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Linkish Thoughts
Sep. 18th, 2009 12:09 pmThe Latino Crescent: Latinos make a place for themselves in Muslim America
A really lovely article. Among the high points: introducing a hip-hop group called "Mujahideen Team," and then explaining that "mujahideen" means "one who struggles in the way of God," without even mentioning that other meaning it has; the framing, by interviewees, of the Moorish period in Spain as a way to connect Latina/o identity with Islam; referring to young men who have informally changed their names from Spanish to Arabic names only by their Arabic names, and mentioning their Spanish names only in passing; not being terribly othering about hijab; the insistance by one of the women interviewed in maintaining her Puerto Rican identity alongside her Muslim identity. It's really a good article, though it makes me a little bitter that we so rarely see articles this good about Arab or South Asian Muslims.
The Little Princess - Jezebel
Ideas move with objects. See the Disney Princess bag in the corner of the frame? Transnational circulation of gender ideology, right there.
Day 18: MAS Youth Center
I asked, and, magically, the guys at 30 Mosques - 30 Days delivered! A trip to the Muslim American Society Youth Center, which they locate as being in Bay Ridge, but I consider in Bensonhurst. Interesting thoughts on how communities are constructed therein.
Americans turn from hatred to education 8 years since 9/11
"The Obama speech [on healthcare] was historic in many ways. It was only the 15th time since 1952 that an American president has brought together both the House and the Senate in one room to address a major problem, usually addressing wartime concerns. But it was the first time that the two speakers at a joint session had Arab names: Boustany and Hussein."
Briefly, during the presidential campaign, my (Mexican) best friend changed his middle name on Facebook from Armando to Hussein. I still find this amusing. But seriously, I wonder about the identity politics going on here. Yes, both Hussein and Boustany are Arab names. But associations between Obama and Islam/Arabs have been widely seen as hurting him in public opinion (see my previous post on just one bit of polling data on this). Boustany is the grandson of first-wave Syrians--the largely Christian wave of migration from what was then Greater Syria, but was concentrated in what is now Lebanon. Although there was tremendous tension over the whiteness of these early immigrants (see Sara Gualtieri's work on this, for example, or Alixa Naff's, or Helen Samhan's piece, among others, in Mike Suleiman's 1999 Arabs in America), their descendants have been able to pass, unremarkedly, into the American white mainstream, and are no longer seen as foreign or other in many cases. More recent immigrants, particularly Muslims, have more difficulty assimilating. I don't want to argue with Roy's general point, which is that things may have changed for the better for Arab-Americans since the very dark days of September and October 2001. I just want to put a note of caution alongside it: maybe not all symbolic victories are equally victorious.
The Fight of the Century: Chesler vs Wolf
I keep wanting to come up with something to say about the current round of the debates about what perspective feminists should have about the diverse and contested practices of veiling throughout Arab and Muslim communities. And yet, I am intensely tired of this discussion, and I'm not even a woman who covers. I'll just let Fatemeh's post do the talking for me. (Oh, and her colleague Princesse de Clèves did a nice, substantial follow-up piece. Yeah, what she said.)
A really lovely article. Among the high points: introducing a hip-hop group called "Mujahideen Team," and then explaining that "mujahideen" means "one who struggles in the way of God," without even mentioning that other meaning it has; the framing, by interviewees, of the Moorish period in Spain as a way to connect Latina/o identity with Islam; referring to young men who have informally changed their names from Spanish to Arabic names only by their Arabic names, and mentioning their Spanish names only in passing; not being terribly othering about hijab; the insistance by one of the women interviewed in maintaining her Puerto Rican identity alongside her Muslim identity. It's really a good article, though it makes me a little bitter that we so rarely see articles this good about Arab or South Asian Muslims.
The Little Princess - Jezebel
Ideas move with objects. See the Disney Princess bag in the corner of the frame? Transnational circulation of gender ideology, right there.
Day 18: MAS Youth Center
I asked, and, magically, the guys at 30 Mosques - 30 Days delivered! A trip to the Muslim American Society Youth Center, which they locate as being in Bay Ridge, but I consider in Bensonhurst. Interesting thoughts on how communities are constructed therein.
Americans turn from hatred to education 8 years since 9/11
"The Obama speech [on healthcare] was historic in many ways. It was only the 15th time since 1952 that an American president has brought together both the House and the Senate in one room to address a major problem, usually addressing wartime concerns. But it was the first time that the two speakers at a joint session had Arab names: Boustany and Hussein."
Briefly, during the presidential campaign, my (Mexican) best friend changed his middle name on Facebook from Armando to Hussein. I still find this amusing. But seriously, I wonder about the identity politics going on here. Yes, both Hussein and Boustany are Arab names. But associations between Obama and Islam/Arabs have been widely seen as hurting him in public opinion (see my previous post on just one bit of polling data on this). Boustany is the grandson of first-wave Syrians--the largely Christian wave of migration from what was then Greater Syria, but was concentrated in what is now Lebanon. Although there was tremendous tension over the whiteness of these early immigrants (see Sara Gualtieri's work on this, for example, or Alixa Naff's, or Helen Samhan's piece, among others, in Mike Suleiman's 1999 Arabs in America), their descendants have been able to pass, unremarkedly, into the American white mainstream, and are no longer seen as foreign or other in many cases. More recent immigrants, particularly Muslims, have more difficulty assimilating. I don't want to argue with Roy's general point, which is that things may have changed for the better for Arab-Americans since the very dark days of September and October 2001. I just want to put a note of caution alongside it: maybe not all symbolic victories are equally victorious.
The Fight of the Century: Chesler vs Wolf
I keep wanting to come up with something to say about the current round of the debates about what perspective feminists should have about the diverse and contested practices of veiling throughout Arab and Muslim communities. And yet, I am intensely tired of this discussion, and I'm not even a woman who covers. I'll just let Fatemeh's post do the talking for me. (Oh, and her colleague Princesse de Clèves did a nice, substantial follow-up piece. Yeah, what she said.)
