This paper proposes approaching questions of Arab American identity through the lens of literary and aesthetic production. Recent scholarship on Arab American writing debates the parameters of the designation “Arab American,” and I build on this work to examine the ideological implications of categorizing identity along linguistic (Arabic or English), religious, ethnic, and geographic markers. Scholars such as Wail Hassan, Nouri Gana, and Layla Maleh, chose to make wider connections between Arab American writers, Arab Anglophone writers from different national contexts, and writers in diaspora. This approach challenges us to think about the ways, for example, a writer such as Yasmeen Maxamuud, who writes about the Somali diaspora in Minnesota, is connected to Randa Jarrar, a Palestinian American author who, like Maxamuud, transforms Western literary forms to tell stories of diaspora. But what, then, does Jarrar have in common with Selma Dabbagh, a British Palestinian author who also writes about migration, globalization, and transnational identities? To what literary traditions do Maxamuud, Jarrar, and Dabbagh belong? I argue that Arab American writing both partakes in and transforms U.S. culture; at the same time I maintain that by expansively considering the role Arab American writers and artists play in global literary communities, we can underscore connections between Arab American writers and diasporic communities transnationally as well as with diverse minority communities domestically. Through analyzing works that demonstrate a shared literary heritage, both Arabic and Western, I contend that Arab American narratives can be used to theorize an Arab American identity that circulates globally. By situating Arab American literature within larger conversations about Arab American identity, I hope to present new perspectives on the place of Arab American literature in the U.S. national imaginary and in wider global debates on the politics of the nation state.