AMERICANNESS AND THE AMERICAN DREAM IN LAILA HALABY’S ONCE IN A PROMISED LAND (2007)

Abstract

The American Dream is associated with the promise of equality, opportunity,
success, and achievement through hard work and perseverance. It promises free
practice of religious, social, and cultural values of different ethnic and racial
groups to “construct a new race, a new religion, a new state, a new literature”
(Emerson, 1909, p. 116). Hypnotized by these values of the American Dream,
immigrants from all corners of the world pour into America to achieve these
ideals of happiness and prosperity. However, despite being hailed as the panacea
for all, the mythical nature of the American Dream has come to be vigorously
debated over the last hundred years. Indeed, the political and economic crises at
the turn of the twenty-first century have further exposed the fault lines of the
American Dream (Archer, 2014). While literary critiques of the materialistic
nature of the Dream can be traced back to classics such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Great Gatsby (1925), Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land (2007) is a
contemporary exploration of the meaning of “Americanness” from the perspective
of an Arab American couple in the aftermath of 9/11. Through a critical analysis
of the representation of Americanness in the novel, the paper argues that the
already elusive nature of the American Dream becomes further complicated in an
America unsettled by 9/11; as such, rather than reinforcing their American
identity, for Arab Americans, the notion of Americanness becomes a source of
disillusionment and alienation