Vivid: Journal of Language and Literature - Vol. 9 No. 2 (2020) Online version available in : http://jurnalvivid.fb.unand.ac.id | ISSN (Online) 2502-146X | Vivid: Journal of Language and Literature SubmiSSion Track A B S T R A C T Recieved: June 12, 2020 Final Revision: August 18, 2020 Available Online: December 10, 2020 This thesis entitled ‘Being Muslim Immigrants in America: Preservation, Resistance, and Negotiation of Identity in Ayad Akhtar’s ‘American Dervish’ aims to analyze the depiction of Muslim immigrants identity in the context of diaspora. Through the lenses of Hall’s theory of identity and Clifford’s diaspora, the analysis centered on how the Muslim immigrant characters in the novel interacted with other individuals with diverse backgrounds of race, gender, and religion. This contributed towards the construction of identity through the preservation and resistance of homeland culture, dominant culture or host land culture and the negotiation between Muslim immigrants and their state and American society. Therefore, the Muslim immigrant characters in the novel hold a non-essential and fuid identity as portrayed from the perpetual construction of identity. keyword Muslim Immigrants, Identity, Preservation, Resistance, Negotiation correSpondence E-mail: rikahandayani@hum.unand.ac.id Literary Studies Being Muslim Immigrants in America: Preservation, Resistance, and Negotiation of Identity in Ayad Akhtar’s “American Dervish” Rika Handayani 1 1 English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Andalas University, Padang, Indonesia Under Liscense of Creative Commons Attributioni-NonCommercial 4.0 International. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25077/vj.9.2.51-56.2020 I. INTRODUCTION This research discusses Ayad Akhtar’s novel entitled American Dervish. This novel depicts problematic issue of the identity of the Muslim immigrants in America. The problems typically happens to those who disperse. Hall (1993), suggests that the concept of diaspora not only refers to a group of people who immigrate but also their ability in interacting with the dominant culture through the resistance of the dominant culture, negotiation as well as hybridity issues. The primary data source used is the novel American Dervish (2012) by Ayad Akhtar. The setting is taken place in America around the 1980- 1990s. In general, this novel depicts Pakistanis- Muslim families in Milwaukee. Meanwhile, the secondary data are journals and articles related to this research; identity and diaspora are regarded as the lenses in analyzing the construction of identity. Hall (1990:222) states that the identity is unstable, constantly changing, and progressed through representation. That means one’s identity will always be in an endless process of construction and reconstruction. Construction is infuenced by the interaction among individuals. This interaction is characterized by the active role being performed by individuals through dialogue with others, as expressed by Taylor (1994:34): “My own identity crucially depends on my dialogical relations with others”. Thus, the interaction is profoundly essential in the formation of individual identity (Appiah 1994:154). In addition, Appiah (1994:155) says that identity is also built by the family who plays to mediate the concept and the practice of religion, society, school, and country (1994:154). In other words, the position of the family is aptly pivotal in the formation of identity, for instance, parents instill the values of culture and religious tenets to their children. This attitude according to Appiah (1994:157) and Taylor (1994:33) is an effort to preserve the living pattern of the generation to the next generation. However, this matter prompts doubts and quests regarding their identity which later causes an identity crisis. Accordingly, in this phase, identity becomes an issue caused by the 51