Identity in Naomi Shihab Nye: The Dynamics of Biculturalism

Abstract

The study examines Naomi Shihab Nye's position on biculturalism, which is viewed as both complex and straightforward, as reflected in many of her poems, especially those pertaining to her dual heritage: the Arab-American; and some of her interviews and prose works. The basic premise, on which the study is built, is that while there are some anxieties or tensions in the world that Nye depicts, regarding her dual heritage, Nye is largely not only comfortable with biculturalism, and with hyphenated-identity, but celebratory of it. One reason behind this is Nye's postmodernism (a movement which comes to recognize and celebrate bi- and multiculturalism); another is Nye's cosmopolitanism, which is perhaps the large context of her biculturalism