by Lori Peek
headaches every day. it definitely hurts.” shadi, who was born in yemen but
raised in the United states, described how hopeless he felt after 9/11. As a
growing chorus of hysterical commentators demanded that all Arabs and
muslims be deported, shadi and his family actually began travel preparations
in anticipation of being forced to leave the country:
i really did go through a depression. i had no goals. i thought there
is nothing worth going for. i had no hope. i thought i might have to
drop out of school. This is a setback. i might have to move back to the
middle east. That week i got a passport ready; my whole family did.
We originally came from yemen. i came here when i was four years
old. We were afraid. people on the radio were saying that we were all
going to be deported—every Arab, every muslim shipped away. you
don’t know what’s going to happen. something like 9/11 happens, and
you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.
it is important to note that shadi and his family members were all of legal
status. This status did not allay their fears, however, as they assumed that at
any moment the government could arbitrarily choose to deport them.
Jinan, the daughter of a West African immigrant and an African
American convert to islam, became extremely scared after receiving e-mails
about the backlash and listening to a pundit call for the mass internment of
muslims. Jinan, like so many others, reacted by locking herself inside her
house for days after 9/11:
i was getting a lot of e-mails that were saying, “stay in the house.
Don’t go out if you don’t have to.” it was freaking me out. i remember
somebody was on the news talking about how they should put all the
muslims in concentration camps. When people are saying stuff like
that, they were talking about it like it was a valid viewpoint; when
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people are talking about things like that, you’re like . . . “How can i
leave the house? How can i go anywhere? i’m scared out of my wits.”
Another interviewee, sahar, explained why she found the derogatory
representations of muslims so harmful:
no matter where you go, the depiction of the muslims is in the
media. it’s a weight on our shoulders. We feel it. The media makes
others think, “Attack the muslims.” They say, “These muslims walk
around as law-abiding citizens. They go to our schools. it could be
your neighbor next door. you never know.” That’s what they’re mak-
ing it feel like. Across my hallway, there’s a vietnam veteran. They’re
making him think, this muslim lady across the hall from you, she
could have bombs in her house.
in voicing her concern, sahar was making the case that a direct con-
nection exists between a media culture that promotes bigotry and suspicion
and violent attacks that are perpetrated against muslims.
The fear of attack was especially acute for those who relied on public
transportation to travel to and from work or school. Halah, a young woman
who was identifiable as muslim because of her clothing and headscarf,
described the situation as follows: “i felt very safe [at the university], but the
commute was another thing. However you came, it was dangerous. There
are a lot of ignorant people out there.” Countless muslims were harassed
and intimidated as they traveled on subways and buses after 9/11, and, as a
consequence, many of the participants came to view taking public transport
as a particularly dangerous act. For weeks following the terrorist attacks, a
number of the interviewees altered their normal schedules so that they could
travel together in groups to school, to work, or while running errands. All
the muslim students Association (msA) offices that i visited in new york
City established “buddy systems” so that those who feared for their safety
would not have to travel alone. rajah, an undergraduate student in Queens,
described how she and several of her muslim friends worked together to try
to ensure their mutual security:
We set up a buddy system. A lot of [muslim] brothers and sisters were
in need of help. They were scared of traveling alone. either that or
their parents wouldn’t let them travel alone. i know one sister who
didn’t come into campus for a week, because her parents wouldn’t let
her. she started classes a week after. We did try to set something up
for her; brothers who were commuting from the same area met up
with her, and she traveled with them.
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shaheen, who grew up in the Bronx, explained that her friends began
traveling in groups to support one another: “We went out in groups, not alone.
We didn’t even cross the street. emotional support to each other was the key.”
Tarah, who lived in Colorado, stopped going out alone in the evening for
several months after 9/11. she also began thinking more frequently about ways
to defend herself in case of physical attack: “Well, i no longer walk around in
the evening alone. i didn’t go to the grocery store for a while, because i was
like, ‘i only need to do necessary things.’ i don’t go anywhere without a bottle
of pepper spray, whereas before 9/11 that idea was completely foreign to me. i
learned tae kwon do for fun, whereas now i think of it as a form of defense. i
have changed the way i interact with society now.”
Although the women expressed more concern about traveling alone,
most of the men acknowledged that they were fearful of being harassed
or physically attacked as well. salih, who worked in international relations
and lived in manhattan, explained the system that he and his male friends
developed after 9/11: “i used to go out without my friends in the evening.
We stopped and said nobody can go out alone. We have to go out in the full
group, six people. We can only go out in groups and come back in groups.
That’s it. no single person can go out.”
As the respondents became more cautious regarding their daily routines
and travel habits, many also began to self-monitor their communications to
try to reduce the likelihood that they would be “swept up” in the post-9/11
investigative dragnet. Bushra, who had lived in new york City for years
but still frequently communicated with her family members in Bangladesh,
described the “constant fear” that she felt and the ways that she altered her
behavior: “it has made me more alert all the time. like even now [seven
months after 9/11], when we are talking on the phone to our family, we know
that the phones are bugged. i’m sure this place [the mosque] is bugged, too.
it’s like this constant fear. sometimes when you’re walking down the street,
you don’t want to talk too loud about anything. i can’t discuss my feelings.
you’re scared.”
mohammed, who was born in new Jersey and worked in Brooklyn,
expressed related concerns: “i’m always going to be careful about what i say
or do, just because you can get in trouble for what you say or do. you hear
about all these people who have been arrested for no reason. you have to be
carefu
l about that.”
The level of hostility that was directed against “foreigners” after 9/11 led
some muslim Americans to conceal certain aspects of their identity. Tayeb,
whose parents were from syria, reacted to the backlash by suppressing
information regarding his ethnic background. He said, “i’m hesitant to say
where i’m from now. people ask me if my name is an Arab name, and i say,
‘no, it’s an international name.’ This is not ideal, but it’s what i need to do
Repercussions / 121
for now.” sabah graduated from college in December 2001. she spent the
next several months unsuccessfully searching for a job. Out of fear that she
was being discriminated against, she eventually removed all the information
from her resume that indicated that she had been involved as a leader in her
campus msA: “Any mention that depicted that i was active in the muslim
community, i took it off my resume completely. i don’t bring that up on my
resume, and i won’t bring it up in job interviews.”
The interviewees also talked about muslims they knew who had altered
their names after 9/11. One man told me about his friend “mustafa, who now
calls himself matt.” Another interviewee, leila, described how her sixteen-
year-old cousin, Kashif, had been teased mercilessly by his high school
classmates after the terrorist attacks. When the other students began calling
him “Ka-shit,” leila said that he “changed his name from Kashif to steve.”
she explained that it was “the prejudice that was everywhere after 9/11” that
made Kashif stop using his given name. she later casually remarked that she
planned to give her future children “American-sounding names,” presumably
so that they would not have to suffer the same mistreatment.
in the weeks and months after 9/11, as anti-immigrant sentiment reached
an alarming crescendo, many of the bilingual men and women in this study
were hesitant, frightened even, to converse in a foreign language in public.
For example, Deena and Ahmad, siblings who were born in the United states
to palestinian parents, spoke Arabic fluently. As soon as the backlash started,
they began to limit their conversations to english when other people were
around:
DeenA: On the train, while my brother and i are speaking to each
other, we’ll use half Arabic and half American and make our
own little language. But lately it’s been, stay on the American. if i
notice people, we’ll talk American. english. new yorker.
AHmAD: Before you would say things, and it would be a joke. now
you have to be so careful of what you’re saying. Anything and
everything. maybe that’s paranoia, but you don’t want to get in
trouble.
The pervasive sense of insecurity and vulnerability made some of the
participants feel as though they had to be constantly “on alert.” it was as if
the world had become a place of constant peril, and every unfamiliar person
was now a potential assailant. leena, a new yorker, was unusually anxious
and vigilant for months after 9/11:
When i go outside now, i’m walking outside, and in my head i’m
like . . . “please don’t let anybody touch me. please don’t let anybody
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touch me.” it’s so weird. it’s all the time. Why is this person looking
at me? All day when i’m walking, part of me is saying, “i don’t want
to be like that; i don’t want to think about it.” But everybody’s talk-
ing about 9/11, about the muslims. i’m walking down the street, and
somebody’s talking about it.
Asma, who lived in Colorado, described how she had also become more
wary of strangers:
i just look more. people look at me. i’m more aware of what’s around
me, trying to stay away from people who i see looking at me weird.
let’s say i needed directions, and i wanted to ask somebody. That’s
what i usually do. i couldn’t find somebody with a friendly-looking
face. somebody could have spit at me and said, “Get out of here. i’ll
give you directions back to your country.” something like that.
some of the women and men became intensely concerned about how
others would perceive them and react to their physical presence after 9/11.
These concerns grew out of their perceptions of the horrific images of islam
and muslims that they assumed were now solidified in the minds of many
Americans. leila, who wore the headscarf and lived in new york City,
described some of the things that she stopped doing in the months after the
terrorists brought down the Twin Towers:
We were waiting for my friend in starbucks. This was by Trump
Towers, Trump plaza. i’ve been there before. i was telling all these
girls, “let’s just go and see inside.” Then i was like, “Wait a second.
We can’t go inside. We’re wearing headscarves. They’ll think we’re
terrorists. We’ll make them uncomfortable.” maybe it’s my thinking,
but sometimes i feel uncomfortable to go to certain places. i’m like,
“This is not good. i don’t want to cause any trouble.” After 9/11, i
haven’t traveled on a plane. Before that i was on a plane; in one year
i would go back and forth to Florida so many times. Things like that
have really changed.
in their book Backlash 9/11, Anny Bakalian and mehdi Bozorgmehr
argue that “fear” is the one word that best describes the post-9/11 atmosphere
in middle eastern and muslim communities across the United states.33 my
data support this proposition and also demonstrate that avoidance was
the most common behavioral response to the overwhelming fears that
muslim Americans experienced in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist
attacks.
Repercussions / 123
Isolation and Exclusion
muslim Americans had a strong desire to interact in meaningful ways and to
share their grief with other survivors after 9/11. This type of reaction to such
a tragic event is understandable and represents a “normal” response to trau-
matic loss. Unfortunately, however, the participants in this study reported
that they felt mostly unwelcome and unable to join together with the com-
munity of sufferers.
Physical Isolation
in the first place, many muslim Americans were physically unavailable to
participate in various aspects of the collective grieving process. muslims were
simultaneously overwhelmed with shock and sadness (due to the tremendous
losses incurred from the attacks) and widespread compounded fear (because
the anti-islamic backlash was so severe). A number of the respondents sub-
sequently isolated themselves inside their homes for days or even weeks after
9/11, because they were scared of what would happen if they tried to venture
outside. One interviewee described the reaction among muslims as follows:
“everyone was depressed. i had a headache. The muslims couldn’t even come
out. They were scared of going to their jobs. As a community, muslims were not
even coming out of the house, so how could they participate? How could they
join together? How could we join together with others to show our sorrow?”
made the respondents apprehensive about participating in events or visiting
places where they assumed that their presence would arouse suspicion or
hostility. Because of their fears of being hurt or ostracized, the majority of
the interviewees avoided public memorial services and other communal
rituals designed to provide an avenue for collective displays of grief. muslims
were therefore unable to come together with other affected members of the
community and to share in important mourning rituals. iffat, a native of
new york City, explained why very few muslims attended an interfaith
service that was held the day after the terrorist attacks:
We were supposed to have a Jewish speaker, a Christian speaker, and
a muslim speaker so that we could show that we don’t accept this
violence. But there weren’t a lot of muslims there, because we were
scared. We couldn’t go there. it was the day after and at nighttime.
i felt bad, because they were thinking, “The muslims aren’t here
because they don’t care.” We do, too, care, but we don’t feel safe to go
there at night. so i felt like we couldn’t show how we really felt. That
means people will think we’re less humane and that we don’t care.
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This quote underscores the added burdens that muslims experienced after
9/11. in this particular case, most of iffat’s muslim friends were too fearful
to attend the nighttime service and thus decided to stay away. This decision
left them without an outlet for publicly expressing and sharing their grief. in
addition, because so few muslims attended the service, iffat understood that
many of the attendees may have assumed that muslims did not care about
the losses sustained from the terrorist attacks. Another respondent made a
similar point as he described the reactions of muslims after 9/11:
Among muslims, the reactions are mostly the same: stay quiet and
not say anything. But that means that people don’t understand that
we sympathize with them. We do care about what has happened.
We are grieving, too. my mom’s been here for twenty or thirty
years. When she saw the attacks on Tv, she was crying. The first
thing she said was “so many innocent people died.” she was totally
hysterical.