Beyond Stereotypes: Representational Dilemmas in Arabian Jazz

Before Diana Abu-Jaber published Arabian Jazz in 1993, Arab American writers had produced a significant amount of poetry, autobiographical works, and short stories. Although some writers had written novels, their work did not specifically address Arab American themes. The publication of novels that explored the lives of Arab Americans seemed to be the next step in the growth of the literature. Perhaps the literary anticipation as well as the need of Arab Americans to represent themselves in a positive light raised the expectations that preceded Abu-Jaber's novel to an unrealistic degree. The issue of representation dominated the Arab American response to Arabian Jazz. In one review, Elaine Hagopian dismisses the literary merit of the novel, choosing instead to point out that "its content represents a stereotype of a stereotype with quite a number of implausible representations" (1). Hagopian goes on to highlight several factual inaccuracies in the book with regards to religion, characters' names, and historical events. A large part of her argument focuses on the behavior of the Arab characters; she claims that their actions are unrealistic and can therefore distort the reader's understanding of Arab culture. Although Hagopian's critique raises important issues, her focus on the inaccuracies in the novel leaves little room for looking at Arabian Jazz as a fictional work. Certainly Arab Americans were right to be concerned that the novel might be read as an accurate portrayal of Arab culture. I recall one American reader who raved about how much she enjoyed the novel, ending with the statement that now she felt she truly understood Arab culture. Abu-Jaber herself is aware of how the concern with representation has affected the reception of her novel. She says, "There's also the sense that ... Arab-Americans have been so maltreated by the media, their image has been so dark, that I think there's a real anxiety about the artistic representations that are out there" (Shalal-Esa 6). The question becomes to what extent should a writer cater to the reader's tendency to read a novel as if it were a sociological or anthropological text. Certainly, Arabian Jazz is not the only novel to be caught in this dilemma. Maxine Hong Kingston's novel The Woman Warrior met with similar responses. In her review of the book, Katheryn Fong criticized Kingston because she does "not totally represent the identity of all Chinese American women" (67). She goes on to discuss the lack of historical information in the book and the negative portrayal of girls in Chinese culture. Yet Fong does seem aware that a large part of the dilemma lies in how the book will be received by readers: "The problem is that non-Chinese are reading your fiction as true accounts of Chinese American history .... Your one experience, your one story, becomes the definitive description of all of us" (67). In her article, "Maxine Hong Kingston: The Ethnic Writer and the Burden of Dual Authenticity," Deborah Woo looks at the reception of The Woman Warrior within the larger context of how ethnic writers carry "the burden of being viewed narrowly as spokespersons for the 'ethnic' experience" (173). The result, she argues, is that "'ethnic' writers ... find their voices muted by readings which only allow for generalizations about the ethnic experience" (173). The responses to Arabian Jazz and The Woman Warrior are clear examples of this as Abu-Jaber and Kingston found themselves accused of presenting an "inaccurate" cultural experience. There is much at stake here: the representation of Arab Americans, the censorship imposed on minority writers by their community's expectations, and the way the novel is itself defined. Surely the expectations we place on anthropological and social texts should not be applied to novels. A novel is a place where the writer can take fictional leaps and re-imagine reality. By judging Abu-Jaber's novel on how accurately it reflects the reality of Arab and Arab American culture, we miss what the novel attempts to show us through its fictional story. …