Palestinian-Born Author Talks of His Life in the United States

Shaw Dallal came to the United States as a teenager in the 1950s with $27 in his pocket and the advice of an American missionary to strive for the best. Now the author of "Scattered Like Seeds" and a professor at Cornell University, he says of his life full of achievements, "It could only happen in America."

"You think about the young 16-, 17-year-old kid who comes from peasantry, working his way through college," he said. "I worked in the library at Cornell University. I worked on farms. I dug ditches. I worked in factories. I washed dishes. And I tell you, I look back at it with awe."

The Palestinian-born author left his family following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War to live with his cousin in Kuwait. There, he met an American missionary who encouraged him to study in the United States. Dallal studied engineering and law at Cornell University and worked various jobs before writing "Scattered Like Seeds," a historical novel published in 1999 about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Dallal sat down with Washington File staff writer Mofid Deak during the "National Conference of Arab and Muslim News Media" held in Chicago March 8-10, 2002, to share his reflections on American life and the story of his second novel.

Following is a transcript of the interview:

Q: Hello, Dr. Shaw Dallal, author of "Scattered Like Seeds." You have become a renowned professor, a lawyer, and now the author of a novel that is selling all over America.

Tell me a little bit about how you came to this country as a teenager, and how you made it in other pursuits before you finally hit the publishing world.

DALLAL: After the war of 1947-48 in Palestine, my family was so worried. I was the youngest of eight children, and my family was worried about me staying there, so they sent me to Kuwait.

I stayed there with my first cousin for 45 days. Then he found me a job at the age of 15 at a hospital, which was run by American missionaries. I met an American priest, God bless his resting soul. His name was Father De Jong.

I thought at first that he was an Englishman, so I asked him if he could help me go to Oxford or Cambridge. And he looked at me and said, "Why there?" I said, "Because I want to be a doctor." He smiled and said, "How about going to the United States?" I realized that he was actually an American.

He helped me apply to about 25 colleges and universities among the very, very best in the United States. I had never heard of any of them. They were Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Cornell.

Q: The Ivy Leaguers.

DALLAL: All the Ivy Leaguers, the best, and some small colleges like Swarthmore. I took a test in Kuwait with the American Embassy. In those days -- I'm talking about the early '50s -- there was no TOEFL [Test of English as a Foreign Language] or anything of that sort, but there was some sort of a test students would take to be accepted in American universities.

There were thousands of kids -- Indians, Pakistanis, other Arabs -- that would take that same test, and I ranked number one. And so I got acceptances from various colleges and universities, and I was going to go to a small college in Ohio whose tuition was very low. Cornell University wrote back and asked why I wouldn't go there, and I told them that it was basically an issue of money. They offered me a free tuition scholarship, and I came to the States with about $27 in my pocket.

I worked my way through college, specializing in civil engineering, and then I went to law school. I met and married a college friend of mine, who is the mother of my children, my present wife, and the only wife I've ever had for over 50 years now.

Q: Is she not Arab herself?

DALLAL: She is an American. She's of Anglo-Saxon heritage and origin. And we have three children and seven grandchildren.

Q: When you think back over a span of 50 years now, of living and working in America, what do you think? How do you look back at your American journey?

DALLAL: It was a great experience. It could only happen in America. You think about the young 16-, 17-year-old kid who comes from peasantry, working his way through college. I worked in the library at Cornell University. I worked on farms. I dug ditches. I worked in factories. I washed dishes. And I tell you, I look back at it with awe.

If my grandson, who is now 17, were to tell me, "Grandpa, I want to go to Australia," I would panic. But God bless my parents. I feel so sorry for them. In those days, I would write them a letter. It would take four months to get there, and another four months for me to get an answer. Today, I speak to four or five countries on the phone, and I send e-mail all over the world. So the world has changed.

But the most rewarding thing for me has been marrying my wife and having my children and my family. We are family people. You know, Palestinians, Arab Americans, we cherish our families. I have devoted all my life for my family, for my wife, for my children, and now for my grandchildren.

I think my greatest accomplishment has been my family, wife, and my children, and my grandchildren. This is no small achievement to have a good family, a family who is Arab and American at the same time. We are all equally proud of being both Arab and American. It's true I have written books. I have written articles. I have done a lot of successful work in business. But, really, my family is the ultimate prize, and the ultimate delight.

Q: You told me you are a Palestinian-American Christian. Did that identity make a difference in your accomplishments and who you have become?

DALLAL: Not at all. Some of my housemates in college were of the Jewish faith. They became my very best friends. I live and I work with Americans of all backgrounds. When I first came, I didn't notice the color of African-Americans. For those of us who come from the Middle East, the issue of race doesn't exist. One's color doesn't really matter.

I will never forget my best partner, who was a tall chap, whose name is Yule Fletcher. We became good friends. The greatest shock of my youth is how some of my dear American friends were trying to caution me because he was an African-American. It shocked me. But it didn't change me.

For us Palestinians, we did not think of the issue of race much because our country itself, before the unfortunate strife in it, was a melting pot -- Armenians, and the crusaders came, the Romans, and the Greeks, everybody. I think we show this in our conduct here in the United States.

Q: Let's talk about your career. You have had an interesting career, making bold moves, from engineering, to law, to Middle Eastern studies, and now finally to novel writing. Your novel, Scattered Like Seeds, was published two years ago. First, tell me about this journey.

DALLAL: When I was a young boy, I always wanted to be either a lawyer or a doctor. When I took this test I told you about, my grades were highest in science and math. And so, my mentor, the priest I was telling you about, encouraged me to apply to the College of Engineering. He said I should pursue either architecture or civil engineering, or some sort of engineering.

I took his advice, but I was never cut out to be an engineer. I worked as an engineer for less than a year, and then I found myself moving fast towards law. I took a course in constitutional law under one of the most prominent constitutional lawyers in America those days, Professor Robert E. Cushman. He encouraged me to go to law school.

I went to Cornell University Law School. I practiced law for about eight years, and then the opportunity presented itself for me to become chief legal advisor for the Organization of the Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC). There, I met some businesspeople from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who encouraged me to go into business with them. We formed an offshore drilling company, which became kind of a small conglomerate. And, of course, the Gulf War then came in 1990, and our company was hurt and hit, and we now await our compensation through the United Nations from Iraq.

I came back to the States semi-retired, and I gravitated toward teaching. The university asked me to teach a course for them during the Gulf War, which I did. Now I find myself teaching quite a few courses, and writing was always in my blood. And, essentially, I think I acquired this from my mother, who used to tell me stories when I was a kid, all kinds of stories, fascinating stories.

I started to tell my children stories, the same stories she told me. I used to invent stories to tell my kids. When my son, Tommy, asked me to tell him something about my Palestinian heritage, I wrote a short story about how I came to the United States, and then that story evolved into the novel that you are mentioning, "Scattered like Seeds."

I refined it. I used it as a tool to tell the historical events that I lived, the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and hence the title, "Scattered Like Seeds." And Arabs, Jews, Americans, everybody who has read it found it to be a human story that they were attracted to.

In this visit here to Chicago to attend the Arab and Muslim American Publishers, I participated in one of the panels. One of the people I sat next to, who was a member of the panel and a non- Arab or Muslim American publisher, asked me if he could publish it in paperback. And so, I hope that will make it even more available to people. That's a synopsis.

Q: What is your feeling about the novel as a genre for your story to reach people and have a lasting impact?

DALLAL: As a matter of fact, I say in all modesty, some of the reviewers said that this is a novel that is going to have a long shelf life. One of the reviewers said that it's a novel of interest to those who read world literature. So it is a novel that tells a human story. It tells it in a detached way. Its purpose is not only to educate, but to entertain as well. I really think this is a very interesting experiment for me, and now I have just finished my second novel.

Q: Which will be?

DALLAL: The second novel has nothing to do with the first. Actually, it's based on a law case through my experience -- the truth derived from real-life experience.

It's a story of a young woman who at the age of 18 was raped during World War II. It was a very big tragedy for her and she tried to abort it, decided against it eventually, and her child was born out of wedlock. She then she remarried and never told her daughter of the rape. After the mother dies, the daughter discovers that event, 40 or 50 years after the rape took place. The impact of that violence on the family who discovers this is the thrust of the novel.

Q: Tell me about your experience publishing the first book that inevitably is a controversial book because of the subject matter -- the Israel/Arab conflict. Was it difficult?

DALLAL: Very difficult. As a matter of fact, the book took me about four or five years to write, polish, and refine. But I discovered how difficult it is to publish. I submitted it for publication to no fewer than 50 or 60 prospective publishers.

I had a problem in the beginning. The first three publishers accepted it, and then changed their mind halfway through without explaining why. But I persisted, and then I began to think of the academic press. I submitted it to the Syracuse University Press, and the editor-in-chief of the Press at that time really fell in love with it and went to bat for it with the board. I was afraid that somebody might veto it, but she prevailed.

Q: So your persistence and belief in the value of your work finally paid off?

DALLAL: Yes, and, eventually, those who may have objected to it eventually really liked it a lot, and it's been a success. It has been a success and a terrific experience for me.

Q: Did you connect with any other Arab-American writers after publishing your book?

DALLAL: I haven't really connected with a lot of Arab-American novel writers. I have been more a part of academia. I have written a lot of articles in international law journals, and in business journals, and in the press, generally. After the book was published, it was reviewed very favorably by Publisher's Weekly, by Choice magazine, by a lot of the Middle Eastern reputable journals like Middle East Journal. Ray Hanania [also an Arab novelist and organizer of the conference] discovered me, so to speak, and he invited me to participate at this conference. Thanks to him, I have been coming to these conferences and meeting a lot of Arabs.

Q: What did that experience teach you, and how would you pass along this experience to other Arab-Americans or potential Arab-American publishers and writers?

DALLAL: Perseverance and never to give up. I think that at the end of the day, you will find that the American people are basically and fundamentally a fair-minded people, and they'll give you an opportunity.

On publishing, the biggest trick is to have somebody read it. In my case, this woman I had never met, an editor, saw my novel, leafed through it and took it home. It was an accident that she took it home. She began to read it that night, and she couldn't leave it until 4 o'clock in the morning. She called me back the next day. She said, "We're going to publish your book." And so, I signed an agreement with her three or four weeks later.

Q: Fantastic. Do you read other contemporary Arab-American writers?

DALLAL: Yes, I will tell you. Before I came to America, even when I was young kid, there was a tradition in my own family of reading. I read the writings of Taha Hussein [one of the great Egyptian and Arab writers of the 20th century]. I read Kahlil Gibran, Michael Naimi, Amin Al-Rayhani, and the rest of the early Arab-American writers. But when I came to Cornell, even when I was in the College of Engineering, I used to read Joseph Conrad.

Q: The Heart of Darkness.

DALLAL: I read that. I read Ernest Hemingway. I read William Faulkner. I read Sherwood Anderson. I read Eudora Welty. I read a lot of the great American writers. Reading those in the context of the stories that my mom used to tell me is an edifying experience.

When I was in the College of Engineering, I took a course one summer, believe it or not, under a professor who was an obscure professor in those days at Cornell University, by the name of Vladimir Nabokov, who is the famous author of Lolita. He was a professor at Cornell University before he became very prominent, and he taught a course on the novel. He encouraged me to take other courses. So I took courses on the short story and creative writing under other professors.

And so, in trying again to write this novel, I had a certain amount of background in creative writing and in writing short stories in the context of western short stories. The western short story, forgive me for saying, has its origin in Arab storytelling. I think the Arabian Knights, Shakespeare even, may have borrowed from the Arabian Knights. So we come from a heritage of literature, of civilization, enlightenment. When you refine this with the culture of the west, it produces a "Scattered Like Seeds."

Q: And it sells.

DALLAL: And it sells.

Q: And it gets accepted.

DALLAL: It gets accepted. I owe this to a lot of things. I owe it to my mother, to my folks, to my family, to my heritage. I owe it to the kindness of the American people who took care of me here in the United States when I came almost like an orphan boy. I owe a lot to my teachers, who taught me the English language, and who taught me the western way of writing a novel. This means of communication I think, I hope, will be helpful in enlightening people, and maybe a small step toward peace and understanding among people.

Q: Who is your ideal American novelist today?

DALLAL: My best idealist American novelist is William Faulkner. I say this because I think he comes from a part of the world, the south, where I see a lot of my background.

Q: He mirrors your own experience?

DALLAL: Yes, sure. I also admire Joseph Conrad a lot. I have read a lot of Joseph Conrad, and I identify with him because English was his second language, just like English is my second language. And when I read the writings of Conrad, and when people read my writing, people are awed by the fact that I, a Palestinian-Arab, as I said, who comes from peasantry, is able to write a novel like Scattered Like Seeds. Far be it for me to compare myself with Conrad, but I have learned a lot from him.

Q: Having published your first book successfully, will publishing the second one be easier? Hopefully, you won't have to go through a list of 50 people to get published.

DALLAL: I hope not. The publishing process is difficult, and I don't have an agent. I think the minute that I have an agent, that it will be easier for me, because I'd like to write three or four more novels before I depart this world.

Q: Oh, long life, inshallah.

DALLAL: Thank you.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)