Orientalism in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land

Abstract

In this paper, the researcher show how Laila Halabypresents informative perception into the conflicts confrontation Arab Americans in post 9/11 America. Halaby turns the Western look upon the Arab societies. Laila Halaby symbolizes an America which is conspiratorial and submerged with religious enthusiasms. After 9/11, Halaby’s American characters become increasingly fanaticism and mistrustful of Arabs and Islamic cultures. Halaby, then, portrays intolerant and xenophobic American characters overwrought with doubts and discloses a post 9/11 America that is widespread with anti-Arab racism. Halaby also propounds that the widespread American perception of a world patently divided between East and West only arouses global crises such as drought, poverty and war. She also declares that the juveniles that occurred on September 11, 2001, were a direct result of these epidemics. Moreover, Halaby offers a perspective of Americans as ignorantly perceiving the United States as alienated from crises impending all nations. For this reason, Halaby's novel functions as a cautionary story decreeing Americans to transcend a binary frame of reference for avoiding further crises from escalating within or beyond American borders.