by Lori Peek
meant that they went for an entire month without eating lunch at school,
which sometimes drew unwanted attention from teachers and other students.
The language that they spoke in their homes was usually something other
than english. The food that their mothers would prepare looked, tasted, and
smelled different than the dishes that were served in their school cafeterias
and their friends’ homes. Their islamic names sounded unfamiliar and led
to uncomfortable moments, such as when strangers would stumble over
the pronunciation or classmates would tease them on the playground. The
clothes that they wore tended to be less revealing and more “old-fashioned”
than what their peers would wear.
some of the respondents grew frustrated with the overwhelming sense of
difference. Ameena described how her mother, who was a strong proponent
of the importance of modesty in islam, would not allow her or her siblings
to wear shorts in the summer. This angered Ameena and made her feel like
an outcast:
my mom never let us wear shorts. i used to get so mad at her. i was
like, “it doesn’t matter. if you’re young, you can do whatever you
want.” But she was just like that. so i was already different. When
you’re young, everybody notices everything about you. everybody
used to ask me, “Why aren’t you wearing shorts?” it was embarrass-
ing. When i got older, it wasn’t such a big deal. But in fourth grade,
it was a big deal.
yasmin also struggled with balancing the demands of her faith and the
pressure to fit in with her friends. in contrast to Ameena, however, yasmin
40 / Chapter 3
emphasized that she “didn’t mind” dressing in more modest clothing, which
meant wearing pants and long-sleeved shirts all year round. she was more
concerned about the lack of availability of loose yet fashionable attire for girls
and young women:
The difficulties for me were how to dress. it’s very difficult to find
clothes that i would wear but that also cover my body in the right
way. The only loose clothes are made for grannies. [ Laughs. ] i always
had to really be creative in finding a way to dress. it doesn’t sound so
important, but it really is as an everyday thing. That’s how people see
you. i can’t wear the same clothes that everyone wears. i have to dress
a little bit different. i still want to fit in, at least in certain ways, just to
be one with my generation and my peers. it was really hard.
most of the women talked at some length about the external pressure—
especially from their friends and the media—to wear more stylish and sexy
clothing. The men, on the other hand, rarely mentioned this issue. This
disparity may be due in part to the intense focus on women’s dress within
the muslim community as well as a more general and pervasive societal
emphasis on female beauty and sexuality. The men were more likely to
remember feeling left out because they did not drink alcohol or try to “get
with girls” (having sex outside the realm of marriage and consuming alcohol
are prohibited in islam). Jamil explained that when he was growing up, the
pressure to engage in these sorts of activities was mostly indirect but was
powerful nonetheless:
The problem is you can’t pinpoint it in one place. it’s not so much
because people are just peer pressuring you to drink, do drugs, what-
ever. nobody’s forcing you consciously. it’s just when there’s a whole
bunch of people who are one way, it’s natural for someone to want to
be part of that, too. even in junior high, like going to dances. if you
didn’t go, everyone asks, “Why didn’t you go?” you’re like, “i don’t
do that. i don’t go to dances.” Then in high school, the main thing
they wanted to do is drink, party. Those are things that i don’t enjoy
doing, and it was always something that showed how i’m different. it
was hard; it’s a big barrier in this society not to drink, and it was like
it came up in every conversation. it’s not as simple to muslims. We
have to say, “no, i’m not going to do it.” To another person, they may
be like, “Why? it’s just a drink.” But it’s not like that for us.
All the interviewees experienced pressure to assimilate to “American”
values and norms. This pressure varied somewhat, however, depending on
Encountering Intolerance / 41
the environment in which the participant was raised. Those who grew up
in predominantly white, Judeo-Christian neighborhoods described more
pervasive demands to “fit in” than did those who were raised in more
populous and diverse urban areas. For example, randa grew up in a small
town in upstate new york. she was the only muslim girl in her entire school,
and she was keenly aware of the impact of being a minority: “i don’t know
what it is about American high school and junior high that makes people
want to be in the in crowd and do things that are considered cool. That
pressure was there. When i was in high school, i identified much less with
being muslim than i did after high school. you don’t want to stick out too
much. you don’t want people to think you’re a weirdo.”
The feelings of difference regarding their islamic faith took a significant
toll on some of the respondents. Ayesha spoke of an “inferiority complex”
that she developed as a girl. very few muslim families lived in the community
where she was raised, and she had just one close muslim friend throughout
her childhood. Thus, she had very little social support as she attempted to
field a seemingly nonstop barrage of questions about islam and life as a
muslim:
When i was younger, i had the biggest inferiority complex. i felt
like everyone was always asking me, “Why aren’t you eating this?”
“Why aren’t you doing that?” “Why can’t you be like this?” Because
i’m muslim. That was the answer to every question. it’s against my
religion. That’s what i was taught to say. so i grew up with everyone
knowing i was muslim. But they didn’t see it as something great and
exotic and new. They saw it as something weird and strange, and they
wanted to know why i’m like that. Why can’t i just be like everyone
else? so i started thinking like that. i wanted to be like everyone else,
do Christmas, go out with my friends instead of coming home and
doing my homework. Growing up as a muslim girl was difficult,
because i’m different. it wasn’t until later that i understood what it
meant to be a muslim and to appreciate who i am and to have con-
fidence in myself.
For Ayesha, her sense of being different and inferior emerged as a result
of a normative context that privileges the dominant faith—in this case,
Christianity—and marginalizes minority religions. The questions that
outside members imposed, such as when her friends wanted to know why
she could not eat pork or date boys, made her feel like she was being judged
as “weird” or “strange.” Ayesha’s personal lack of knowledge of islam further
exacerbated this issue. she could not offer any theological expl
anation for
why she was prohibited from doing certain things and instead could use only
42 / Chapter 3
the stock answer that her parents had supplied: “it’s against my religion.” it
was only after she reached adulthood and acquired more religious knowledge,
and subsequently became more confident in responding to inquiries, that she
began to feel self-assured. During her teen years, she was more concerned
about being accepted and doing things that other American youth would do,
such as celebrating Christmas and hanging out after school.
Given the tremendous pressure to assimilate to dominant norms, it is
not surprising that some of the interviewees admitted that they cast off their
religious identity in an attempt to “pass” as part of mainstream society. it
was not something they were proud of, but they explained their behavior
as a result of a need to fit in or as stemming from a lack of understanding
of the true meaning of islam. maryam, a young woman who was wearing
a hijab when i first interviewed her in 2001, discussed her earlier fears of
being mocked for wearing religious attire: “in the beginning, when i was
younger, i was like, i’m not going to be seen with the hijab. The kids are
going to make fun of me. i was completely against all of this. i had to dress
in the newest jeans that came out, have the nicest sneakers. . . . it really was
a big deal.”
in the United states, freedom of religion is a constitutionally guaranteed
right that the First Amendment protects. The participants in this study
recognized and were grateful for this right, although they admitted that the
American context is not always as conducive to practicing their faith as they
might like. islamic holidays were rarely recognized in their schools or their
parents’ workplaces. For those who lived in smaller towns, few other muslims
outside their immediate families were available to celebrate holidays with, and
the nearest mosque was usually miles away. Following islamic dietary laws
was difficult, as religiously permissible halal food was unavailable in most
restaurants and could be acquired only in specialty grocery stores. When
at school, at work, or traveling, finding a space to complete the required
five daily prayers was challenging. Jinan felt that attempting to observe an
islamic lifestyle in the United states was more difficult than any hardships
associated with being viewed as a religious outsider:
Obviously, the way people view you, always being the Other, that is
not good, but i don’t think it’s just how people look at muslims that
complicates things. it is more of a challenge just to practice my reli-
gion. There’s never anywhere to eat the proper foods. There’s almost
never any place to pray. We pray five times a day. When you have to
pray, you have to pray. i remember one time i was on a long car trip
with my family. We went out into a rest stop in some woods so we
wouldn’t be so obvious. We were praying in there. There were secu-
Encountering Intolerance / 43
rity guards and these other people at the rest stop who were just like
standing around, staring at us. it made me feel very proud, because
my family, we just kept going. if i have to pray, i have to pray.
For muslims, completing their five daily prayers involves engaging in
a number of distinct postures, ranging from standing with arms crossed
across the chest to kneeling and prostrating before God. muslims face the
direction of the holy city of mecca when they pray, and they are supposed
to perform their prayers at certain preestablished times each day. When
forced to pray in public spaces, muslim Americans often attract unwanted
attention from a predominantly non-muslim public. Jinan remembered
feeling proud that her family continued with their prayers, even as curious
onlookers gathered around, but her reaction to this incident was uncommon
when compared to those of other participants. most often, the interviewees
spoke of feeling anxious or alienated when their personal faith would become
public spectacles. One man told me that throughout his teen years, he had an
“unconquerable anxiety about praying in public, wearing muslim clothes, or
doing anything that could be construed as islamic.” Another woman noted
that she always felt “isolated” as a result of her minority religious status. she
continued, “sometimes just feeling normal, like a normal person . . . you just
don’t get that feeling a lot.”
Recognizing Stereotypes
A stereotype is a preconceived idea that attributes certain traits, behaviors,
tastes, or other characteristics to a group of people. in essence, stereotypes
are the images we carry around in our minds, which may be positive or nega-
tive, about most or all persons of a particular race, ethnicity, religion, gender,
or age, to name a few. stereotypes may or may not emerge from some kernel
of truth, but they always involve widely held overgeneralizations that do not
take individual differences into account.13 misconceptions, which are closely
associated with stereotypes, involve objectively false or mistaken views, ideas,
or beliefs.
For the muslims whom i interviewed, it was during their formative years
when they began to realize how many misconceptions and negative stereotypes
about islam and muslims exist. Although they did not use the language of
social science, it was clear that the respondents distinguished between
people who were simply uninformed and as a consequence held incorrect
ideas about islam and those who actively engaged in hostile stereotyping.
randa argued that most non-muslims are not inherently prejudiced against
muslims; instead, she believed that they simply lack exposure to islamic
44 / Chapter 3
values and beliefs in everyday life. From her perspective, this lack of exposure
leads to ignorance and presumably harmful misconceptions:
What i saw early on in my life is that, generally speaking, out of
all the non-muslims that i’ve met, people are not genuinely hate-
ful. They’re not lashing out at muslims out of blind fear; they don’t
have an inherent hate in them. But there’s a lot of ignorance. islam,
muslims haven’t been in the public eye much in America. That
means that a lot of people don’t know about our community, who
makes it up, what our religion is. i think there’s always been a lot of
ignorance out there.
The muslim men and women told numerous stories about persons
whom they had encountered over the years who were unaware that islam is
a religion. The lack of recognition of their faith was bewildering to many,
especially given that islam claims more followers globally than any other
religion besides Christianity. Ahmad recalled having to explain to a high
school classmate that islam is not a country. He also attempted to point out
the distinction between muslims and Arabs, although he wasn’t sure his
fellow student understood:
We had a student in our class. she said, “i need to know something
about your religion because i have a test in world religion class. Tell
&n
bsp; me, islam is the country?” me and my friends, we were shocked. At
first we thought she was kidding, but she kept going. “What is Arab?”
she was really funny. i was like, “Wait a minute, islam is a religion.”
she was like, “Okay, let me write it down. . . . islam is a religion.”
This is how a lot of people work. Then when i told her there were
Arab muslims, but to be a muslim you don’t have to be an Arab, she
was like, “really? i didn’t know that.” she wrote that down, too, but i
think she was still, um, confused.
As Ahmad’s quote illustrates, the fact that muslims can be of any
nationality or ethnic background represents a source of genuine confusion
for non-muslims. One young woman remembered how surprised her friend
was to learn that muslims could be white:
i had a pamphlet about “What is islam?” my friends were looking
through it. They saw pictures of people showing the diversity of
islam. Then this guy says to me, “Oh, there are white muslims?” i was
like, “yeah.” it was clear they were not understanding that islam is
just a religion, just like Judaism and Christianity, not understanding
Encountering Intolerance / 45
that we are so similar. We believe in Jesus, Abraham, Adam, and eve.
Allah is just another word for God. it’s how you say God in Arabic.
it’s not like some deity that is constructed out of wood.
south Asian muslims also struggled to educate others about the diversity
of islam. They were faced with explaining that not all south Asians are
Hindu and that millions of muslims live on the indian subcontinent. leena,
a second-generation immigrant, described how she tried to clarify the
difference between nationality and faith:
When i would tell people that i am pakistani American, it seems like
a lot of people know where pakistan is and know that it was part of
india and they broke up in 1947. They say, “Oh, so you’re Hindu.” i
say, “no. i am pakistani, and i am muslim. i have a friend who is
from india. she’s not Hindu, she’s muslim.” They don’t understand
the difference between islam and a country, india and Hinduism as
country and religion.
some of the interviewees remembered their textbooks, ostensibly
designed to educate students, as a primary source of misconceptions about