihah-Nye’s father Palestinians and Israelis for whom “trees was no different from any other Palestinian figure prominently and conspicuously as who lived in exile. He mourned his lost loaded and hypersaturated cultural symbols land by remembering trees. For him, the in the construction of collective memory.” fig tree, for example, does not invoke the While narrating the events of the same memories as it would do for a western story, Shihab-Nye talks about going with reader. In her poem, “My Father and the Fig her grandmother to watch farmers picking Tree” Shihab-Nye (1992, p. 356) writes: lentils and buying fresh cow milk from a For other fruits, my father was indifferent. family who kept a “spotted cow”. She also He›d point at the cherry trees and say, mentions different types of trees with a "See those? I wish they were figs." strong focus on the grandmother’s lemon In the evening he sat by my bed tree which was planted in the backyard of weaving folktales like vivid little scarves. her house. This lemon tree is mentioned in 52 many parts of the story. Every morning, the shade” (SS, p.29) In other words, this lemon sun would brush the bright lemons on her tree brings meaning to the grandmother’s lemon tree; in the afternoons, she and her life. It is noteworthy that it takes a few years grandmother would sit under her lemon tree for a lemon tree to bear fruits, so looking drinking lemonade with mint in it. When after her lemon tree also reflects an act of Mona sends the president of the United faith and patience. States a letter after she returns home, it is The lemon tree serves as a metonymy obvious that her grandmother is mentioned for citrus trees which the Palestinians have in her relation to the lemon tree: “My always farmed and planted generation after grandmother on the other side of the world generation. Hundreds of trees have been cut has a lemon tree that whispers secrets. She down or uprooted by the Israeli government talks to it and gives it water from her own and settlers over the years. Whether olive, drinking glass. She guesses the branch lemon or orange trees have existed for many where lemons will grow next.” On the last years is deemed irrelevant by the Israeli page of the story, Mona also says “The government. Thus, trees have become part first thing she does every day is say good of the Palestinians struggle and fight for morning to her lemons. All day the leafy their land. shadow of her tree will grow and change on her courtyard wall. She will move with its The lemon tree, in particular, has shade” (SS, p.29) featured in a lot of Western literary works At first glance, the choice of the concerning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. lemon tree may seem like an innocent one; In Sandy Tolan’s non-fiction book The an old woman looking after her tree. Yet, Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart this tree is rich with symbolism and stands of the Middle East (2008) both sides of for the grandmother’s rooted attachment to the conflict were equally reflected. The the land and the disputed earth on which book does so by telling the true story of this tree grows. It may even be argued that two families who occupied and loved the the emphasis on the lemon tree throughout same house and the same lemon tree in the the story is thought-provoking. Shihab-Nye Palestinian city of Ramla: the Palestinian offers no reference to the ancient struggles Khairis who built it and lived in it up until of ownership in the West Bank, nor does she 1948 and the Bulgarian Jewish Eshkenazis discuss the lives of individuals this struggle who lived in it from 1948 until 1984. Dalia continues to disrupt. However, she sheds a Eshkenazis grows up in Bashir Khairi›s tender humane light on the life of a kind- former home and one day Bashir appears hearted Palestinian old woman in a subtle at her front door, wishing to see the home and thoughtful manner without turning the he had grown up in and fled as a child and story into a parable. Through a bond with the lemon tree his father planted. He takes a tree that cannot be severed, a sense of a lemon from the backyard lemon tree to ownership, a sense of country and identity, his father in Ramallah as a memento of the and home is portrayed in the way the home they have lost. It may be considered grandmother is attached to her tree, hence the perfect metaphor for the extremely the description “she will move with its complicated problem of two people who 53 argue to have historical claims to the same West Bank. The grove has been in her piece of land. family for 50 years. Her life is turned upside down when the Israeli defence minister Dalia says: Israel Navon and his wife Mira, move into Ever since I met you, the feeling has a new house opposite the grove. At Once, been growing in me that that home a watchtower is constructed, and security was not just my home. The lemon tree guards and soldiers begin patrolling the which yielded so much fruit and gave us property. Salma receives an official letter so much delight lived in other people’s informing her that the grove poses a security hearts too. (2008, p. 301) threat from possible terrorists hiding among Bashir says: the trees; as a military necessity they must We were exiled by force of arms. We be uprooted. The letter ruthlessly offers to were exiled on foot …. We were exiled compensate her for her loss while mentioning but we left our souls, our hopes and our that because of a recent legislation, there is childhood in Palestine. We left our joys no legal obligation to do so. She weeps at and sorrows. We left them in every corner the news and her battle with the Israeli law on every grain of sand in Palestine. We starts. left them with each lemon fruit, with Salma is only one person in this each olive. We left them in the flowering fictional film, but as she herself proclaims, tree that stands with pride at the entrance “My life is real.” The movie questions to our house in al-Ramla. We left them in the logic of the entire Israeli-Palestinian the remains of our fathers and ancestors. conflict through a touching portrait of We left them as witnesses and history. one middle-aged woman’s plight. Riklis We left them hoping to return. (2008, explains that the long struggle over lemon pp.325-326) and orange groves has been for 60 odd years The lemon tree chronicles their part of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He lives throughout four decades, which adds that the lemon grove for this woman encompassed many of the major changes symbolises “her livelihood, her history, her and complexities in the conflict. It also connection with her father. It means pride. gives the reader hope that humanity can Once you touch someone’s pride then you triumph over hatred and violence. It sheds are in trouble. And this person fights back” light on the Palestinians’ passionate desire (2008). to return to their homeland. This book The Palestinian nature/environment is offers no solutions to the conflict but, like celebrated throughout Sitti’s Secrets. Among Sitti’s Secrets, seems to argue that peace is those examples are: definitely possible. •Wheat harvesting: She [Mona’s In the movie The Lemon Tree (2008), Grandmother] bakes the big, flat bread directed by the Israeli director Eran Riklis, in a round, old oven next to her house. Salma, a lonely woman who has been A fire burns in the middle. She pats the widowed for ten years, earns a living from dough between her hands and presses it a lemon grove on the Green Line separating out to bake on a flat black rock in the Israel from the occupied territories of the 54

centre of the oven. My father says she children to guess what those secrets might has been baking that bread for a hundred be. The grandmother’s long, striped curly years (emphasis added) (SS, p. 14). hair and the green trunk in the corner of her • Water resources: My grandmother likes bedroom are two of the old lady’s important to unpin the laundry in the evening so secrets, and leave Mona’s curiosity piqued she can watch the women of the village throughout the story. Deleuze and Guattari walking back from the spring with jugs (1987, p. 288) turn ‘secrets’ into an object of water on their head. She used to do of philosophical inquiry and remark that a that, too. My father says the women child’s secret don’t really need to get water from the combines these elements to marvelous spring anymore, but they like to. It is effect: the secret as a content in a box, something from the old days they don’t the secret influence and propagation of want to forget (emphasis added) (SS, the secret, the secret perception of the p.20). secret (the child′s secret is not composed Fauna: I remember the tattoo on my of miniaturized adult secrets but is grandmother’s hands. They look like necessarily accompanied by a secret birds flying away. My father says she has perception of the adult secret). A child had those tattoos for a hundred years discovers a secret... (emphasis added). The references to Zizek (1999) speaks of an objet petit cows and sheep in the story (SS, p. 23). a, defined as a secret (non-existent) quality • Fruits such as apricots and almonds. to objects that make us desire them. For Vegetables such as Zucchini, lentils, children, anything kept hidden from them cucumbers, and mint. Lentil in particular constitutes a secret guaranteed to send their has been harvested in Palestine for imagination into overdrive. This may be due thousands of years. to the fact that a child’s mind does not yet Secrets recognise the boundaries that exist between adults which might necessitate certain When Kate Long (2009, pp.340-41) personal/private matters and things be kept asked Shihab-Nye about what secrets meant to oneself. Such hiddenness is perceived to her in terms of keeping or telling them as a ‘secret’ which the child invests his/her and whether they had any function, she energy into uncovering. replied by saying: The grandmother’s first secret was, as I think we all need more of them. Secrets far as Mona’s young mind was concerned, are fuel. They’re strangely energizing. her hair which peeped in two different Deciding what to tell when—poetry colours from under her scarf. The choice leans toward hinting and suggestiveness of hair in itself is not without motivation. without “explaining,” thank goodness. In ancient and modern societies, hair in all Children love secrets (Winston, cultures and throughout history symbolized 2004, p. 6). The inclusion of secrets in power, youth, and beauty. Samson never cut the title of the story injects an element his long hair because it gave him power. So, of mystery into the narrative by inviting when Delilah (his lover), who was the only 55 person to know about his secret of power, trust, a bond between the two is cemented. cut his hair with a knife while he was asleep, If the grandmother symbolizes homeland, he lost all his powers, enabling his enemies then opening up to Mona like that and to finally capture him. In the ancient Greek presenting her with a symbol of power - the society curly hair was the best hair style hair - is tantamount to passing on the torch because it represented an attitude towards of identity, tradition and belonging to the life. This could be seen very clearly in their granddaughter, hence Mona’s statement “I magnificent statues with curly hair. felt as if I knew a secret.” In Sitti’s Secrets, Shihab-Nye seems The second important secret in this to be making an indirect reference to story is the grandmother’s trunk, which is Samson who had powers because of his the repository of history. On her way back long hair and to the Greeks who had an to the United States, Mona starts to think of attitude to life because of their curly hair. her grandmother’s trunk. She Says “I think Mona’s grandmother had long striped curly about Sitti’s old green trunk in the corner hair and Mona does not get to see it until of her room. It has a padlock on it – she later in the story. The first time Mona meets wears the key on a green ribbon around her her grandmother, she notices that “A few neck. She keeps my grandfather’s rings in curls of dark hair peeked out of her scarf there, and her gold thread, and needles, and on one side, and a white curl peeked out pieces of folded-up blue velvet from old on the other side” (SS, p. 7). She “wanted dresses, and two small leather books, and a her to take off the scarf so (she) could see picture of my father before he came to the if her hair was striped” (SS, p. 7). Later in United States, and a picture of my parents the story, she says “One day Sitti took off on their wedding day, and a picture of me her scarf and shook out her hair. She washed when I was a baby, smiling and very fat. her hair in a tub right there under the sun. Did I really look like that?” (SS, p. 24). In Her hair surprised me by being very long. “Secrets” in a collection for children, Come And it was striped! She said it got that way with Me (2000:12), Shihab-Nye also says, all by itself. I helped her brush it out while One suitcase it dried. She braided it and pinned the braid only for secrets— up before putting on the scarf again” (SS, tucked in the pouch pocket, p. 17). Mona then says “I felt as if I knew pressed in the corners, a secret” (SS, p.18). It is only after Mona one light and liquid suitcase, spends some time with her grandmother one glittering suitcase does the latter take her scarf off and allow filled with tiny Mona, not only to see it, but also to brush it. unspoken tales. This gesture embodies a heightened degree And I will carry it of trust between Mona and her grandmother. to the other side of the ocean. More importantly, it symbolizes the I will carry it passing on of a “secret” as the nature of the so no one knows grandmother’s hair is revealed. One can what I hold. argue that it is precisely at this point, when Because its cargo the grandmother deems Mona worthy of 56 is more precious than socks period of time, where Mona is the only or pyjamas. character from the present time. Shihab- Because a secret is a ticket Nye in this respect is not different from and without it other Palestinians, especially artists, whose the trip would be paintings always showed Palestinians too lonely. carrying jugs of water, ploughing and farming their lands. The grandmother’s trunk is like an archive of her past. It is filled with her The story translates a certain “unspoken tales” which “no one knows experience to the Western child reader. It what [it] hold[s]” and without her trunk shows Mona′s exploration of her Palestinian of secrets, “the trip would be too lonely.” culture, something that seems foreign to her The trunk stores many interesting details of at first. A strong bond is created between her life including pieces of her old dresses, Mona and her grandmother and culture, her husband’s rings and pictures of her even without the need for language. This son and his family. Many of those pieces process also raises a number of questions represent holding on to her family, history in the child’s mind, such as, why Mona and precious things. The grandmother has sent the president of the United States possesses the key to the past she does not a letter. There are a lot of hidden political want to forget about or get rid of. By having messages. It may be argued that despite a padlock placed on the trunk and carrying the familiar setting of this story, there is a the key on a green ribbon around her neck, degree of foreignisation mainly as a result of she keeps it very close to her heart. The past the background of Mona, the little girl. The is presented in the story in a very subtle text seems to emphasize the need to expose manner as a five-year old child would think children to how an Arab child raised in the about it. However, there is much more to west feels about Arabs, or more specifically, it. The trunk represents the Grandmother’s about the Palestinians. Schliesman explains memories, identity and cultural resistance. (1998, p.40) that Shihab-Nye “strives to bridge distances and help young readers Conclusions know the voices of their extended global This paper aimed to examine the family .... In doing so, she always creates poetics of place in Naomi Shihab-Nye’s opportunities for them to know themselves, Sitti’s Secrets, specifically how the author to realize they are linked to other lives in negotiated Palestinian history, identity, and ways both profound and comforting.” rootedness without reference to the Israeli occupation. By activating Palestinian links References to their lands, through the text and visual Abufarha, Nasser (2008) “Land of Symbols: representations of an ancient Palestine, Cactus, Poppies, Orange and Olive Trees in Shihab-Nye wove a very subtle politically- Palestine” Identities, 15(3): 343-368. charged narrative against a rich tapestry of Bakhtin, Mickhail (1981) The Dialogic traditions and customs embodied by Mona’s Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: grandmothers. The illustrations of Sitti’s University of Press. Secrets seem to reflect a world from another 57

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