The Politics of Food and Memory in Diana Abu- Jaber's Crescent

121 Pages·2011·0.64 MB·English

Milton Júnior Ferreira de Sena

The Politics of Food and Memory in Diana Abu-
Crescent
Jaber’s

Faculdade de Letras
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
2011
The Politics of Food and Memory in Diana Abu-Jaber’s
Crescent

By

Milton Júnior Ferreira de Sena

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Mestre em Letras:
Estudos Literários, Área de Concentração Literaturas de Língua Inglesa.
Thesis Adviser: Prof. Dra. Gláucia Renate Gonçalves

Belo Horizonte
Faculdade de Letras
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
2011
To my mother, Maria das Graças Ferreira,
my source of inspiration and strength: the
needle of my compass. Your unconditional
love makes all the difference in my life.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am eternally grateful to my dear adviser Professor Gláucia Renate Gonçalves,
who patiently guided me during these years of research. Thank you for presenting me
the richness of Arab American literature and for encouraging me to go further in my
studies. Thank you for trusting in my capability since the very beginning. Your support
really made the difference.
To my professors at Faculdade de Letras, thank you for showing me the richness
of the literary world. Special thanks to Professor Elisa Amorim for her generosity and
openness to provide me with some of the theories I have used in this work.
To my family, for the unconditional love and for always celebrating my
accomplishments. I know our father would be very proud... Special thanks to my sister
Wilma Sena, for her love, friendship, and support since I came to live with her.
To my friends, for the meaningful presence in my life. Special thanks to my dear
friend Edson Cardoso, for always celebrating my accomplishments as his own. Your
words of wisdom made all the difference.
Finally, to Diana Abu-Jaber whose work inspired me to accomplish this
important stage in my academic life.
ABSTRACT

This study discusses the fictional representation of food and memory in the
novel Crescent (2003) by Jordanian-American Diana Abu-Jaber. The novel presents a
rich depiction of food intertwined with memory and provides the ground for the
discussion of ethnicity and political issues. In general, I argue that the restaurant chef
Sirine and her food work as an ethnic bonding agent drawing different ethnicities of
Arabs and non-Arabs together in the space of Nadia’s Café, the locus where a
heterogeneous diasporic community comes into existence. The café has a strong role to
play as it is the space where characters make revelations concerning their fears and their
past experiences, thus, it becomes a powerful site of memory to use Pierre Nora’s term.
In addition, I discuss the significance of photographs and other objects, especially a
scarf – as they too operate a kind of return to the past, making early experiences surface
in the present and therefore constituting as well a site of memory.
RESUMO

Este estudo discute a representação ficcional da comida e da memória no
romance Crescent (2003) da escritora Estadunidense, de origem Jordaniana, Diana Abu-
Jaber. O romance apresenta uma rica descrição da comida diretamente ligada à memória
oferecendo o terreno para discussão da etnicidade e de assuntos políticos. No geral,
argumento que Sirine e a comida feita por ela funcionam como um agente de ligação
entre as diferentes etnicidades de árabes e não-árabes no espaço do Nadia’s Café, lugar
de onde uma heterogênea comunidade diaspórica vem existir. O café exerce um papel
importante por ser o espaço em que personagens fazem revelações a cerca de seus
medos e de suas experiências passadas, constituindo, dessa maneira, um lugar de
memória, conforme proposto por Pierre Nora. Além disso, discuto a importância das
fotografias e de outros objetos – especialmente um lenço – por também operarem um
retorno ao passado, fazendo experiências passadas virem à tona no presente,
constituindo-se também como lugares de memória.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………... 1
Chapter I – Food for Thought: Politics of Food and Eating in Crescent……………14
1.1. Food and Literature ……………………………………………………............ 24
1.2. Food in Crescent …………………………………………………………….....33
1.3. “I want to Tell You a Story”: Food and Storytelling..………………………. ….46
Chapter II – Remembering Homes: Politics of Memory……………………………. 57
2.1. Recalling the Past: The Representation of Memory in Crescent............................ 63
2.2. The Café as a Site of Memory …………………………………...………………68
2.3. Photographs as Sites of Memory……………………………………………..….. 77
2.4. The Scarf as a Site of Memory…………………………………………………… 89
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….. 95
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..105
Appendix.......................................................................................................................111
1

Introduction

Departure

Leaving is always
like this. Years
of hours and days
ticked off like
a body count:
what’s left but
shards of memory
...............................
how to say goodbye
quickly, how to choose what
to take when
you go, how
to live without
what you leave behind
……………………….
Some things are lost
in the leaving. Some
remain. Some seeds
planted in brine
still grow.
Lisa Suhair Majaj (74)

The Arab diaspora in the United States encompasses a large number of
immigrants that left their countries for different reasons. Their motivations range from
the search for better a life to being forced to abandon their home countries as refugees.
In any case, it is worth investigating how they interact with the social contexts of their
host countries. Although this is often overlooked, it is a fact that these immigrants of
Arab background are responsible for somehow changing the social contexts of many
countries, and this is especially so in the United States, where it is estimated that there
are over 3,5 million people of Arab ancestry all over the country. Among the different
groups of Arab ancestry, in the U.S., the Lebanese, the Syrians and the Palestinians are
the largest and the most prominent groups.
2

The first wave of immigrants to go to the United States is dated late in the
nineteenth century, more precisely from 1861 to 1914, just before the World War I, and
their initial occupations were primarily as peddlers of dry goods to the different ethnic
groups who were also beginning to settle in the country. In the book Arab-American
Faces and Voices, Elizabeth Boosahda observes that, “generally, they maintained their
Arab culture through food and its presentation, the Arabic language, religion
(Christianity and Islam), dance, music, literature, philosophy, poetry and storytelling”
(xii). Besides that, the first immigrants “had a strong drive to be independent
entrepreneurs” (11).
After the civil war and the opening of the West, the United States faced a strong
necessity of skilled labor force to work in the industry and other developing areas.
Because of that, “American agents were sent to villages in order to persuade cheap labor
forces with promises of wealth and independence” (Boosahda 7). As Boosahda
remarks, the first immigrants came “for adventure and wealth, and after a few years
some returned to their homelands financially better off” (7). The desire of returning was
nurtured by most immigrants of the first wave of migration.
According to Palestinian critic Lisa Majaj, in the article “Arab-American
Literature: Origins and Development,” the cultural context faced by the first immigrants
was “heavily assimilationist” (par 2). As she explains, “the question of how to respond
to such pressures while also maintaining an Arab identity was a matter of great
importance to the early immigrant community: newspapers and journals published
debates about how to preserve Arab identity in the American-born generation, even as
they discussed practical matters of integration” (par 2).
The second wave of migration began after World War I. Unlike the first wave
which was made up of Christians, the new group was basically made up of Muslims.
3

As Tanyss Ludescher ponders,
[t]he second wave of immigrants consisted of educated, skilled
professionals, who were more likely to be familiar with the
nationalist ideologies that permeated the Arab world. Unlike the
Syrian Christians, they staunchly identified themselves as Arabs.
Included in this group were a number of Palestinian refugees
who had been rendered stateless as a result of the catastrophic
1948 Arab-Israeli War. (94)
Adding to that, during World War I, the contact with their homelands became more
difficult and the strict laws of immigration “in the 1920s increased the community’s
sense of isolation and encouraged a feeling of communal unity and solidarity, which
had began during the war” (Ludescher 98).
The third wave is dated from 1967 to the present day, when new arrivals found a
more hostile environment due to recent political events involving Arabic speaking
countries and the United States. Ludescher remarks that the end of the quota system in
1965 conjugated with political conflicts in the region such as the Israeli occupation in
Palestine and the Lebanese civil war produced a great wave of immigrants that entered
the country as political refugees. As the critic comments,
Imbued with anti-colonial sentiment and Arab nationalist ideas,
this new group was highly politicized. For the first time, Arab
American organizations were formed to defend the Arab point
view and to combat negative stereotypes of Arab in the popular
press. Newly sensitized to their ethnic identity by worldwide
political events, the descendants of first- and second-wave