Arab American Women Writers Defending Their Identities

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of assimilation and identity as seen through some work that is written by Arab American women writers. The paper provides a brief history of Arab American immigration to USA. It primarily, examines three Arab American writers and highlights their impact on the American culture. The paper explores the three writers’ impact on the literature on showing assimilation and identity conflict as Arab women born, raised or lived in America. This paper explores some of their work to examine how they tackle the issue of race, identity, and ethnicity in their work. The three Arab American writers this paper studies are Diana Abu Jaber, Leila Ahmad, and Naomi Shihab Nye. Finally, this paper argues whether Arab American women writers manage to achieve the assimilation and whether they utilize the issue of their identity in what they have written as fictional and nonfictional work.