Postcolonial Dilemma in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land

Abstract

In this paper, the researcher shows how Laila Halaby presents mainstream Americans’ perception of Arab Americans post 9/11 America in her novel Once in a Promised Land. Halaby narrates how the mainstream Americans provided the Western gaze upon the Arab-American citizens. Halaby symbolizes in the characters an America which is conspiratorial and submerged with religious passions. After 9/11, Halaby’s mainstream American characters become increasingly fanatical and mistrustful of Arabs, specifically, and Islamic religion, in general. Halaby, then, portrays intolerant and xenophobic American characters overwrought with doubts and discloses a post 9/11 America that is prevalent 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 attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, were a direct result of these epidemics. Moreover, Halaby offers a perspective of Americans who are ignorantly perceiving the United States as separated from crises affecting all nations. For this reason, Halaby's novel functions as a cautionary tale decreeing Americans to transcend a binary frame of reference to avoid further crises from escalating within or beyond American borders.