The melting pot or the salad bowl ? : a Bhabhian reading of Yussef el Guindi's pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the new world

Abstract EN

This paper investigates whether it is better to have a heterogeneous society based on diversity, in which each culture keeps its own distinctive qualities, or to have a homogeneous country, in which ethnic groups abandon their heritage to have a single common culture that maintains the national identity of the country in which they live.

Exploring some of the problems which immigrants face today and referring to Homi Bhabha's concepts of mimicry, hybridity and ambivalence, this paper handles the immigrant experience through an Arab perspectiveinYussef El Guindi's play Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World (2012).

Moreover, it sheds light on the struggle of Arab immigrants to synchronize their native Eastern culture with the dominant American one, and handles people's expectations of each other and of themselves.

Furthermore, it explores whether Laray Barna's stumbling blocks of inter-cultural communication might impede the interaction between the different characters in this play.

As this paper handles different models of assimilation, specifically the melting pot and the salad bowl models of integration, it explores which model is the most appropriate one in cross-cultural communication.

Besides, it asks whether inter-ethnic love can overcome all the cultural differences.

It, also, investigates whether it is better to have a rational and safe marital relationship or to venture and have an exciting marriage based on love.

In addition, it explores how far our personal qualities can unite us together more than our cultural differences that separate us.