Narrating Arab-American Transnational Identity in Leila Buck’s Hkeelee [Talk to Me]

Abstract

Hkeelee [ Talk to Me] is a one-woman show written and performed by Arab-American playwright Leila Buck, which explores the history of Buck’s family as she reminisces about the life story of her Teta (grandmother) and intertwines it with her own experiences to better understand what it means to be American with an Arab ethnic origin. This article argues that Buck’s stories act as counter-narratives: they resist the marginalization of Arab Americans and place the Arab-American identity within a transnational framework that emphasizes simultaneous attachment to the Arab world and to the United States, thereby unsettling prevailing US political discourses on citizenship and national identity. The article further proposes that Buck constructs an Arab-American transnational identity in the play by deploying the techniques and practices of the ancient Arab hakawati [storyteller] tradition, another example of cross-cultural connection and an instance of how US theatre could be enriched by an ethnic literary and performance legacy.