In her latest book, Looking Both Ways: An Egyptian-American Journey, Pauline Kaldas expresses the synchronous, connected, simultaneous experience of the transnational individual. Where distance once allowed Arab-Americans a certain amount of time to shift from their Western realities to their Eastern roots when communicating by handwritten letters and expensive long-distance phone calls, now with the benefit of communications technology and air travel, they experience a singular situation in multiple ways while contending with their own and others’ multiple perspectives.
Kaldas articulates the subtle concept of simultaneity, of living in a transnational migratory space. She expresses this sense of simultaneity in her description of her experience during the Egyptian protests of the Arab Spring of 2011. She writes “As soon as the protests begin, I call my family in Egypt. All of them are staying at home, hoping that things will calm down soon. The emails and phone calls tumble into my house almost simultaneously with friends and colleagues asking about my family.”
In physics, simultaneity refers to the perceived relation of events to each other. John Walker, founder of Autodesk, Inc. and co-author of AutoCAD offers a definition.
One of the most fundamental deductions Albert Einstein made from the finite speed of light in his theory of special relativity is the relativity of simultaneity—because light takes a finite time to traverse a distance in space, it is not possible to define simultaneity with respect to a universal clock shared by all observers. In fact, purely due to their locations in space, two observers may disagree about the order in which two spatially separated events occurred.
Pauline Kaldas invites readers to understand the impact transnational simultaneity has on everyday lives and perceptions. For Kaldas, this phenomenon starts with a name. Her name. Soon after her birth, there was a hint of what was to later come. Her name, Pauline, was awarded to her after several days of thoughtful consideration by her relatives. Her parents were forward thinkers who were interested in new ideas and in the promises of the West. The name Pauline was suggested by her Aunt Vicky, who had studied French. While the name Pauline was an oddity in Egypt, it is familiar to Europeans and Americans. This name was meant to “satisfy the needs of tradition and modernity,” Kaldas writes, “This name, with its foreign pronunciation, its removal from the Arabic language – still perceived as inferior in this post-colonial society – must have caught my mother’s ear.” She goes on to write “This name marked my place at the periphery of the world I was born into and which became mine.” So, at birth, Pauline Kaldas was situated in a conceptual, simultaneous space at the border of the Western world that she would later enter and make her own, while still being immersed in her Egyptian homeland. From one vantage point, she possessed a unique name that set her apart in her home country; from another perspective, her name foretold her entry into the world her name symbolizes.
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International travel is increasingly accessible to many people, but not everyone. Through literature, such as Kaldas’ book, readers are inspired to consider how instant, global communications are impacting all communities, whether or not the reader is aware of the emergence of individual experiences of transnational simultaneity. These are important concepts for readers to consider if only to decipher how their experiences link with others in the world.
In the chapter “Make it Like the Recipe” Kaldas discusses her inability to follow a precise recipe. She explains, “Perhaps it’s my winding life path that makes it so difficult for me to follow rules – there is always another way to get there even if it involves a lot of stumbling.” She expresses transnational embodiment more fully as she describes a conversation with an Egyptian friend who tells her that her entire body transforms as she switches from English to Arabic. He says, “you become a different person with each language.”
Those who express secure transnational cultural embodiments have spent extensive time in two or more countries as children or adolescents. Multiple language acquisitions contribute to their personal characteristics, and they embody transnational simultaneity by expressing themselves through multiple cultural norms. For multilingual and multicultural individuals, those internalized “different persons” mentioned by Kaldas’ friend will have different views of the same events. They will find alternate paths to the same destination. Differing cultural understandings and interpretations live within transnational individuals and are also external to them, simultaneously.
After teaching teenagers and young adults for over twelve years, I have learned by trial and error that teaching writing and teaching Arab Studies requires a scaffolded approach. There is a well-known teaching axiom that says, “We have to start from where students are.” Kaldas’ work is accessible to readers who are new to topics in Arab studies, and to Migration, Diasporic, and Transnational Studies. She offers numerous well-told vignettes that can be launching points for richer discussions on immigration, on intercultural competencies, on the Arab Spring, and of Egyptian and Pan-Arab history. I will use this book to introduce readers to new ideas in Arab and Transnational studies, and I recommend this book to anyone who seeks a rich and enlightening literary experience.