De-Arabizing and the Politics of Identity in Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans

In this study, “de-Arabizing” is presented as a vital conceptual tool to analyze the process of negotiating one’s identity in the work of Laila Lalami, titled The Other Americans (2019). For this purpose, a complex theoretical framework consisting of concepts from disciplines including, but not limited to, literature, culture studies, sociology, psychology, and critical theory was developed. Specifically, Said’s theory of Orientalism (1978), Bhabha’s third space theory (1994), Hall’s processual understanding of the nature of diasporic identity (1990), and critical race theory (CRT) put forward by Delgado and Stefancic (2017) will be utilized. Close reading and narrative analysis will be used as primary analytical techniques to explore the construction of de-Arabizing through characterization, dialogue, structural features of the narrative such as multiperspectivity, and symbolic motifs. Through analyzing the various reactions to assimilation among members of the Guerraoui family, the current research will demonstrate that de-Arabizing may serve both as a survival technique and experience of traumatic dispossession, while still leaving room for transformation. Crucially, although the characters are primarily shown as caught in between cultures in Lalami’s narrative rather than occupying productive third spaces, there are indications of transformation at the end of the narrative.