Second-Wave Arab American Literature Caught Between Assimilation and Diversity: Literary Legacy Which Descended into a Dormant Period Experienced a Revival in Late 1960s

 

Scholarship on the Mahjar writers saturates much of the existing literature and discussion of Arab American literature, often alongside the contemporary writers of the third wave. By comparison, second-wave literature shares hardly a fraction of the attention between these two periods. From 1948 to 1973, second-wave writers occupied a surprisingly quiet and subdued presence despite the tumultuous developments occurring around them and in the Arab world.

 

Perhaps the lack of attention on the second wave owes to assumptions that their “quiet” presence did not contribute to Arab American literature as richly or powerfully as the first and third waves did. Termed by Palestinian-American poet and scholar Lisa Suhair Majaj as a “period of quiescence,” the production of literature slowed to a standstill as Arab Americans, not yet formally recognized as a group, did not write about ethnic heritage. Instead, their works were characterized by assimilationist rhetoric and uncritical depictions of the American Dream. Such works moved away from themes of yearning for the homeland that had distinguished the writings of several Mahjar poets, which re-emerged later among third-wave writers under a critical lens. Often, the second wave finds relevance in modern discourse through its proximity and differences to both waves, though with contradictory characterizations. Historians have described these writers as either assimilationist, non-political, patriotic, or politically vocal about their origin countries. These dichotomies, both accurate descriptors, make the most sense when understanding the second wave beyond the outliers and as a transitional period between the first and the third waves.