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Naomi Shihab Nyeâ•Žs Sittiâ•Žs Secrets: Poetics of Homeland

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Naomi Shihab Nyeâ•Žs Sittiâ•Žs Secrets: Poetics of Homeland 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] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.aaru.edu.jo/albalqa 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 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Arab Journals Platform. It has been accepted for by an authorized editor. The journal البلقاء للبحوث والدراسات inclusion in Al-Balqa Journal for Research and Studies is hosted on Digital Commons, an Elsevier platform. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. 43 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 Palestinians sign peace agreements with Israel. The Accords, which led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, an interim entity to govern the West Bank 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 United States 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.
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