Trinity University

This is the twenty-sixth in Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our twenty-sixth pathbreaker is Naomi Shihab Nye, a distinguished Palestinian American poet, essayist, and novelist. Contributing writer, John Mason, writes about her birth in 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a Muslim Palestinian father and an American mother. Naomi’s childhood was spent mostly in America, though while growing up, she made extended visits to Jerusalem. The duality of cultures she experienced profoundly shaped her perspective and her poetry.