Racialized Subjects in Transit in Post-9/11 America: Salwa and Jassim’s Perpetual Quest for Belonging in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the identity construction of Arab Americans in the post-9/11 moment in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land. Drawing on postcolonial feminism and intersectionality, the article examines the cumulative ways in which race, gender, religion, and class intersect to determine the experiences of the characters Salwa and Jassim and their perpetual quest for belonging, which is further problematized by the ambiguity of Arabs in American ethno-racial discourses. A neo-orientalist discourse came to the surface after the 9/11 attacks, to justify discriminatory treatment of Arabs and denial of their heterogeneity—labeling them instead as if identical. Its manifestation is illustrated in the transformation of the lives of Salwa and Jassim when they fall under suspicion after the attacks.