Arabs in America: revealing a culture
Diana Abu-Jaber, PhD '86

Sirine, the blonde, light-skinned Iraqi-American cook who is the main character in Diana Abu-Jaber's novel Crescent, looks so all-American to Hanif, the Iraqi professor of Middle Eastern literature who courts her, that he imagines that she grew up doing all sorts of "American girl things" like "slumber parties and pillow fights and all that stuff on TV." He takes pains to prepare an all- American meal of meatloaf, broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy for their first dinner together.

This is just one of the many (and, in this case, more lighthearted) ways that Abu-Jaber illustrates and explores issues of race and physical appearance in her writing. "I'm really interested in how the way you look influences the way people treat you, or the sort of identity they give to you," said Abu-Jaber, who, as the daughter of a Jordanian father and German-Irish American mother, noted that she is a little bit lighter than the rest of her family. "If you have a parent from one culture or race and a parent from another culture or race, and you look like neither one of them, what does that make you?" she asked "That's a really important issue, especially for 'hyphenated' Americans."

Providing alternatives to negative stereotypes so prevalent in Hollywood movies, particularly about Arab men, is another important element of Abu-Jaber's writing. "Hollywood has really reduced the sorts of imagery that Americans have [of Arab Americans] to the terrorist or the bomb-throwing kidnapper," she said. "I've always been aware of that and struggled with that." Consequently, Abu-Jaber feels an obligation to her community to try to "provide American readers with more alternatives than what is commonly offered in Hollywood and the mass media. . . and enlarge the conversation," as she put it.

The Arab men in Crescent defy any stereotype. They are professors and graduate students at a university in Los Angeles who recite poetry and challenge one another to identify the author, who deliver lectures on contemporary Arab writers such as Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz -- all this against the backdrop of Nadia's Cafe, where Sirine cooks the "Real True Arab Food" they love. They are "literary, based on an extremely sophisticated, urbane sort of Arab person that I know in my own mind, and who I never see portrayed in the media," Abu-Jaber said

Celebrating Arab foods

The appearance, preparation, texture and smell of food adds a rich sensuality to Abu-Jaber's writing. Descriptions abound of the succulent appearance of fresh fruits and vegetables -- whole and sliced, raw and cooked, au naturel and fragrantly and delicately spiced. The Arab names of the dishes, along with such details as the delicate handling required in rolling up stuffed grape leaves, lend a poetic quality.

For Abu-Jaber, interlacing descriptions of food with storytelling comes naturally -- in fact, the two, intertwined, made up an important part of her upbringing. She describes her father as both "a pretty serious cook" and "a big storyteller." Storytelling was important to her father, she said, because he's an immigrant. She described it as one of the main outlets for him to express his longing for the past and his memories, and also to "teach us about who we were and our cultural legacy. Like the storytelling, his cooking was a big part of how he formed our upbringing. It was part of his cultural education for us."

"He was very inspiring -- he really instructed us to pay attention to what we ate and really appreciate food," she said. Abu-Jaber relishes memories of afternoon-long meals of Middle Eastern food shared at family gatherings. She also loves to cook, and in fact supported herself as a short-order cook throughout her years in college and graduate school. "For years I wrote restaurant reviews and wrote about food history," she said. It became a natural component of my creative work."

Given this context, it makes perfect sense that Abu-Jaber is currently working on "a food memoir," as she dubbed it: The Language of Baklava, due out in 2004. "It's about growing up in this crazy, food-obsessed, multicultural family, and it has recipes," she said.

A graduate of Binghamton's creative writing program, Abu-Jaber was drawn here by John Gardner, and regards Larry Woiwode, a North Dakota writer who taught at Binghamton then, as an important mentor. "He was a novelist from North Dakota who wrote a real breakthrough novel in his time, Beyond the Bedroom Wall," she said. "He was a fantastic teacher, an important critical early adviser and supporter for me. He introduced me to my first agent."

Abu-Jaber looks forward to returning to Binghamton University March 30, 2004, as a visiting author in the English Department's Readers' Series.