Cultural and National identity play a crucial role on our lives everyday. It exercises influences on how we perceive the world around us, on the decisions we make and on how we view ourselves. Culture is a way of life of a group of people, it is the behaviors, beliefs, values, and language that they accept and are passed along by generations. On that note, cultural identity is belonging to a group that shares the same beliefs and religion. Meanwhile, national identity is one’s identity of sense of belonging to one state or one nation. While, national and cultural identity are similar they are also different.
National identity usually depends on where you’re from or where you migrated to, while cultural identity has to do with an individual’s ethnicity, customs, foods, traditions etc. In the film Salt of this Sea directed by Annemarie Jacir, and the novels The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf and A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar the protagonist are conflicted on their identity. Throughout the novels and film, we see Soraya, Nidali and Khadra on their journey in their search for their own cultural and national identity and being able to balance the two.
The term “identity” is defined as the way individual’s or groups of people defined themselves. The different forms of identity all work to split human beings into groups: male and female, Arabs and American, Jewish and Muslims etc. A person must be able to fit into at least one group. If a person considers themselves as more than one group it is inevitable that they will clash with other members of each group and not be accepted into either. This was the case for Khadra, she identified as an Arab, but then she also identified as an American.
Growing up Khadra was neither “Arab enough” nor “American enough” to fit into either culture. She was taught from an early age to believe in one definition of Islam and that Americans are barbaric, “generally speaking, Americans cussed, smoked, and drank, and the Shamys had it on good authority that a fair number of them used drugs. Americans dated and fornicated and committed adultery”. Therefore, Khadra’s cultural and national identity fluctuates throughout the novel, in her teens she begins to identify herself as a strict Muslim and ignores American culture and the culture and views of other Muslims in her community.
She breaks friendships with her Christian friend because she is not a Muslim and with Hanifa, because she becomes impregnated before marriage. At this stage of her life, Khadra feels like she is becoming the “ideal” Muslim by restraining her self from anything haram or anyone who participants in haram actions. She leaves her American culture behind and becomes apart of a group of Muslims at the Dawah Center that have created a culture based around Islam. In the event of Zuhura’s death, a young Muslim sister whom Khadra looked up to, Khadra discovers that an individual can only be accepted by one culture.
The death of her friend becomes less of a loss and more of a perfect example to the community on how parents should teach their children to live according to their own culture and not society’s culture. In other words, the community criticizes Zuhura’s parents for allowing her to attend a college in a different town, “She had been asking for trouble… Her family should have given her more guidance” (p. 96). As a result, Khadra is confused on who she is and who she should become. Khadra’s trip to Hajj becomes a crucial part of her acceptance of her own cultural and national identity.
In Saudi Arabia, Khadra expected to find a true Muslim culture that her parents have always taught her. She expected to find a land full of people who follow one direction and are not corrupted in their religion and culture as people are in Indiana. However, she finds the exact opposite In Saudi Arabia, Khadra learns that women are prohibited to pray in mosques unlike the Dawah Center, which encourages both men and women to pray, adding on to her confusion on cultural identity.
Also, adding on to her confusion, Khadra is pproached by Saudi men who categorize her as an American and assume because she is American she will take part in sexual acts with them, ignoring the fact that she is Arab and Muslim just like them. When the Saudi Arabian men judge her based on where she lives, Khadra realizes that this is what her and her family has been doing to the Americans for years back in Indiana. Her journey to an Arab country and the homeland of the holy pilgrimage becomes a wake up call, when she finally realizes that not all Muslims share the same ideas on their religion.
In Syria, where Khadra is originally from, she becomes more aware and understanding of her identity. She learns to respect people even if they do not share the same beliefs as her. “And then this whole other life opened up in her mind. It her whirling in mad agony. This incidental skin, this name she wore like a badge-glance down, check it-what was it again? Had it changed? Was it always changing? Who was she? What was she, what cells of matter, sewn up into this Khadra shape, this instar? Imagine! “(p. 306) Khadra felt overwhelmed on who she is, and later learns to finally accept things in different ways.
Her trip to Syria, had reconnected her to God,” all that had been lost was returning. All that had been disconnected was connected again” (p. 307). She soon learns to accept her identity as an ArabAmerican Muslims and is no longer ashamed. In the novel A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar, we follow the life of Nidali a Palestinian and Egyptian Muslims girl. Nidali is torn between two identities, her Palestinian and Egyptian identity. Her national identity in the beginning is Kuwaiti she loves the school and the people, when her family have to flee Kuwait she is devastated.
However, her time at Egypt forces her to learn about her Egyptian culture. Nidali defines home as wherever she is, especially since she has moved from Kuwait to Egypt and then America. Nidali’s father constantly reminds them of Palestine and makes Nidali draw the flag over and over so she does not forget it. He informs them about their homeland so the news does not brainwash them. Nidali has not been to Palestine but has lived in Egypt and at first hated being there, but enjoyed living with her grandfather.
When her family moves to American she becomes fascinated, she mentions, “When I thought of living in America, I pictured straw yellow hair, surfboards, snow; 1 saw girls and boys holding hands and breaking up and kissing in public” (p. 201). Although Nidali was born in America she does not remember the country, what she knows is what she learns from the media. The culture in the two Arab countries she has lived in differs to the American culture in the Arab world tal to the opposite sex in public is prohibited while in America it is a normal thing. Nidali adapts easily to American culture and begins to identify as an Arab-American.
In the film, Salt of this Sea directed by Annemarie Jacir, the protagonist Soraya travels from Brooklyn to Palestine to discover her roots and claim her grandfather’s savings in Jaffa, Palestine. Soraya is stubborn, passionate and determined to reclaim what is hers. In her journey through Palestine, Soraya discovers more about her cultural identity and national identity that she has been missing, while living in the States. She identifies herself as Palestinian and tells the soldiers who interrogate her that she is from Palestine. She only mentions that she is from Brooklyn, New York to the Palestinian friends she makes along the way.
In the film, we are given a closer look at the everyday harassment and humiliations Palestinians are subjected to, as Soraya and Emad are on the road. Soraya is annoyed with the way her people are treated and how she is not allowed to claim what is hers, so she robs a bank and takes the money that belongs to her grandfather. Soraya, defines home as Palestine, as the house that was once her grandfathers before he was forced to move out by the Israelis’. As an Arab-American, Soraya reminisces memories while in Palestine, her homeland, she refers to it has her home where she originated from.
She tries everything she can to travel throughout Palestine without being spotted as a Palestinian and becomes successful until the very end of the film. During her stay in Palestine, she wants to be there as long as she can. However unlike her Emad is eager to move out from the occupation he is forced to live under. Soraya discovers her cultural identity as a true Palestinian, and her national identity as Palestinian rather than Arab-American. Overall, all three protagonist are in the middle of two identities, their Arab identity and their American identity.
They are conflicted with who they are and as they travel to their homeland they discover themselves on a new level. Khadra, Nidali and Soraya evolve thr hout the novel/film and rediscover who they are. Khadra and Nidali accept that they are Arab-American, while Soraya who is more American raised than Nidali, identifies herself more as only Palestinian than Arab-American. Her cultural identity is being apart of her people in Palestine, those who share the same pain, stories, language, food, music etc. These characters dev It the novel/film and reinvent themselves.
