Reflections of Arab American Literature

       After the disaster that befell New York on September 11, 2001, the view on Muslims and Arab Americans significantly hit an all time low. Society had now deemed them all as "terrorist" simply because of their Arab background. You could be from Jordan, Iran, Afghan, or simply be from a North African region that is part of Islamic religion and has Arabic influence are also singled out and facing harsh discrimination by others.       As I mentioned in class discussion about the true meaning of الله اكبر - which translates to God is the greatest, however that term has been associated as negative phrase that those who are ignorant to find out the meaning or don't know will use it to describe "wishing death upon you" or "I'm going to kill you". Many Arabs and Arab Americans and those who do or don't have any Islamic ties or are/aren't Muslims have been subjected to hate crimes that followed them in privacy of their home and places of worshi...

     The reason why Suheir Hammad titled her book, "Born Palestinian Born Black" was to show that two different cultures can fit into one person, that you can be both a Palestinian women and African American at the same time. Suheir always refers back to Brooklyn and how that influenced her when it came to poetry and how words had life, but she never forgot her Palestinian side which she boldly shows through her poetry. Suheir could have titled her book as, "Born Black in a Palestinian land" or "Afro-Palestinian Born", but she chose to separate the two, one being her nationality and the other being race.      The title became the main theme for most poems, because it shows the harsh reality that both African Americans and Arabs faced, during times where people were being stigmatized for how they looked. Dealing with systemic racism from all corners not knowing if the next person closest to you will end up dead or facing the law simply because they were no...

     Based on the movie, The Prophet it's artistic detail of the setting and scenery create the tone for the opening of the movie. As I further watch the movie and what I realized after class discussions is that the symbolism that were mentioned within the poems written by Khalil  Gibran were heavily focused throughout the entire movie. What I really admired between both the literature and the movie was even though there some distinct details that were omitted from text into the movie, it was able to portray what each of the poems would look like in the eyes of the artist.      Throughout the movie there were multiple pieces of symbolism that were also mentioned within the book, but the main symbolism of the birds, mountains, wind, and the sea are all connected or have some time toward religion and the cycle of life. The main theme is that life continues even after we are gone and that we can be reborn anew after our souls are taken up. The movie'...