This short word has innumerable meanings. Among these meanings is that home is a place of residence or refuge. It is a place in which an individual or family can rest and be able to store personal property. It is the big house with the wide windows, the furniture and it could be the white fence surrounding the spacious garden. So home here is the place where you live, the physical locale, and the bricks that build up a house.
An anecdote is told of a post-war family transferred from one place to the other in search of settlement. On one occasion, the family was standing in a train station surrounded by their tattered suitcases, boxes and bags when a bystander approached the family’s six-year-old daughter and remarked, ” You poor darling, moving about so much with no place to call home.” The little girl looked up in surprise. You are mistaken,” she replied, “I do have a home; I just do not have a house to put it into.” From this story, we realize another different dimension of the concept of home rather than something tangible. Home here is something which could be spiritual and is an abstract concept.
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by the Arab-American writer Mohja Kahf takes readers into the depths of thought and feeling of a woman- Khadra. Khadra struggles with personal freedom, and the search for her inner-self. Kahf brilliantly uses minor characters to help reflect on Khadra’s thoughts, feelings, her desires and obstacles which stand in her way. This is done through the use of interaction with these characters, dialogue and the representation of behavior and appearance thus allowing the readers to understand the character of our protagonist Khadra and reflect on her transition over the years of her life as a Muslim at the same time, as an Arab-American and her yearning for finding her home. The story is about a journey of self-discovery and self-fulfillment. Khadra embarks on a quest to find the interconnectedness between self and identity. Ultimately, finding home; reaching the state of knowing who she is, and being at ease with her self. The topic of home is one of the major points raised in the novel.
As for the major character, Khadra, we decided to track her change of the concept of home depicted through her own lens, beginning as a child, then moving to adulthood which consists of two stages, one which is temporary and the other is everlasting.
In Khadra’s childhood, “The first world Khadra remembered was Square One (8).” Here we see the general meaning of home, which is where refuge and residence are taken. For Khadra, as a child, she did not think of home beyond Square One. However, although very young, Khadra understood that home was not simply a place where you rest and are able to store personal property. She found warmth and security at Square one for she associates her home with what she believes to be heaven. “Mama, what is heaven? Heaven is place where you have all your heart desires. Khadra figures out that meant heaven was Square One (9).” Kahf then shows her readers what home was to Khadra displaying an image which immediately brings out feelings of comfort, joy and a sense of belonging to something greater to oneself. “There were sings on long silver chains. You wriggled your butt into the seat and you got pushed up-up-up and you learned the lines of the Fatiha: “Bismillah arrahmani alrahim!” Khadra sang as her father pushed her up (9).”
Khadra’s physical surrounding of home then moves on from Square One to Indianapolis when her father, a devoted Dawah worker, decides to take his family and move into the heart of Indiana where Muslims are in need of guidance. This, he thought, was a noble jihad. It certainly was, for the Shamy family arrived at their new Fallen Timbers Townhouse complex only to be greeted by two boys with scorned faces. “What they saw spilling out of the station wagon with its fake wood panel was a bunch of foreigners. Dark and wrong. Dressed funny. Their talk was gross sounds, like some one throwing up (6).” How could Khadra begin to feel at home in a place where those who call America their homeland, their country view her as a foreigner? Throughout the novel, Khadra continuously faces this sense of rejection making it very difficult for her to find home in Indianapolis. Life is hard for anybody. Being a Muslim and at the same time living in America is quite the challenge. `It is a constant struggle to live the life of a Muslim in a society that contradicts most of Islam’s teachings. Something Muslims really have to look out for in the food market is pig. They are forbidden from eating anything that contains pork. Unfortunately, it is a popular ingredient found in lots of food products and recipes. Therefore, it is easy for Muslims to consume pork by mistake. “Khadra said,” I can’t eat this,” her round baby-fat face grave. “Why not sweetie?”Mrs. Brown said. “There is a pig in it.” “Nooo, there isn’t a pig in it, dear!” “She was so pretty and so nice to be sure. Khadra ate the candy corn and put some in her pocket. Eyad saw the candy corn…”Candy corn has pig!” “Nuh uh!” But it did (13).” Khadra then waits in horror for the bugs she believes to be growing in her stomach to eat her guts out. At such a young age, Khadra had to worry about accidentally eating pig and deny yummy treats at school if she was unsure. Surely this made her uncomfortable at times.
For many years Islam has been misrepresented by the American media. Due to ignorance and corruption, the media has played a large role in stereotyping Islam as a violent religion. In the novel, the character of Zuhura, a Muslim university student, is murdered by Klansmen who were “returning from Skokie, where they’d not been allowed to have the big rally they had planned (89).” Following her death, we see the effect it has on Khadra and how she feels about the place where she has grown up. “Maybe we don’t belong here, Khadra thought, standing… in the crowd at Zuhura’s graveside. Maybe she belonged in a place where she would not get shoved and called “rag head” every other day in the school hallway. Teachers, classmates-no one ever caught her assailants. They always melted into the crowd behind her (97).” Khadra accepts that Islam is a way of life that steers one’s daily decisions; it is a part of who she is and what she believes in. The humiliation Khadra endures in the years to follow her mission to be an example of a true Muslim, brave enough to defend Islam, gives rise to a sense of displacement and self-alienation. At one point in the novel, America is at war with Iran and fifty-two white American men are taken hostage. “This made America hopping mad. America was mad at Khadra personally, the Shamy family, and all the other Muslims of Indianapolis (119)“. Here, the author makes clear that the people of America are separate from Khadra and her family. This division is highly important for it gives Khadra more reason to break away from the only place she has ever truly known.
Much of American culture conflicts with the Islamic way of life. There is too much freedom being experienced in America, especially by the young generation. This can be alluring to young Muslims who aren’t allowed to behave in such a way thus having a negative impact on their identities. However, Khadra sees a clear line between halal and haram. She is known as a bit of a snitch when it comes to seeing other young Muslims of her community in sinful acts fallen to temptation. Also, in hajj, Khadra is assumed by Afaaf and her friends to be an American and therefore accustomed to American ways only. “That again.”I’m not American! “She yelled in Arabic, kicking dust at Afaaf (178).” Clearly Khadra did not view herself as an American and so could not possibly consider America her home although that is where she lived. So if America was not her home, then what was her home?
Khadra and her family originally come from Syria. “Syria was flashed of words and tasted to Khadra.” She remembers the streets busy with people who spoke Arabic in the same rhythms as her mother and father. “Eh wallah, but here in Mreeka, no one looked like them and they looked like no one (16).” Again, this shows that Khadra did not identify with Americans. Even after gaining citizenship, Khadra continues to call herself an Arab. Does this imply that an Arab cannot be at home in a non-Arab country?
Years later when Khadra enters university, she meets Juma, a strong and handsome practicing Muslim. They marry and Khadra enters into the world of womanhood. Readers are shown how Juma, her newly husband, becomes her home. “Married life was bliss. To have a friend always, a built-in friend. To pray fajr beside him in the dark misty dawn and sleep beside him in your full-sized bed—your very own man (222).” Juma was her lover, but more importantly her best friend who would always be there to share the good times and the bad. They would t