‘Just to make sure people know I was born here’: Muslim women constructing American selves

Abstract

The scene for this paper is set in the USA immediately post-9/11 when the meaning of nation shifted dramatically, in turn shaping Muslim American identity. I examine Muslim American undergraduate women's performance of immigrant, gendered, youthful, Muslim and American identities. The findings are framed within symbolic interactionist, Foucauldian and cultural production frameworks, and I use ethnographic vignettes gathered during research in Washington, DC from 2002 to 2003 to illustrate the discursive and performative construction of an imagined American community by Muslim Americans and majority Americans respectively. Muslim American youth both experience and conduct acts of ‘everyday nationalism’ and construct Muslim American citizenship, deploying and covering racial, cultural, religious and immigrant attributes contextually. Facets of identity such as birth, transnational ties, racial and facial features, cultural practices, types and degrees of religiosity, all come into play in a battle for survival that is at once personal, political, social and symbolic.

Keywords:

• gender
• higher education
• citizenship
• nation
• Muslim
• identity

Notes

1. Da'wah table: Student organizations in the USA often set up tables on campus, staffed by a volunteer or two, with informational material about the organization and/or cause. Muslim student groups often refer to their tables/booths as da'wah tables.