The emerging field of Arab American studies has forged a space to interrogate nationalist limitations in U.S. cultural citizenship. Scholars have examined the U.S. post-Orientalist and racialized discourses as critical sites of disenfranchisement that constantly question the Arab American image in the United States. The scholarship has emphasized an identity paradox that subjects Arab Americans to embattle an institutional assignment of persons from the MENA region to the White/Caucasian race and a post-9/11 citizen-terrorist anxiety that configures Arab Americans into a broader category of Middle Easterners, South Asians, and look-a-likes. In this context, there rises the necessity for scholars in the field to explore the transnational contours of diasporic consciousness that articulate a common postcolonial search for identification against the disruptive force of western hegemony. Towards that end, we propose to broaden the Arab American scholarly inquiry to reflect critical South Asian diasporic voices, and examine their role in enunciating issues of concern to the Arab American community. To do so, we intend to conduct content analysis of the film The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), an adaption of the novel bearing the same title by U.S. educated and British Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid (2007). With production support from the Doha Film Institute, the New York-based Indian filmmaker Mira Nair invites the British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed to personify the role of a Pakistani American’s negotiation for a diasporic identity in the post-9/11 context. Hence, the analysis presents a case study in support of energizing the field with relevant and intersectional narratives.