Contesting Arab American Identity: Representation Post 9/11 in Arab in America

Toufic El Rassi writes Arab in America at the height of the growing anxiety about Arabs and Muslims post 9/11, giving context to current world events including U.S. and Middle Eastern ties. His main focus in the graphic novel/memoir is on how news and films are major tools in creating negative stereotypes of both Arabs and Muslims. El Rassi uses the concept of Islamophobia to highlight the magnitude of misrepresentation of the Arab image in the American imagination. I argue that it is through these multimodal texts or graphic novels El Rassi is offering alternatives to hate rhetoric.