Circles, Voices, Foods, and Faces: Rhetorics of Belonging as a Tool for Achieving Visibility and Negotiating a Hybrid Identity

Nye’s 19 Varieties of Gazelle (2002) is a collection of poems that deals with various aspects of in the Middle East, particularly Palestine. The poems touch on locals’ everyday life, food, family relations, connection with land, peace negotiation with the colonizer, and issues of Arab Americans who emigrated from Palestine after the Israeli colonization. Her more recent poem “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal”  (2013) is similarly lavish with complex manifestations of identity.

In this post, I seek to explore the complex identity that Nye projects, considering her unique linguistic and ethic experience. Unlike the Arab American women studied by Witteborn (2004), Nye is a second-generation immigrant; she seems more fully absorbed in the American side of her dual identity since her mother is American, which is reflected in her linguistic repertoire as she admits that she lives "on the brinks of Arabic / tugging its rich treads without understanding / how to weave the rug / [she has] no gift. / The sound, but not the sense." (Nye, 2002, p. 91). However, as Sallabank contends, the signs of language loss doesn't have to eat at the heart of ethnic belonging (Omoniyi & White, 2006, p. 6)—at least in Nye's case. Despite linguistic limitations, her ethnic, national, and a particularly accentuated human senses of belonging are actually reflected in the themes of language and circles (both of which I will give snippets of here), as well as foods and community members (which I will further expand on).

My analysis here draws on the Hatcht et al.'s Communication Theory of Identity, which is based on that ‘‘identities have semantic properties that are expressed in core symbols, meanings, and labels’’ (Hecht et al., 2003, p.235). Thereby, I will be looking at the identity-related associations that themes of language, circles, foods, and community members allude to and give off to the readers in Nye's poetry.

Language

As evident in her poem, “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal,” Naome acknowledges her linguistic identity: rapports of belonging with a stranger, an old monolingual Palestinian lady at Albuquerque's airport, are cemented over the use of a common code—Arabic. A family value appears as a consequence of the joyous chance of sharing Arabic as a language: they start calling people who share the same code—as casually and randomly as one would feel comfortable to do with a family member.

 The association of comfort also plays in: the fears of old lady—who was frantic standing amidst foreigners who didn't speak her tongue in a case of emergency airplane delay was abated by the arrival of someone who carried in their tone the mercy and solace of a mother tongue!

Circles

I think that the circles that Nye so flexibly moves between exhibit interesting identity-related associations. She sometimes seems to find a vent in letting go of a dual ascription of identity (either American or Arab) by swinging to a larger circle by re-proclaiming the human identity above all including all of its associations.

This identity and its associations are unfurled in several loci and dimensions of her poetry: she celebrates the common human identity that she witness in the airport incident, with its associations with empathy, compassion, and kindness, which are illuminated by the people's concern about the troubled old lady—despite their inability to help—, her ma'mul gifts powdered with her simplicity and friendliness, and their grateful acceptance of it.

Several poem in 19 Varieties of Gazelle echo the same jump in circles—moving from local foods and faces (explored below) to universal commonalities, thus drawing her Western readers in. A good illustration of that is the poem "Arabic." An Arab man associates the Arabic linguistic identity exclusively with the effect of pain, yet at the end of the poem Nye reclaims the affect of pain with the human identity regardless of tongue: she calls "pain!" and the taxi answers in all tongues (p. 91). It's also almost as if she saying to that man: why equate Arabic with pain? According to Burbano-Elizondo's second-level indexicalities—i.e. they ways in which people can rationalize their associations with language are so wide and diverse to limited to a negative translation of emotions (Omoniyli & White, 2006, p. 3).

The main poem in the book, "19 Varieties of Gazelle," re-emphasizes the liberation from dual identity restrictions: in a gazelle reservation, a sign reads "KEEP TO THE PATH." She wonders how one would expect a gazelle to stick to simplistic, defined path; "humans have voices / what have they done to us?" (p. 73).

These poems illustrate not only Nye's pursuit of deconstructing the limitations of the emphasis of national and ethnic identities that society imposes but also her pursuit to move in circles in the associations that many Arabs insist to attribute to their linguistic/ethnic identities.

Foods and Faces

Addressing a Western audience in an age that is rife with Orient-Occident conflicts, Nye--with a keen eye for particular details of the Eastern rhetorics of belonging (as exemplified in food and community members)--challenges some widely accepted stereotypes and help Western readers see the humanity of the vague Middle-Eastern nations, which are typically seen as the abstract other filtered through media.  Much like Norman Rockwell who supported the civil rights of African Americans by simply painting the simple details of their everyday lives (Gallagher & Zagacki, 2013, p. 175), Nye achieves “energia”: she uses particularity with details about food and people to achieve a visibility of the humanity of the East, which is a rhetorical technique that defies the Western colonial gaze and the sweeping stereotypes of the “terrorist other.” Indeed, this rhetorical technique subtly draws attention to the humanity both nations of the East and West share. It also somehow represents Nye’s attempt to sort out the two seemingly contrasted sides of her Arab American identity.

For one thing, Nye’s details about local food show the common human connection with land, which is the natural source of food. Moreover, food imagery is particularly significant since food is one of the most remarkable forms of the gift that is passed down to generations forming a bond of communal identity. In my personal travels around the West, I found a lot of people who are familiar with Middle-Eastern food, such as the long-loved tabbouleh, hummus, or falafel, yet this knowledge was typically only acquired through a capitalist, consumerist institution that commercializes that food and sells it to the public. Middle-Eastern food, much like food from any other culture, can unfortunately often be thought of without due reverence; it can take a capitalist, culture-appropriative turn and become deformed in the minds as a mere “commodity,” which is clearly distinguished from an identity-reverencing gift: “The consumer of commodities is invited to a meal without passion … without the benefit of inner nourishment” (Hyde, 2007, p. 12). Nye, however, reclaims some examples of the ingredients of food in the Middle-East (e.g. locals’ tomatoes, olives, and figs-- restoring them to their reverent meanings that the minds of “otherers” tend to strip them out of.

             Abu Mahmoud and his relationship to his tomatoes both represent identity in locals’ relationship with land. It is a relationship that is based on reverence and awe. Nature, especially land in this case, can easily strike us as humans with awe since we do not have clear ideas about what it is: Is there a soul to it? How does it respond to us? Can it really feel our bond of love and belonging and love us back? Therefore, locals like Abu Mahmoud express their awe and try to sort out this sense of the land’s vague, sublime transcendence through personification. Trying to put the reverence he feels for land and its gifts in simpler terms as a human-to-human relationship is how Abu Mahmoud try to make sense of his identity in relationship to land. For instance, he addresses land saying, “I know you,” and he speaks passionately about his “darling tomato.”

            Examining Abu Mahmoud’s relationship to land helped me recognize an interesting gift system that feeds the circle of local communal identity: Abu Mahmoud, much like the rest of locals, gives a special type of gift to land: he knows how to preserve it and take care of it and as “a result of this knowing,” “earth crumbles rich layer” (p. 21), which is the land’s gift to the table of the family—to the young and hungry in the community. 

As for olives, imagery based on them recurs wildly throughout Nye’s poems. Olives are a famous Mediterranean produce that helps Palestinians survive. It is also more than that; it is a symbol for identity—for a safe place of belonging that locals identify themselves with: for instance, Nye identifies locals as “olive gatherers” (81). The following lines felt to me as a beautiful description of how olives, as a part of the physical nature, can enter the psychological realm that sustains locals’ identity: "The olive’s dusky gray-green shadow / won’t leave a single one of its people alone / It follows them inside their own shadows / It loves them when they think there is no more loving" (33).

Having olives as a part of their identity, locals reaffirm their human affinity with their land as they are facing the Israeli threat of colonization: of seeing their land, which provides them with such a dear sense of belonging, lost to colonial urbanization. In my mind, olives evoke the myth of Noah: after the flood, the sign of finding land, a safe place to belong to and thus a sense of settlement and psychological peace, was an olive branch carried by a dove. Therefore, I think that Nye uses the symbolism of olives artistically with witty consciousness of its connotations to locals and to many of her readers.

Thinking of olives as a metaphor for locals’ identity in relationship to their land hails my mind with other examples of how land and nature structure our understanding of belonging. For instance, when we finally identify with someone as similar to us in their attitudes towards some concepts, we say that we found a common “ground” with that person. We think of our extended web of genetic belonging as a “family tree.” And when we feel like we belong somewhere, we “put down roots.”

Similarly, fig trees can be considered as Nye’s metaphor for a hybrid identity. First, we see the Middle-Eastern fig tree, the one that generates folktales as a generation-to-generation gift that maintains identity: The writer mentions the tradition that, in the evenings, the father “sat by our beds/ weaving folktales like vivid little scarves/ they always involved a fig tree/ once Joha was walking down the road and saw a fig tree/ Or, he tied his camel to a fig tree and went to sleep/ Or, later when they caught and arrested him, his pockets were full of figs” (p. 6). Once children grow up, they “gift” the same stories to other children in the community—which I have personally experienced as folktales inspired by nature are passed down from my grandfather, to my father, to me, and then to my nieces and nephews! The Middle-Eastern fig tree in this case inspires the oral tradition that ties the Middle-Eastern, Palestinian community in its different generations together.

        One the other hand, I was amused to see the fig tree appear again in Nye’s poems as representative of the American side of her identity. We see Nye’s father later lovingly take care of a fig tree in Dallas, Texas, while humming a song—which is another form of folklore and thus another form of gift that this American fig tree has inspired him with (p. 6-7).

            After going over the locals' identity as interwoven with land and its food gifts and the similar fig tree metaphor that Nye uses for the hybrid Arab American identity, we can take a look at the character of the grandmothers to understand the relationship between certain local characters and hybrid identity. I have long seen grandmothers deemed as the heart of the local. Their depiction in Nye’s poems makes them akin to the archetypical Mother Figure, which is characterized by both affectionate caring despite pain, so they end up having to allow the child to go through change no matter how hard it is for them. Similarly, in Nye’s poems, grandmothers—representing the traditional and the local—feel pain to see the hybrid identity of their Arab American grandchildren—the fact that they for example “don’t pray.” Yet, they end up having to let them be shaped by their unique cultural experience as all they can do as elders is just pray for them (p, 5).

            Drawing on the rhetorics of place and belonging through language, circles, and symbols of food and community members, Nye accentuates the humanity that the reader share with Eastern nations.  With a beautifully flowing language that my heart dances to, Nye elucidates the Eastern rhetorics of belonging: this complex net of Middle-Eastern identity—whether local (Palestinian), hybrid (Arab American), or universal (human)— reflected in people like Abu Mahmoud, the elders of the local community, the airport lady; and the gift systems within this community (such as folktales and food).

Indeed, the first few pages of 19 Varieties of Gazelle, by Naomi Shihab, welcomingly received a few warm tears that welled up in my eyes while quizzing their lyrical beauty: rarely have I read anything like these poems--these poems are “me” on paper, and my “Where I am From” poem could possibly fit seamlessly if tucked into the pages of this book:

I'm from Aladdin's magical lamp.

I'm from the golden sand,

The courageous veins,

Spreading in the dunes of land.

But I'm also from the loud fears,

The wars and tears,

The crumbles of bread,

The rubble you tread,

And every lost shred,

Of a child's dream.

But I'm also from the euphony,

The fusion, the harmony,

The chant of a mosque marrying

The bells of a church.

I'm from the threads of my scarves,

Or maybe,

the assumptions one blindly carves?

But I'm also the smoldering allure of Arabian incense,

The welcoming aroma of Arabian coffee,

And the fluttering mane of a free-souled Arabian horse. 

References

Gallagher, Victoria, and  Zagacki, Kenneth. "Visibility and Rhetoric: The Power of Visual Images in Norman Rockwell's Depictions of Civil Rights." Quarterly Journal of Speech: 175. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.

 Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. 25th Anniversary Ed. 2nd Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage, 2007. 10-12. Print.

Hecht,M.L., Jackson,R.L.,II, &Ribeau, S.A.(2003).African American communication(2nded.).Mahwah,NJ: Erlbaum.

 Nye, Naomi Shihab. 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. New York: Greenwillow, 2002. Print.

Witteborn, Saskia (2004) Of Being an Arab Woman Before and After September 11: The Enactment of Communal Identities in Talk, Howard Journal of Communications, 15:2, 83-98, DOI: 10.1080/10646170490448312

A Preview of Omoniyi and White's Sociolinguistics of Identity

Prefacing the book Sociolinguistics of identity, the editors, Omoniyi and White (2006) take readers on brief tour—covering milestones in the evolution of identity as a sociolinguistic concept.

The genesis story starts with variationinst sociolinguistics and, in tandem, thvariationistconceptualization of identity merely as the stable distribution of social and linguistic values among a certain population. Later, the prosperity of sociolinguistics as a scholarly discipline in late modernity brought about a more panoramic view of identity: one that encompasses a range of social theories. Then, six main identity-related principles gained prevalence: that identity is fluid and ever-changing; that it varies and is constructed within established contexts; that those contexts are filtered with social variables and expressed through language(s); that, whether we place importance on it not, identity plays a significant role in all communicative acts since it shapes these acts and the relevant social relationships; and that—in a given context—several identities can be established and negotiated through a dynamic of identity management.

Although—compared to previous perceptions of identity—these poststructuralist ideas seemed to account more for the complexity of identity, several scholars still contested them in favor of a more dialectical position. For instance, according to Block, socially-established identities, such as gender and ethnicity, are not the only means for defining the identities speakers assume: speakers participate in different communities of practice, such as school, family and work, and thus create some identities in relationship to these communities.

Moreover, while Block concurs that some side of identity can change and be constructed in the shadow of social constructs, he goes beyond that; he sheds lights on the speaker not only as a social being coloring according to contexts and milieus but also as a wholly-existing being with an anchored core of "the psychological self" that shines through in moments of introspection. I actually appreciate this insight since it attributes more value to the human by looking beyond the rhetorical and strategical act of changing of hats. Block's approach, in my opinion, reverences the uniqueness of the individual.

 The editors, after that, survey a number of case studies that build on or challenge the aforementioned theorizations on identity. For example, they preview Suleiman and his detailing of the interrelationship between language and national identity; Jenkins and L2 English speakers' attempts to claim an identity in the hegemonic discourse through the uncomfortable assumption of a native accent; Llamas and the relationship between language, age, and the sense of local membership; Burbano-Elizondo and the two levels of language indexicality (one as the links established between form and social meaning and the other as the ways speakers rationalize these links); Sallabank and the disconnection between language loss and ethnic identity; Mullany and the clash between professional and gender identities; Preece and nonnative undergraduates' attempts to compensate for a presumably inadequate membership in the academic community; Spotti and the school's role in identity construction; and White and the rapport between language, national identity, and post-colonialism.

I think this book would be recommendable for those interested in learning the ABC of sociolinguistic theories of identity. It would also be recommendable to researchers who seek to configure the methodologies and approaches through which studies of practical manifestations of identity in different communities can be conducted. Noteworthy, however, is that—despite their abundance—the studies included here are by no means applicable throughout all contexts, for each situation is  the product of its own cultural, social, historical, linguistic, political, religious and socio-economic intricacies that grant it almost irreplaceable subtleties. I take this into consideration in my upcoming analysis of identity in Naomi Shihab Nye's poetry by avoiding generalizations and acknowledging the influence of her own life experience on the formation of her Arab American identity. 

A Response to "Of Being an Arab Woman Before and After September 11"

          In " Of Being an Arab Woman Before and After September 11: The Enactment of Communal Identities in Talk," Witteborn (2004) contrasts interviews of Arab women before and after September 11, asking them about their use of identity labels and then investigating the associtions relevant to these labels. She finds that Arab woman, before September 11, used to identify themselves as Arabs, tie that to family values and respect, and label themselves as Arab Americans only in the public sphere. However, after the tragic event, they tended to use national labels to associate their respective identities with their national histories and cultural richness.

           In the analysis of these data, the writer draws in her analysis on the Communication Theory of Identity of Hecht et al., namely two assumptions of it: that identities have individual, social, and communal properties and that they are codes that are expressed in conversations and define membership in communities (85-86). She also makes use of the enactment frame," which ‘‘focuses on the messages that express identity [as] identity is enacted in social behaviors, social roles, and symbols’’ (Hecht et al., 2003, p. 236). The analysis of the interviews yields results that reinforce some of these theories and challenge others. The most prominent suggestion that adds to the enactment frame is that speakers do not only express identities but also enlivened and performed, through reported speech, examples, and verbs of emotions, which her participants used. Nonethless, I see that the term given to the theory already entails performance as a way of expression as the word "enactment" denotes: " An instance of acting something out" (Oxford Dictionary).

         In my perspective, I think that it generally does not contribute much to my curiosity as a reader, yet I appreciated some parts of it,. For one thing, I was intrigued to learn about the shift to specific national labels after September, 11. I think that such a discursive act is not only meant to inform the interlocutor that Arabs are not all the same (i.e., they are not all Saudis like those involved in the tragic event). It somehow deploys a specificity that naturally evokes visibility of the humanity of stereotyped communities—Arabs in this case. One of the participants actually mentions the word "visible" in her justification of the use of national labels, which evoked in my mind visibility as a fascinating rhetorical technique that is employed even in visual art. For instance, Norman Rockwell's depicted specific details of everyday life of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement to help viewers attain a visibility of the humanity of a marginalized community.

         Although I found that aspect of the quoted interviews interesting, I still found that the writer could have utilized the data better by trying to pose questions like: why did the participants use the label "Arab American" only as a part of their public persona before September, 11? Does that indicate a sense of disconnection that was perpetuated even before the attack? After the attack, why didn't they try to emphasize the American aspect of their "Arab American" identity to counteract the resulted "othering"? Could this sense of disconnection be linked to their being "first-generation" immigrants? How does sociolinguistics of gender and the gender-related preconceptions about Arab women play in these identity enactments? All in all, I think that this article provides a initial look at the representation and performance identity of Arab American women in speech, and provokes many more questions for further research and investigation.

Linguistic Crusades: A Horror Story

In his article, "Petro-Linguistics: The Emerging Nexus Between Oil, English, and Islam," Karmani (2015) deems oil wealth in the region of the Arabian Gulf a magnet for further Western linguistic, religious, and economic imperialism. He draws parallels between the capital-intensive approach on which oil-rich rentier systems are based and the preference in the area to export native English language instructors rather than invest in local language experts. While this prejudice in the job market is a Western economic win, the West—according to Karmani—harvests further advantages from the seemingly epidemic spread of English in the Arab Gulf States; most prominent of which is the dissipation of the Arabic language and—thus—of Islam. Therefore, with the blessings of Western powers, more secular schools, universities, and colleges that intensively incorporate English are mushrooming in the area.

I see the writer's point about the skewed hierarchy between native speakers and local language experts in the job market, yet such a prejudice is equally evident in many other second language teaching settings—no matter the language that is being taught. I also see why some researchers would raise a red flag when a pedagogical institution inadequately teaches Arabic or Islam, but so is the case if English is not taught well enough to help students survive a globalized world. Most importantly, the genesis of the problem in this article is the underlying assumption of predation—the obsessive illusion of a lingo/religio-conspiracy that similarly permeates many Muslim Arab communities as well. Indeed, to test the validity of this assumption of predation, questions like the following can be helpful: Is English exclusively Western anymore? Is Islam inherently Arabic? Are we talking Islam or Islamic extremism and can English curb the latter? Can't English and Arabic co-exist?

Is English Exclusively Western Anymore?

         Throughout history, people in the periphery tended to converge linguistically to those in the center. However I think that English—in particular—is starting to increasingly lose such a centric connotation. Indonesians, Indians, Arabs, Israelis, and other nonnative English speakers (whose number exceeds that of native speakers according to ethnologue.com) speak this global language with their respective voices and accents and even enrich it with their linguistic innovations: they are being their own centers. Canagarajah's world Englishes and other terms describing this gradual, yet steady decentralization that is stripping English  from its Western exclusivity and, thus, of the suggested imperialistic connotations are gaining wide precedence in the literature of linguistics and applied linguistics. Therefore, when children are taught a lot of English in school, we could deconstruct the assumption of predation and rather think of English as a neutral international code of communication that will help those children go on with their professional life later on.

         Is Islam Inherently Arabic?

The ghost of English prowling around the fortress of the Arabic language has been haunting speakers of Arabic for quite a long time, especially due to the ideological weight that is typically given to the latter as the language of Islam. Karmen's argument builds on this ideological association: more English means less Arabic and, eventually, less Islam. However, the presumption of an inherent relationship between Arabic and the Islam, in my opinion, is another deconstruction-worthy point. Most of Muslims are not Arabs: according to Pew Research Center, two thirds of Muslims are from the Asia-Pacific Region, where languages other than Arabic are dominant.

Indeed, not only do the prolific translations of Islamic literature dissolve the claimed the exclusive bond between Islam and Arabic, but so do the hereditary nature of the religion: more of non-Arabic speaking Muslim parents pass the spirits of the texts to their children in everyday interactions without necessarily delving into the archaic Arabic texts or the Arabic language itself. Furthermore, after the advent of modernity, the intellectual growth in the Islamic world calls for a hermeneutic approach that takes a step-back from the specificities of linguistic literalism when dealing with Islamic religious texts—and rather moves towards considering the Islamic literature as a whole and preserving its general language-less moral spirit.

More significantly, forging an exclusive connection between the Arabic language and Islam is in itself of an imperialistic nature: it is an act of disowning Coptic, Christian, Jewish, Atheist, and Agnostic native Arab communities who have the right to the language as much as any Muslim Arab does.

         Are We Talking Islam or Extremism? And Can English Curb Islamic Extremism?

Interestingly, except for four mentions of the "War on Terror" (p. 87,99 , 100), Karmani throughout his article keeps referring to the ultimate enemy that English is to defeat as Islam, rather than Islamic extremism: "opting for 'more English and less Islam.'" These loose references pose the question of whether the writer is confusing or equating Islam with Islamic extremism.

However, if Karmani actually intends to point out English as a means of fighting Islamic extremism (rather than Islam as a whole), this is still a straw man argument. For one thing, one might contend that English can be an eye-opener that helps people connect with other cultures, and thus develop tolerance. Nonetheless, this result is not always guaranteed. In fact, many terrorists, whether Muslims or not, spoke fluent English (e.g., Adam Yahiye).

Actually, the spread of English in areas where Arabic used to be the only language might very well amplify the sense of the "other," of the myth of an "invader" to stand up against, and thus aggravate tendencies towards terrorism. Besides, studies show that structural factors in a society, including the chance to receive secular education (which would typically entail extensive English training), is never a sure predictor of whether someone will or won't fall for extremism (Banihashimi, 2016, p. 3).

Can't English and Arabic Co-exist?

After the deconstructing the relationship between English and imperialism, between Arabic and Islam, and between secular education and the prevention of Islamic extremism, I think that it would be more appropriate to adopt a translanguagage attitude towards the spread of English in the Arabian Gulf Region and in among Arabs in general: one socially named language does not naturally push away another—they are all equal communication devices.

Many assume that the spread of one language naturally leads to the incapacity to keep another, a fear that is fed by clips like this) at 4:09-5:41). In this video, children who are seemingly educated in international schools are unable to complete the simple task of identifying animals in Arabic. However, in this other clip, an Arab child growing in the US shows off his Arabic;   his full acquisition has not overtook the capacity to learn Arabic (or practice a religious recitation of Quran—to tie it with Karmani's article). That's because—at the end of the day—if parents care enough to educate their child in both languages, no Western conspiracy can stop that. Both languages end up as parts of the child's skill repertoire, of his/her idiom, and his/her acquisition of a certain named language does not push away another: it's all one toolbox of communication tools

         In fact, preserving our individual identities—our ideolects that reflect our experiences—is no less significant that preserving named languages. It is indeed the essential concern and the real way to show reverence to each member of the community—and thus the community as a whole.

Conclusion

         Illusionary monsters can seem as real to societies as they would to children—only on a larger scale. As for the illusionary monster of English pushing away Arabic and—thus—Islam in area of the Arabian Gulf. This monster will definitely vanish if we turn on the lights in our heads and question the presumed exclusive relationships between English and the West, Arabic and Islam, English and extremism, and the emphasis of named languages over idiolects.