Khadra’s Fight for her Hyphenated Identity in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006)

بن لحسن ملاك

Article Details

Khadra’s Fight for her Hyphenated Identity in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006)

Authors:

بن لحسن ملاك

Publisher:

Université de Batna 1 El Hadj Lakhdar

Journal:

social and human sciences review مجلة العلوم الاجتماعية والانسانية Vol.21 Issue 2, pp.923-934

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2020

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001410864

pISSN:

2588-2430

Keywords:

Arabness Americanness arabmuslimwomen hyphenatedidentity cliches

Abstract:

 This paper highlights the plight of the Arab Muslim American Woman facing estrangement both in the American society and in her Muslim community in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006). More precisely, it explores the American Muslim woman’s hyphenated identity through the female protagonist Khadra who grapples with her identity owing to Arab Muslims’ and Americans’ fixed notions of cultural, national, and religious identities. My analysis traces the protagonist’s various forms of resistance to the essentialized perception of Arabness and Americaness. It is by rejecting and denouncing the conventional Muslim limited constructions and refuting the Eurocentric monolithic clichés about Muslim women that the writer inserts Arab hijabi women’s individualism, hyphenated or pluralistic identity, and belongingness to the US society. This paper, thus, maintains that The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf erodes and replaces the homogenizing formulations by multicultural, trans-ethnic, and transnational perceptions of identity.

Article Details

Khadra’s Fight for her Hyphenated Identity in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006)

Authors: بن لحسن ملاك

Publisher: Université de Batna 1 El Hadj Lakhdar

Journal: social and human sciences review مجلة العلوم الاجتماعية والانسانية Vol.21 Issue 2, pp.923-934

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 12/2020

Document Language: English

Document ID (Org No.): 2001410864

pISSN: 2588-2430

Arabness Americanness arabmuslimwomen hyphenatedidentity cliches

Issues

Authors:

بن لحسن ملاك

Publisher:

Université de Batna 1 El Hadj Lakhdar

Journal:

social and human sciences review مجلة العلوم الاجتماعية والانسانية Vol.21 Issue 2, pp.923-934

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2020

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001410864

pISSN:

2588-2430