Hyphenated Selves: Muslim American Youth Negotiating Identities on the Fault Lines of Global Conflict

In the wake of the events of September 11, Muslim-American youth found that the multiple cultures within which they live were suddenly and alarmingly in conflict. The developmental consequences of living in a world fractured by religious and ethnic terror have yet to be determined for Muslim youth in the United States. This exploratory, mixed-method study begins to examine how Muslim youth negotiate their identities in these challenging times. Documented in the surveys, narrated in the interviews, and drawn into their identity maps, Muslim-American youth (n = 70) ages 12 to 18, vividly portrayed their interior lives as a dialectic labor of psychological reconciliation – piecing together what we call hyphenated selves. The results show that Muslim youth experience discrimination, sometimes to an extreme degree. We observed diversity in how youth deal with the challenges of growing up Muslim in post 9/11 US, ranging from “telling nobody” to policing each other within the Muslim community. In addition we found that males and females negotiate their Muslim and American identities in different ways.     

Muslim Youth in Canadian Schools: Education and the Politics of Religious Identity

This article provides an ethnographic analysis of the schooling experiences of Muslim youth in Canada who are committed to maintaining an Islamic lifestyle despite the pressures of conformity to the dominant culture. Little attention has been paid to how religious identity intersects with other forms of social difference, such as race and gender in the schooling experiences of minoritized youth. Using a case study often Muslim students and parents, this article demonstrates how Muslim students were able to negotiate and maintain their religious identities within secular public schools. The participants' narratives address the challenges of peer pressure, racism, and Islamophobia. Their stories reveal how Muslim students are located at the nexus of social difference based on their race, gender, and religious identity. The discussion further explores the dynamics through which these youth were able to negotiate the continuity of their Islamic identity and practices within schools despite the challenges that they faced. Building upon existing theories of identity maintenance and construction, this research demonstrates how the interplay of the core factors of ambivalence, role performance, and interaction and isolation are implicated in the way Muslim students negotiate the politics of religious identity in their schooling experiences.     

Christian nationalism and white racial boundaries: examining whites' opposition to interracial marriage

How does the convergence of national and religious identities potentially fortify white racial boundaries in the USA? Focusing on openness to racial exogamy as an indicator of racial boundaries, we examine the link between Christian nationalism and white Americans' views towards their hypothetical daughter marrying an African American, Latino, or Asian. Drawing on insights from social identity complexity theory, we argue that the convergence of religious and national identities serves to reinforce in-group boundaries, thereby fortifying notions of white purity, and consequently, strengthening whites' discomfort with potential race-mixing in marriage. Multivariate analyses of national survey data demonstrate that Christian nationalism is strongly associated with an increase in white Americans' discomfort with a daughter marrying any racial minority, and particularly African Americans. We demonstrate how the convergence of religious and national identities in Christian nationalism influences whites' regulating of racial boundaries (evidenced in intermarriage attitudes) above and beyond the independent effects of political conservatism or religious exclusivism.     

Boundaries of belief: religious practices and the construction of ethnic identity in Hui Muslim communities†

Though scholars of ethnicity remark that religion is an important qualifying attribute for membership in an ethnic group, the nature of the relationship between religious faith and ethnic identity requires further exploration. An approach that emphasizes the importance of religious practices in forming and maintaining ethnic boundaries may offer a more complete explanation of the relationship between religion and ethnicity. This article proposes a framework for understanding how religious practices influence ethnic boundary formation and maintenance processes. I propose that religious practices may play a universalizing, negotiating, or differentiating role in influencing the formation and maintenance of ethnic boundaries. To illustrate these various roles played by religious processes, the article presents a heuristic case study of Islamic faith in boundary setting processes in Hui Muslim communities in China.     

Muslim immigrants and religious group feelings: self-identification and attitudes among Sunni and Alevi Turkish-Dutch

Affective ratings of multiple religious (sub)groups (Muslims, Christians, Jews and non-believers, as well as Sunni, Alevi and Sjiit Muslims), the endorsement of Islamic minority rights and religious group identification were examined among Sunni and Alevi Turkish-Dutch participants. The findings show that both groups differ in important ways. Some Alevi participants considered themselves Muslims but others interpreted Alevi identity in a secular way. The Sunnis were quite negative towards Jews and non-believers, they more strongly endorsed Islamic minority rights and they had very high Muslim group identification. Furthermore, the Sunnis were negative towards Alevis and the Alevis were negative towards the Sunnis. Muslim group identification was positively and strongly related to feelings towards Muslims and to the endorsement of Islamic group rights.     

Is there assimilation in minority groups' national,ethnic and religious identity?

Abstract

Ethnic and religious minority identity is a subject of intense public debate and academic scrutiny. While assimilation theories anticipate convergence of identity across the generations, discussions of reactive ethnicity, transnational identification and religious revival suggest that there may be a deepening or shifting of minority identity in the second generation. Yet the empirical evidence in support of these different perspectives is far from conclusive. Drawing on a rich data source for the UK, this paper addresses the question of whether minority ethnic groups in Britain show identity assimilation in the second generation. It concludes that both public and private forms of identification with the majority increase across generations, and minority identities tend to become less salient. This is true across ethnic groups, although there are differences in underlying levels and patterns of identity, reflecting variation in contexts of reception and migration.     

Changing racial boundaries and mixed unions: the case of second-generation Filipino Americans

I examine an understudied topic of intermarriage – nonwhite mixed unions. Drawing on a study of second-generation Filipino Americans, I compare how respondents in inter-ethnic (those partnered with other Asians) and nonwhite interracial (i.e. Latino, black, and non-Asian bi-racial) unions perceive racial boundaries, or their ‘racial schemas’. I argue that mixed unions can change how partners view racial boundaries. Drawing on phenotype, culture, and power position, both inter-ethnically and nonwhite interracially partnered respondents viewed themselves as different from whites. However, they differed in how they constructed nonwhite boundaries. Respondents in inter-ethnic unions drew on their Asian identity to distinguish themselves from Latinos and blacks, while informants in nonwhite interracial unions highlighted their Filipino identity to distance themselves from East Asians and align themselves with Latinos and blacks. These findings show that marriage affects racial boundary development and that mixed unions impact individuals’ racial incorporation.     

Ethnicity and class identity: The case of French‐ and English‐speaking Canadians*

This study addresses the racial and religious contexts of identity formation among Lebanese immigrants to the United States of America and Somali immigrants to Canada. Each enters with a different racial status: Lebanese as white; Somalis as black/visible minority. Ethnographic interviews explore the strategies of adaptation and identity development within these groups. Specifically, we compare and contrast the Lebanese and Somali experience through an analysis of ethnic relations in the country of origin, the conditions of immigration, and through accounts of their encounters and identity negotiation with the host society. We demonstrate the strategies each group implements to negotiate both race and religion in identity development. Our findings reveal that each group attempts to make their religious identity evident, however, Somali immigrants must negotiate the effects of ‘othering’ processes with both race and religion, while Lebanese immigrants build a religious identity from privileges afforded to them by virtue of their white racial status.     

Defining difference,forging unity: The co‐construction of race,ethnicity and nation in Belize

This article examines competing nationalist projects which compete to constitute a Belizean nation: pluralist nationalism constructs the nation as ethnically diverse; synthetic nationalism attempts to submerge ethnic or racial difference into a shared national identity; hegemonic nationalism works to attach preferentially a single racial identity to the nation and exclude other identities. Within these projects, the homogenizing processes which construct national sameness are integrally related to the individualizing processes which constitute subnational difference: both national sameness and subnational differences are constituted in terms of race, ethnicity, or a conflation of the two. The article explores how the essentialization of racial, ethnic and national identities facilitates their assimilation of one another.     

Balancing stigma and status: racial and class identities among middle-class Haitian youth

This article examines the identity formation of middle-class Haitian youth. Segmented assimilation theory predicts that the Haitian second generation will integrate into the black American underclass or maintain strong ethnic group identities. The black middle class, however, is an unexplored pathway of cultural assimilation. This paper uses the literature on the racial and class experiences of the black American middle class as a departure point for understanding the boundary work of middle-class Haitian youth. Based on qualitative interviews and a focus group, we uncover the mechanisms of identity formation for this invisible population. Racial, ethnic and class boundaries compel Haitian youths to create strategies of either empowerment or distancing. They negotiate between their middle-class status and ethnoracial exclusion in a racially segregated neighbourhood, an ethnically homogenous church and a mixed-race school setting. This study's findings extend our theoretical understandings of middle-class immigrants and their identity work.     

‘Us’ and ‘Them’: The role of religion in mediating and challenging the ‘model minority’ and other civic boundaries

This article examines how Korean Americans use the cultural resources of religious communities to mediate race, ethnic, and socio-economic boundaries that have consequences for civic life. Specifically, I compare involvement of Korean Americans in second-generation Korean congregations to those in multiethnic churches. I find Korean Americans who participate in second-generation Korean churches use religion to largely reproduce images of Korean Americans as model minorities, and implicitly distance themselves from those whom they perceive as less financially successful. In contrast, Korean Americans in multiethnic congregations use religion to emphasize the commonality Korean Americans have with other minorities. By using a cultural framework that allows for the agency of individuals in identity and group boundary construction, this work more generally shows the potential for new Americans to use the cultural resources of local organizations to change existing ethnic and racial boundaries in the United States.     

Radicalization and counter-radicalization at British universities: Muslim encounters and alternatives

Abstract

This paper explores the ‘spaces’ left over for Muslims to be ‘radical’ and the management of minority identities in light of their securitization in the UK. The paper considers a key site of this management of ‘radical’ identities: the university. The university works as prototypical case because of the ways in student activism and identity are a priori drawn together but also because of the prevalence of higher education among terrorists in the UK and USA. As a result, universities have been specifically targeted in counterterrorism and counter-radicalization measures. The paper reveals through student narratives how security discourses of ‘radicalization’ constrain their activism, university experience and identities. Yet, alternative identity constructions emerge that work against the moderate/radical binary. These narratives show how incomplete the process is of incorporating Muslims into the nation.     

Emotions of the weak: violence and ethnic boundaries among Coptic Christians in Egypt

This article offers a theoretical framework to understand Muslim–Christian relations in contemporary Egypt. I argue that the interdependence of power relations, emotions, and symbolic boundaries are the key to understanding minority emotions as a political product and a boundary marker. Particular emotions of Christian minorities invoked during interactions and non-interactions with Muslim neighbours reveal the distance between the two groups, while cultivating cohesion among Christians. Data collected from participant observation in public spaces of a religiously tolerant neighbourhood in Cairo and in-depth interviews with 27 Coptic Christians show that indirect violence and daily microaggressions, triggered by the power disparity, unfold internalized fear and ‘righteous indignation’, negative feelings including anger and irritation against unjust treatment. Findings also discuss Coptic strategies to dismiss negative emotions. The interdependent framework, which has been largely understudied, expands our scope of understanding how power relates to minority emotions and symbolic boundaries between ethnic and religious groups.     

‘Minority’ as a sociological concept

This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab Sudanese ethnic identity in two locations and time periods in an expanding diaspora. Focusing in particular on women and their embodied practices of whitening and propriety in Egypt in the nineties and the United Kingdom a decade later, I argue that the recent turn towards Muslim expressions of Sudaneseness is a form of resistance to racial labelling. While Sudanese have rejected being labelled ‘black’ in Egypt and in the UK, their renegotiation of a Muslim religious identity in the diaspora nevertheless confirms a racialized Sudanese ethnicity. This study contributes to the rethinking of ethnicity in a transnational space where ethnic nationalism and globalized Islamic discourse intersect with local histories and hierarchies of race and gender.     

Are second-generation Filipinos ‘becoming’ Asian American or Latino? Historical colonialism,culture and panethnicity

Abstract

This article examines how second-generation Filipinos understand their panethnic identity, given their historical connection with both Asians and Latinos, two of the largest panethnic groups in the USA. While previous studies show panethnicity to be a function of shared political interests or class status, I argue that the cultural residuals of historical colonialism in the Philippines, by both Spain and the USA, shape how Filipinos negotiate panethnic boundaries with Asians and Latinos, albeit in different ways. Filipinos cite the cultural remnants of US colonialism as a reason to racially demarcate themselves from Asians, and they allude to the legacies of Spanish colonialism to blur boundaries with Latinos. While the colonial history of Filipinos is unique, these findings have implications for better understanding racialization in an increasingly multiethnic society – namely, how historical legacies in sending societies interact with new racial contexts to influence panethnic identity development.     

“Who’s the face?”: communication and white identity in a Texas business community

This article examines the relationship between whiteness and communication through analysing how white business community members acknowledge their own, usually invisible, white identity. Discourse analysis of interactions in a Texas organization shows how white members construct white identity as intersecting with Texan, masculine, age and professional identity categories. Members mark the overt construction of white identity as a dispreferred action through using disclaimers, formulations, pauses, humour and non-racial terms. Analysis of minority business member talk illustrates how minorities orient to white members’ talk as exclusive towards minorities because they do not overtly and directly discuss race and because they orient to regional identity in a way that ignores racial diversity among Texans. Thus while white members attempt to acknowledge their raced position in the Texas business community, their communicative actions repeatedly index white identities and reproduce the hegemonic position of white, male, Texan professional identities in this community.     

Negotiating British Muslim belonging: a qualitative longitudinal study

British Muslims are often viewed as holding values incompatible with Britishness, regarded with suspicion and sometimes subjected to gendered forms of racism. Research projects have found that identifiably Muslim women face everyday microaggressions, yet little is known about how they negotiate both this and their identities over time. This article addresses this gap by reporting the results of qualitative longitudinal research that explores the narratives of two young British Muslim women over a seven-year period. The women were first interviewed when they were single undergraduates in 2010 and followed up as married young professionals in 2017. On both occasions they were negotiating their identities and sense of belonging in a climate of heightened scrutiny of Muslims. The paper examines their reflections on: “fitting in” with Britishness, their religious identities and the complexity of belonging. Methodologically, it contributes to qualitative longitudinal narrative research.     

The three “i”s of workplace accommodation of Muslim religious practices: instrumental,internal, and informal

The accommodation of Muslim religious practices is an increasingly salient political issue across Western Europe. Hitherto, most research has focused on how states accommodate Muslim religious practices, and sociological scholarship on workplace accommodation is still extremely scarce. This article fills the gap in the extant literature by presenting a qualitative analysis of over 300 requests for religious accommodation in the workplace in Belgium. The authors contend that turning the spotlight from state to workplace accommodation of Muslim religious practices allows the discovery of different answers to the “hows” and the “whys” of minority religious accommodation. Different than state accommodation, workplace accommodation is characterized by three “i”s: it is granted or refused on the basis of instrumental argumentations; it is regulated informally and resolved internally. This article proposes an institutionalist framework adapted to the world of work to explain the specific features of workplace religious accommodation of Muslim religious practices.     

On the politics and practice of Muslim fertility: comparative evidence from West Africa

Recent popular works have represented Muslim fertility as dangerously high, both a cause and consequence of religious fundamentalism. This article uses comparative, statistical methods to show that this representation is empirically wrong, at least in West Africa. Although religion strongly inflects reproductive practice, its effects are not constant across different communities. In West African countries with Muslim majorities, Muslim fertility is lower than that of their non-Muslim conationals; in countries where Muslims are in the minority, their apparently higher reproductive rates converge to those of the majority when levels of education and urban residence are taken into account. A similar pattern holds for infant mortality. By contrast, in all seven countries, Muslim women are more likely to report that their most recent child was wanted. The article concludes with a discussion of the relationship between autonomy and fertility desires.