Welcome, my friends, to our Brooklyn College Core 10.01 class blog. Hopefully, this will be a place where we can all learn from one another. Be honest, be inquisitive, be challenging.
Close reading for “You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas”
“Your Baba puts in a tape of Abdel Halim singing sawah but in the middle of it, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch comes on, and your father says he heard it on the radio and had to tape it because he thought it gave him a good feeling.” (Jarrar, 7)
In her work, Randa Jarrar writes about what it is to be an Arab teenaged girl in America. This girl is eager to assimilate to American culture while her father upholds traditional Arab values. She explores music, movies, fast food, and other aspects of stereotypical American society. On her quest for American-ness, she asserts her independence like a regular American teenager. She wants to go to rap concerts, stay out late with her friends, even have a boyfriend; all things that her father disapproves of. Jarrar sets up a binary of American/Arab. It is evident that the “Arab chick” embraces American culture, yet she still has ties to Egypt. Connections to her native country include referring to herself as Arab, corresponding with Fakhr Eldin, and, most importantly, her parents. This quote demonstrates how the father combines Arab and American culture. At the beginning of the story he seems fixed in his identity, but he is aware of the opportunities in the United States. This awareness gives him the potential for change and adaptation. It is possible that his daughter misjudged him since, by the end of the story, he is more Americanized than readers were led to believe. He records American rap music onto an Arab cassette because he likes it; it gives him a “good feeling”. It is no coincidence that Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch start playing in the “middle” of the tape. This middle ground indicates the slash in the binary-it is possible to be a combination of both cultures; one should not have to choose sides when identity is such an obscure concept to begin with. The music serves as an example of play between American and Arab cultures. This literal blending of the two genres of music embodies the process of breaking the American/Arab binary. According to what readers perceive in the story, the mother is not as severe as her husband. Since the quote is from her perspective instead of the daughter’s, we are allowed to see the father in a different light. While he is overprotective and stubborn about keeping to customs, his identity is not fixed. While the main character faces life through an American/Arab lens, her thoughts and behaviors are typical of the majority of teenagers. There cannot be a binary when everyone shares the same experiences. She discovers the reality of disappointment; not all American things are good and it is possible to have too much of a good thing. She realizes eating at McDonald’s too often is disgusting yet she enjoys MTV and Oreos. Our protagonist assumes that her parents are against her due to their strictness. Her father invades her privacy by reading Fakhr’s letter. In addition, she argues with him because he barely lets her leave the house. In response to her familial constraints, she runs away from home. When the family is reunited again, the girl realizes that her mother is on her side after all. The thoughtful mother has saved the letters that her husband threatened to destroy. Through her mother, she might attempt to understand her father’s perspective a little better. When father and daughter negotiate, the father does give in to some of his daughter’s demands. He is willing to consider her feelings and, begrudgingly, make changes. If the daughter took the time to think about her parents’ perspectives instead of running then she might have realized they are her allies. However, being dramatic and self-centered is perfectly normal behavior for many teenagers, American or otherwise.
Close reading to You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved To Texas
“Enough, man,” Mama tells your Baba. “Let the child go, she’s suffocating here.”
“You, you be quiet, the girl’s not going to rap Concerts and getting drunk and pregnant. No, no, and no. Full stop.” And to seal it, he’d farted three times.
I want to have friends!” you scream, and run to your room.
We are not here to make a friend, we are here to study and get the best out of America.”
When we read this part, we get the meaning of a conflict Randa Jarrar brings inside an immigrant family, an Arabian one in America- assimilation, which wins on culture obstacles and the conflict parent-child. On one side of this conflict we see assimilation, an Americanized daughter and an emancipated mother. The girl feels American, she wants to have friends and wants to join them in a concert and have fun. Therefore, she eagerly opposes her father who sees going to the American entertainment places very wrong. But though the girls is passive- she needs to get parents’ permission- she breaks that binary and “screams”, “I want to have friends,” and runs to her room. She is not behaving like Arabian girls should. She is supposed to obey. But her reaction is American-she insists on her decision and scream. “Scream” interprets the girl’s feelings. She is like: “I know what I am doing, but you don’t understand; you are ignorant father; you don’t know what life is about, but I do. I am smart.” Also, we get the meaning of an assimilated mother to American culture. “‘Enough man,” Mama tells Baba. Let the child go, she’s suffocating here.’” She is an assimilated Arabian woman. She understands that living according to their country’s traditions makes life isolated, makes children suffer. She understands that her daughter can’t be kept closed because that is impossible. She is like, “It is ok for my daughter to go to a concert. We don’t live in Arabia. We live in America and this is normal.” Also, she in herself is emancipated. She opposes her husband and wants her voice to be heard. Jarrar destroys the cultural binary, man (power)/ woman (obedience). On the other side of the conflict, there is a father who seems to be not willing to agree with the American life. His view for a concert, “getting drunk and pregnant” is different from what his daughter’s, “I want to have friends.” Therefore, he tries to use his power in the family-cultural binary, to prevent his daughter from going to the concert but is confronting not only the reaction of his daughter but also the one of his wife. We get the idea that living in your culture is not so hard for an old generation but hard for the young one. Jarrar, however, allows us to see that social concepts have power versus cultural ones.
The story itself, in its construction is a deconstruction of the things that are familiar to see in a story- its form, language style, author voice. We realize that what Jarrar is writing is a story and not a poem, though the first impression conflicts with the story image. Randa Jarrar brings the deconstruction concept through her language style and also through the characters’ life. When we read,“ ‘Enough, man,’ Mama tells your Baba,” we realize that Jarrar speaks in the second voice. She tries to impose something new, something unusual for us. Usually we meet a third or a first voice of the author. The usual relation, author and reader --the binary author/reader, where the author has the control of the situation, knows more, and is able to penetrate in the inside world of the characters-- is lost and replaced with reader=author. Jarrar has a direct conversation with her main character, the 14-year-old Arabian girl, “you scream, and run to your room,” and makes herself an invisible person that talks directly with the 14-year-old girl. That allows the reader to have control in what is going on around the family. The direct speech gives the notion of direction of how the assimilation of a new immigrant family is going to take. The language itself is slang; it is the part of character speech and author herself. That is an indicator of a reality, is part of the everyday life, and shows that the assimilation process of the English language is not done, but takes time. All these unfamiliar things seem to be the author’s intention; he wants us to assimilate a new style of reading, and destroy the old style in order to understand better the way the assimilation functions in the lives of Arabian immigrant families.
Being the sore thumb in a crowd is not something easy to deal with. Knowing every time you walk into a room that you will stick out because of who you are and where you come from is something that many people have to deal with, especially in America, the place of many different races. One would think that since this country is based on immigration that the newcomers would feel welcomed and accepted, but the fact of the matter is that they aren’t. It doesn’t matter how long you have been here, there are always going to be things that differentiate you from the rest of the nation. Randa Jarrar, the author of “You are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas ”, writes about this family that has recently moved to America and faces the many challenges that separate who they are from what America is. At the end of the first paragraph the author, with a peculiar use of language, writes about the family’s experience at the movie theaters. Firstly, she makes the main character, which she never names, seem as if she is really the only connection that her parents have to America. The parents do speak English, very little of it, but they have difficulty understanding it. It is through their daughter that they can follow movie plots, and also assimilate to American ways. It is through the way the author speaks that we can see the girl speaking to the parents. It is not only very clear and explicit language, but the author makes sure to not leave anything to the listeners imagination, whatever she is trying to imply when she’s speaking she says it straight out. This is how one speaks to a person from another country, slowly and explicitly so that they understand every word that the person is saying to them. When you take a closer look at what the author is saying in the last part of this paragraph, you see that she is implying that no matter what the girl or family does to try and fit in, there is always going to be something standing in their way. When they are watching the movie, as American as she says it is, they don’t understand it, so the daughter has to stay after the movie and explain it, in Arabic, to her parents. She says that there is nothing sadder than the girl having to explain the movie to her parents, and not just her parents, her middle-aged parents. She explicitly states middle-aged to show us that there is a difference in age that distinguishes between those that should be wiser and smarter and those that should be learning from the ones with more experience. Naturally one would think that the children learn from the parents, but in this case we see that the parents are learning from the daughter, the one that is younger and not as intelligent and wise as they should be. It is an interesting use of words because it shows us that although she is younger, the daughter is already a step ahead of her parents in living a successful and meaningful life in America. The author calls the parents illiterate for not being able to understand the movie, something that many American people tend to spend their spare time doing. By the parents not being able to understand the movie, it is almost like her saying they will never be able to understand the culture, and the American way of life. They will be illiterate to the customs of America, and that will put them in the category of being foreigners. This will break or make them in America, being able to effectively communicate with other people that don’t belong to their race. If they cannot do this then it will be hard for them to assimilate, but the problem lies within the fact of whether they want to assimilate or if they are just here to reap the benefits of this country. If this move is strictly business then not fitting in won’t be as devastating, but as we can see with the rest of the article, it is devastating for the daughter. As much as she is Arabic, she is still young and in order to enjoy herself she feels the need to become American. The author, in the next line, says that it breaks her heart when she really thinks about the fact that her parents don’t fit in, so she keeps to herself, not trying to make friends, because by making American friends, it will make her more American causing a rift between her parents and herself. She sits alone eating lunch outside of the library, and then she goes into the library and reads the dictionary for the rest of the period. She tries to isolate herself and tries not to assimilate so that she doesn’t have to go through the pain of having to choose between whom she was born to be and who she is growing to be. Nevertheless, even though she keeps away, she is still learning the language and reading the dictionary, so it places her at a different level than her parents, because she is actually learning the fundamental characteristic of the American nationality. The rift that one causes between themselves and their parents is sometimes inevitable, especially when it comes down to being loyal and miserable or different and happy. The daughter in the article seems to want to choose to be different from her parents, yet she still wants to hold on to who she was in her country of origin. She wants to be able to stay in contact with her friend from back home and she wants to have an extended curfew in America, and it is through this that she will differentiate herself from her parents. She will not only identify herself as Arabic, but she will also identify herself as American, something that her parents will probably never do. This Post-Colonial theory of binary oppositions is no longer American/ Arabic for the daughter, like it is for the parents, but rather it is Arabic-American.
3 comments:
CC 10.01 Raquel Arnao
Close reading for “You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas”
“Your Baba puts in a tape of Abdel Halim singing sawah but in the middle of it, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch comes on, and your father says he heard it on the radio and had to tape it because he thought it gave him a good feeling.” (Jarrar, 7)
In her work, Randa Jarrar writes about what it is to be an Arab teenaged girl in America. This girl is eager to assimilate to American culture while her father upholds traditional Arab values. She explores music, movies, fast food, and other aspects of stereotypical American society. On her quest for American-ness, she asserts her independence like a regular American teenager. She wants to go to rap concerts, stay out late with her friends, even have a boyfriend; all things that her father disapproves of.
Jarrar sets up a binary of American/Arab. It is evident that the “Arab chick” embraces American culture, yet she still has ties to Egypt. Connections to her native country include referring to herself as Arab, corresponding with Fakhr Eldin, and, most importantly, her parents.
This quote demonstrates how the father combines Arab and American culture. At the beginning of the story he seems fixed in his identity, but he is aware of the opportunities in the United States. This awareness gives him the potential for change and adaptation. It is possible that his daughter misjudged him since, by the end of the story, he is more Americanized than readers were led to believe. He records American rap music onto an Arab cassette because he likes it; it gives him a “good feeling”. It is no coincidence that Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch start playing in the “middle” of the tape. This middle ground indicates the slash in the binary-it is possible to be a combination of both cultures; one should not have to choose sides when identity is such an obscure concept to begin with. The music serves as an example of play between American and Arab cultures. This literal blending of the two genres of music embodies the process of breaking the American/Arab binary.
According to what readers perceive in the story, the mother is not as severe as her husband. Since the quote is from her perspective instead of the daughter’s, we are allowed to see the father in a different light. While he is overprotective and stubborn about keeping to customs, his identity is not fixed.
While the main character faces life through an American/Arab lens, her thoughts and behaviors are typical of the majority of teenagers. There cannot be a binary when everyone shares the same experiences. She discovers the reality of disappointment; not all American things are good and it is possible to have too much of a good thing. She realizes eating at McDonald’s too often is disgusting yet she enjoys MTV and Oreos. Our protagonist assumes that her parents are against her due to their strictness. Her father invades her privacy by reading Fakhr’s letter. In addition, she argues with him because he barely lets her leave the house. In response to her familial constraints, she runs away from home.
When the family is reunited again, the girl realizes that her mother is on her side after all. The thoughtful mother has saved the letters that her husband threatened to destroy. Through her mother, she might attempt to understand her father’s perspective a little better. When father and daughter negotiate, the father does give in to some of his daughter’s demands. He is willing to consider her feelings and, begrudgingly, make changes. If the daughter took the time to think about her parents’ perspectives instead of running then she might have realized they are her allies. However, being dramatic and self-centered is perfectly normal behavior for many teenagers, American or otherwise.
Close reading to You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved To Texas
“Enough, man,” Mama tells your Baba.
“Let the child go, she’s suffocating here.”
“You, you be quiet, the girl’s not going to rap
Concerts and getting drunk and pregnant. No,
no, and no. Full stop.” And to seal it, he’d farted
three times.
I want to have friends!” you scream, and run
to your room.
We are not here to make a friend, we are
here to study and get the best out of
America.”
When we read this part, we get the meaning of a conflict Randa Jarrar brings inside an immigrant family, an Arabian one in America- assimilation, which wins on culture obstacles and the conflict parent-child.
On one side of this conflict we see assimilation, an Americanized daughter and an emancipated mother. The girl feels American, she wants to have friends and wants to join them in a concert and have fun. Therefore, she eagerly opposes her father who sees going to the American entertainment places very wrong. But though the girls is passive- she needs to get parents’ permission- she breaks that binary and “screams”, “I want to have friends,” and runs to her room. She is not behaving like Arabian girls should. She is supposed to obey. But her reaction is American-she insists on her decision and scream. “Scream” interprets the girl’s feelings. She is like: “I know what I am doing, but you don’t understand; you are ignorant father; you don’t know what life is about, but I do. I am smart.”
Also, we get the meaning of an assimilated mother to American culture. “‘Enough man,” Mama tells Baba. Let the child go, she’s suffocating here.’” She is an assimilated Arabian woman. She understands that living according to their country’s traditions makes life isolated, makes children suffer. She understands that her daughter can’t be kept closed because that is impossible. She is like, “It is ok for my daughter to go to a concert. We don’t live in Arabia. We live in America and this is normal.” Also, she in herself is emancipated. She opposes her husband and wants her voice to be heard. Jarrar destroys the cultural binary, man (power)/ woman (obedience).
On the other side of the conflict, there is a father who seems to be not willing to agree with the American life. His view for a concert, “getting drunk and pregnant” is different from what his daughter’s, “I want to have friends.” Therefore, he tries to use his power in the family-cultural binary, to prevent his daughter from going to the concert but is confronting not only the reaction of his daughter but also the one of his wife. We get the idea that living in your culture is not so hard for an old generation but hard for the young one. Jarrar, however, allows us to see that social concepts have power versus cultural ones.
The story itself, in its construction is a deconstruction of the things that are familiar to see in a story- its form, language style, author voice. We realize that what Jarrar is writing is a story and not a poem, though the first impression conflicts with the story image. Randa Jarrar brings the deconstruction concept through her language style and also through the characters’ life.
When we read,“ ‘Enough, man,’ Mama tells your Baba,” we realize that Jarrar speaks in the second voice. She tries to impose something new, something unusual for us. Usually we meet a third or a first voice of the author. The usual relation, author and reader --the binary author/reader, where the author has the control of the situation, knows more, and is able to penetrate in the inside world of the characters-- is lost and replaced with reader=author. Jarrar has a direct conversation with her main character, the 14-year-old Arabian girl, “you scream, and run to your room,” and makes herself an invisible person that talks directly with the 14-year-old girl. That allows the reader to have control in what is going on around the family. The direct speech gives the notion of direction of how the assimilation of a new immigrant family is going to take.
The language itself is slang; it is the part of character speech and author herself. That is an indicator of a reality, is part of the everyday life, and shows that the assimilation process of the English language is not done, but takes time. All these unfamiliar things seem to be the author’s intention; he wants us to assimilate a new style of reading, and destroy the old style in order to understand better the way the assimilation functions in the lives of Arabian immigrant families.
Being the sore thumb in a crowd is not something easy to deal with. Knowing every time you walk into a room that you will stick out because of who you are and where you come from is something that many people have to deal with, especially in America, the place of many different races. One would think that since this country is based on immigration that the newcomers would feel welcomed and accepted, but the fact of the matter is that they aren’t. It doesn’t matter how long you have been here, there are always going to be things that differentiate you from the rest of the nation.
Randa Jarrar, the author of “You are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas ”, writes about this family that has recently moved to America and faces the many challenges that separate who they are from what America is. At the end of the first paragraph the author, with a peculiar use of language, writes about the family’s experience at the movie theaters. Firstly, she makes the main character, which she never names, seem as if she is really the only connection that her parents have to America. The parents do speak English, very little of it, but they have difficulty understanding it. It is through their daughter that they can follow movie plots, and also assimilate to American ways. It is through the way the author speaks that we can see the girl speaking to the parents. It is not only very clear and explicit language, but the author makes sure to not leave anything to the listeners imagination, whatever she is trying to imply when she’s speaking she says it straight out. This is how one speaks to a person from another country, slowly and explicitly so that they understand every word that the person is saying to them.
When you take a closer look at what the author is saying in the last part of this paragraph, you see that she is implying that no matter what the girl or family does to try and fit in, there is always going to be something standing in their way. When they are watching the movie, as American as she says it is, they don’t understand it, so the daughter has to stay after the movie and explain it, in Arabic, to her parents. She says that there is nothing sadder than the girl having to explain the movie to her parents, and not just her parents, her middle-aged parents. She explicitly states middle-aged to show us that there is a difference in age that distinguishes between those that should be wiser and smarter and those that should be learning from the ones with more experience. Naturally one would think that the children learn from the parents, but in this case we see that the parents are learning from the daughter, the one that is younger and not as intelligent and wise as they should be. It is an interesting use of words because it shows us that although she is younger, the daughter is already a step ahead of her parents in living a successful and meaningful life in America.
The author calls the parents illiterate for not being able to understand the movie, something that many American people tend to spend their spare time doing. By the parents not being able to understand the movie, it is almost like her saying they will never be able to understand the culture, and the American way of life. They will be illiterate to the customs of America, and that will put them in the category of being foreigners. This will break or make them in America, being able to effectively communicate with other people that don’t belong to their race. If they cannot do this then it will be hard for them to assimilate, but the problem lies within the fact of whether they want to assimilate or if they are just here to reap the benefits of this country. If this move is strictly business then not fitting in won’t be as devastating, but as we can see with the rest of the article, it is devastating for the daughter. As much as she is Arabic, she is still young and in order to enjoy herself she feels the need to become American. The author, in the next line, says that it breaks her heart when she really thinks about the fact that her parents don’t fit in, so she keeps to herself, not trying to make friends, because by making American friends, it will make her more American causing a rift between her parents and herself. She sits alone eating lunch outside of the library, and then she goes into the library and reads the dictionary for the rest of the period. She tries to isolate herself and tries not to assimilate so that she doesn’t have to go through the pain of having to choose between whom she was born to be and who she is growing to be. Nevertheless, even though she keeps away, she is still learning the language and reading the dictionary, so it places her at a different level than her parents, because she is actually learning the fundamental characteristic of the American nationality.
The rift that one causes between themselves and their parents is sometimes inevitable, especially when it comes down to being loyal and miserable or different and happy. The daughter in the article seems to want to choose to be different from her parents, yet she still wants to hold on to who she was in her country of origin. She wants to be able to stay in contact with her friend from back home and she wants to have an extended curfew in America, and it is through this that she will differentiate herself from her parents. She will not only identify herself as Arabic, but she will also identify herself as American, something that her parents will probably never do. This Post-Colonial theory of binary oppositions is no longer American/ Arabic for the daughter, like it is for the parents, but rather it is Arabic-American.
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