What Nye wanted her readers to know about Arabs and Arab Culture

On September 11, 2001, 19 Arab terrorists hijacked and crashed four airplanes in the United States. Two of the planes were crashed into the World Trade Centers in New York City, one plane was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the fourth plane was crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Over 3,000 people were killed (History.com, 9-11 Attacks).

People feel bad when something very bad happens, but it is easy to feel worse when your own people do the terrible thing. Nye must have felt very bad that the people who did this were Arab people and was worried about what people would think of Arabs. I think that she wanted people to know that Arab people were sad too and did not understand how something so bad happened.

I call my father, we talk around the news.

It is too much for him,

neither of his two languages can reach it.

I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,

to plead with the air:

Who calls anyone civilized?

Where can the crying heart graze?

What does a true Arab do now?

(Nye, Blood)

Nye wanted people to know that her father loved America. She heard him talk about figs all of her life, but he never had a fig tree until he was in America.

The last time he moved, I had a phone call,
my father, in Arabic, chanting a song I’d never heard.
“What’s that?”
“Wait till you see!”

He took me out to the new yard.
There, in the middle of Dallas, Texas,
a tree with the largest, fattest, sweetest figs in the world.
“It’s a figtree song!” he said,
plucking his fruits like ripe tokens,
emblems, assurance
of a world that was always his own.

(Nye, My Father and the Fig Tree)

She wants people to understand that her Arab family is like everybody’s family. Her Father moved to America. Her grandmother misses him and is always looking for him to write her a letter.

She knows how often mail arrives,

how rarely there is a letter.

When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,  

listening to it read again and again

in the dim evening light.

(Nye, The Words Under the Words)