The Cultural Politics of Otherness Arab Americans at Crossroads of U.S.-Arab Imagery
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The Cultural Politics of Otherness Arab Americans at Crossroads of U.S.-Arab Imagery A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA By Waleed Farea Mahdi B.A. in English, Taiz University, 2003 M.A. in Cultural Studies, University of New Mexico, 2008 IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dissertation directed by Roderick Ferguson Professor of American Studies and Critical Race Theory, University of Minnesota Professor of African American and Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois October 2015 Copyright © by Waleed Farea Mahdi 2015 All Rights Reserved i Acknowledgements This dissertation would have not been possible without support I have received from many people and institutions. I would like to acknowledge the dedication of my adviser, Roderick Ferguson, in guiding me throughout the process of research and writing of this project. His belief in my proposed area of inquiry and continued supervision of my intellectual development instilled in me the confidence I very much needed to proceed. I would also like to recognize my dissertation reviewing committee members – Donna Gabaccia, Evelyn Alsultany, and Bianet Castellanos – for their insightful feedback. Duly credit goes to University of Minnesota faculty: Lary May, David Noble, Patricia Lorcin, Cawo Abdi, Kevin Murphy, Erika Lee, Karen Brown, Jennifer Pierce, Riv-Ellen Prell, David Karjanen, Elaine May, and Shaden Tageldin. My research has been enriched through a direct conversation with scholars in other institutions; namely, Jack Shaheen, Melani McAlister, Louis Cainkar, Amal Amireh, Alex Lubin, Jaap Kooijman, Eid Mohamed, and John Mowitt. A word of thanks goes to scholars attending my research- related conference presentations at the Middle East Studies Association, the American Studies Association, the Arab American Studies Association, and the American Comparative Literature Association for their valuable interaction. I am grateful for the diverse institutional support that has provided me with the space and time necessary for the completion of this project. I would like to thank the University of Minnesota for facilitating a productive environment for my growth. I am particularly indebted to the Department of American Studies, the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, the Immigration History Research Center, the Community of Scholars Program, and the Graduate School for sponsoring my research through a number of fellowships including but not limited to the ICGC-MacArthur fellowship, the Doctoral Dissertation fellowship, and the Francis Maria Graduate Fellowship in Arab American Studies. I would like to thank Taiz University (Yemen), particularly the Department of English (College of Arts), for their support of my project. I would also like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Scientific Studies Society ILEM (Turkey), the American Studies Association, and the Center for Mahdi ii American Studies & Research (American University of Beirut) for sponsoring my travel to share my research with the scholarly community. Finally yet importantly, I sincerely appreciate the personal support I continue to receive from my relatives and friends in the United States and Yemen. I would not have been able to commit to research and writing without the sacrifice of my parents and siblings in Yemen. My achievement as a first generation doctoral student is in fact a realization of my parents’ conviction in the important role of education in my personal and professional fulfillment. A similar token of appreciation goes to my wife and in-laws in Minnesota for their love and care. The social support I have received from the Yemeni American community in the state has also been personally rewarding. I am equally grateful for the enriching role of my American family friends – David and Lucinda Williams as well as Randy and Debbie Torpen – in my spiritual well-being. The totality of the personal support I have gained throughout my educational experience in the United States has empowered me through my struggle as a first generation migrant. My final word of thanks goes to the Arab American and American Muslim communities that have offered me a sense of allegiance and belonging in the United States. Mahdi iii To my family, friends, and folks fighting prejudice, discrimination, and exclusion Mahdi iv Abstract Important studies on Arab American identity and anti-Arab sentiment have proliferated since September 11, 2011, but to date there have been few comparative studies on how the Arab American subjectivity is narrated as a transnational dialogue between East and West. There is also a lack of scholarly research related to simultaneous articulations of Arab Americans’ cultural citizenship in both U.S. and Arab popular culture. Towards that end, this dissertation proposes a comparative case study of U.S.-Arab cultural productions, i.e. Hollywood and Egyptian cinemas, to draw attention to the role of cultural politics in mediating a multi-layered process of Arab American Otherness to American and Arab audiences. While Hollywood filmmakers have promoted post- Orientalist and racialized imagery of Arab Americans since the 1970s, the Egyptian filmmakers have explicitly engaged with the Arab American image through an overlapping Arabist, Islamist, and state nationalist critique of the United States since the 1990s. Moving beyond current concerns with questions of stereotype, the project addresses broader issues of identity and belonging, and takes into consideration post-9/11 emerging efforts in Arab, American, and Arab American films, which seek to reclaim the Arab American diasporic agency through interstitial activism and self-representation. The significance of this project lies in its response to recent scholarly calls in the area study field of American Studies and the ethnic study field of Arab American studies to locate the United States in a transnational space and define the experience of its immigrants beyond the restraints of the nation-state. It thereby unsettles the “national” as a theoretical category of analysis and proposes the “transnational” as an alternative category that forges a space for deeper understanding of the Arab American image at crossroads of U.S.-Arab sociocultural and geopolitical encounters. Mahdi v Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. i Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Table of Figures ................................................................................................................ vi Transliteration ................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Scope ........................................................................................................................... 1 Framework ................................................................................................................ 11 Outline....................................................................................................................... 17 Part I: Arab American Otherness in Hollywood and Egyptian Cinema ....................... 24 Chapter I Hollywood’s Articulations of Arab American Cultural Citizenship ................. 25 U.S. Repertoire of Arabness ..................................................................................... 29 Hollywood Patterns of the Arab American Image .................................................... 37 The Arab-buying-America Pattern ....................................................................... 39 The Alien-Terrorist Pattern ................................................................................... 49 The Citizen-Terrorist Pattern ................................................................................ 56 Chapter II Postcolonial Projections of Arab Americans in Egyptian Cinema .................. 71 The Transnational Framework in Egyptian Cinema ................................................. 74 Arabist Narrative ................................................................................................... 75 Islamist Narrative .................................................................................................. 81 Articulations of Arab American Difference ............................................................. 88 Reiterations of U.S. Hegemony ............................................................................ 89 Disillusionment in the American Dream ............................................................ 100 Nostalgia for Arab Homeland ............................................................................. 113 Part II: Re-Narrating Arab American Subjectivity in Film ......................................... 124 Chapter III Transcultural Constructions of Arab American Interstitial Activism ........ 125 The Citizen-Traitor Paradox ................................................................................... 129 Crossroads of Diasporic Agency and Geopolitics .................................................. 148 Chapter IV Reclaiming Arab American Agency through Self-Representation .............. 171 Reenacting Arab American