Inside the Current Issue

Assalamulaikum GC

Nazreen Bacchus

Living as a Muslim American woman goes beyond media depictions of Muslim identities. The lives of American Muslim women are understudied, and the assimilation challenges we experience navigating American culture often go beyond the expectations of most Americans. With that said, I would like to share my personal journey of survival in "American" society.

After 9/11, I decided that concealing the Muslim part of my identity might allow me to escape the discrimination of Muslims around the world. I witnessed the physical assault of a South Asian woman in Queens shortly after 9/11 and initially felt that I made the right decision to keep my religion "private." Around 7:30 pm, I was in my car waiting at a red light when I noticed a South Asian woman, wearing a sari, carrying groceries. All of a sudden, two men pushed her down to the floor, causing her groceries to spill onto the sidewalk. It all happened so fast! I did not know if her attack was related to 9/11, but I made that connection because of the media attention regarding attacks against South Asians. The traffic light changed and I drove home. I wanted to help her, but I was afraid of being assaulted as well. On my drive home, I thought "there must be another way to reach out to the American public and introduce them to 'real' Muslims (particularly women), not the stereotypical 'terrorist' image of Muslims endorsed through American media."

Negotiating differing expectations of my racial/ethnic identity is an endless cycle in my daily life. As a second-generation Indo-American Muslim, the value system emphasized by my family and religious community often conflicts with cultural norms acceptable in mainstream American society. For example, arranged marriages continue to occur within my family, and my choice to delay or even dismiss marriage provoked my extended family to disown me. Although my parents are supportive of my decision, I sense their uneasiness when attending family events because of the usual probing or interrogation they receive from family members for information about my life. My grandmother's famous comment about me is "When is Nazreen ever going to finish school?" Though she agrees that education is important, my grandmother is also growing increasingly impatient for me to get married and have children - irrespective of my personal goals.

Excommunication from my extended family in 2000 exacerbated the internal confusion about my identity. I had just started college at Pace University and I was determined to create a positive identity that included Islam and my understanding of Indian and American rituals. Refusing the urge to internalize my family's view of my unauthentic "Indian-ness" or "Muslim-ness," I started researching identity issues affecting second-generation South Asian American Muslim women. I discovered that other second-generation South Asian American women shared similar assimilation and identity concerns (even women from other religions such as Hinduism).

I decided that extending my training in Sociology with a graduate education would enable me to depict the experiences of "real" American Muslim women to larger audiences. Starting my graduate education at GC in fall 2005 changed my life forever. For the first time in my life, I was not afraid or embarrassed of being a Muslim woman. It was easy for me to "pass" for a non-Muslim because I do not wear my hijab (veil) outside of the Mosque. I could either continue to "pass" or embrace being a Muslim as part of my identity. My first sociology class at the GC, Transnational Feminisms (taught by Hester Eisenstein and Karen Miller), set the stage for my religious "coming out." After reading Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety, I decided to share my Muslim identity with my professors and fellow classmates. I was relieved and grateful that I encountered people who listened to my views about Muslim women's portrayal in American society.

After overcoming my apprehensions about my Muslim identity, I realized that I am fortunate to attend graduate school and learn about how Muslim American women negotiate their identity. I have the opportunity to bridge the gap between the American media's perception of Muslim women and American Muslim women's identity negotiation tactics. Using ethnographic and qualitative research methods, I am determined to eradicate misconceptions of Muslim women in America and to uncover the dynamic complexity in all cultural groups.

Nazreen Bacchus is an M.A. student in the Liberal Studies program.