South Asian Muslim American girl power: Structures and symbols of control and self-expression

Journal of International Women's Studies

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 86-105

  Hermansen, Marcia ^a   Khan, Mahruq F ^b  

^a LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LA CROSSE   (United States)

Author keywords

Muslim girls; South Asian; United States

Indexed keywords

EID: 77952579571     PISSN: 15398706     EISSN: 15398706     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Jen'an Ghazal Read. "The Politics of Veiling in Comparative Perspective." Sociology of Religion 68 (3, 2007): 231-6.
2. SAMA is an acronym that the authors have coined for the purposes of this exposition.
3. Mahruq Khan. "Queer and Feminist Muslims in America: The Struggle to Reconstruct Religious Identity and Practice." Ph. D. dissertation, Sociology, Loyola University Chicago, 2007.
4. On girl power see Sinikka Aapola, Marnina Gonick, and Anita Harris. Young Femininity: Girlhood, Power and Social Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
5. Catherine Driscoll. Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
6. Anita Harris. All About the Girl: Culture, Power, and Identity. New York: Routledge, 2006.
7. Yasmin Jiwani, Candis Steenbergen, and Claudia Mitchell. Girlhood: Redefining the Limits. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2006.
8. Nadine Naber. "Muslim First-Arab Second." Muslim World 95 (4, 2005): 479.
9. Christine Jacobsen. "Religiosity of Yong Muslims in Norway: the Quest for Authenticity." European Muslims and the Secular State Jocelyne Cesari and Sean McLaughlin (eds.) London: Ashgate, 2005, 155.
10. Marcia Hermansen. "Muslims in the Performative Mode: A Reflection on Muslim-Christian Dialogue." Muslim World 94 (3, 2004): 387-396.
11. Saba Mahmood. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
12. Sadaf Ahmad. "Identity Matters, Culture Wars: An Account of Al-Huda (re) defining identity and reconfiguring culture in Pakistan." Culture and Religion 9 (1, 2008): 63-80.
13. Joe Garofoli. "Teen magazine addresses challenges of being Muslim girl in United States." San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2007.
14. The magazine suspended publication in 2008 after several issues. This may suggests that the "Muslim Girl" demographic was too fragmented to sustain such a publication.
15. Patricia Leigh Brown. "For the Muslim Prom Queen, There Are No Kings Allowed." New York Times, June 9, 2003.
16. Associated Press. "Prom For Muslim Girls Without Cultural Compromises." Jun 3, 2007.
17. http://wcco.com/local/Muslim.teenagers.Prom.2.367924.html accessed March 22, 2008.
18. Neil Macfarquhar. "To Muslim girls in U.S., Girl Scouts offer a chance to fit in." New York Times, November 28, 2007.
19. To see how this becomes part of the "culture war", observe the response by Daniel Pipes. "Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts Promote Radical Islam." Weblog May 21, 2004.
20. http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/253 Accessed March 22, 2008.
21. CBC. "Winnipeg girl with headscarf banned from judo meet." November 19, 2007.
22. Jeff Karoub. "More Muslim Girls Wearing Head Scarves on Basketball Court: Rules Allow it, but 'They Look at us Differently.'" Associated Press. Dec. 16, 2007.
23. An article considering Muslim girls and sport is Tess Kay. "Daughters of Islam: Sisters in Sport." Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging. Cara Aitchison, Peter E. Hopkins, and Meipo Kwan (eds.) Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 125-140.
24. Katherine Ewing. Being and Belonging: Muslims in the United States since 9/11. Syracuse: Cornell UniversityPress, 2008.
25. Sunaina Marr Maira. Missing: Youth, Citizenship and Empire after 9/11. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
26. Karen Isaksen Leonard. "South Asian Leadership of American Muslims" in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (ed.) Sojourners to Citizens: Muslims in Western Diasporas New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 233-249.
27. "Young American Muslims: Multiple Identities." Muslim World, (3, Oct. 2005): 473-477.
28. as well as Aminah Mohammad-Arif. Salaam America: South Asian Muslims in New York. New York: Anthem Press, 2002.
29. Some of these distinctions are discussed in Aminah Muhammad Arif. Salaam America, passim.
30. Claire Dwyer. "Negotiating Diasporic Identities: Young British South Asian Women." Women's Studies International Forum 23 (4, 2000): 475-486.
31. S. Vertovec and A. Rogers. "Introduction." Muslim European Youth: Reproducing Ethnicity, Religion Culture. S Vertovec and A. Rogers (eds.) Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, 1.
32. For example, Schmidt describes a campus meeting that was influenced by the Hizb al-Tahrir for Muslim female students attending a Chicago University. Garbi Schmidt. Islam in Urban America: Sunni Muslims in Chicago. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004, 120-125.
33. Discussions of the multiple motivations for the hijab among American Muslim women include: Sajida Alvi, Homa Hoodfar and Sheila McDonough (eds.) The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates. Toronto: Women's Press, 2003 and Rhys H. Williams and Gira Varshi.
34. "Hijab and the American Muslim Woman: Creating the Space for Autonomous Selves." Sociology of Religion 68 (3, 2007): 269-297. 282.
35. Aminah Mohammad Arif. "A Masala Identity: Young South Asian Muslims in the US." in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 20 (1&2, 2000): 67-97.
36. Bismillah means "in the name of God" in Arabic and is used as a formula for commencing meritorious actions. The phrase "Bismillah" begins all but one of the 114 chapters of the Qur'an.
37. Khatm means to complete or finish. Ameen is the Arabic equivalent of "amen".
38. These observations are based on photographs taken at Mahruq Khan's aqiqa
39. These comments are based on observations by both authors of numerous Hyderabadi Muslim American Bismillahs held in Chicago
40. As a young female milestone/initiation ritual the Bismillah might be compared and contrasted in significance to the Catholic first communion for girls
41. Jamal A. Badawi. "Gender Equity in Islam." [http://www.jannah.org/sisters/genderequity.pdf] Debates among Western Muslims regarding "complementarity" are discussed by Anne Sofie Roald.
42. "Feminist Reinterpretation of Islamic Sources: Muslim Feminist Theology in Light of the Christian Tradition of Feminist Thought." in K. Ask and M. Tjomsland (eds) Women and Islamization: Contemporary Dimensions of Discourse on Gender Relations Oxford: Berg, 1998.
43. For example, Suhaib Hamid Ghazi. Ramadan. New York: Holiday House, 1996.
44. Yasmin Ibrahim. I Can Wear my Hijab Anywhere. Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 2004.
45. On Islamization through children's literature in the Muslim diaspora is Torsten Janson. Your Cradle Is Green: The Islamic Foundation & the Call to Islam in Children's Literature. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003.
46. Kathleen Gerson. Hard Choices: How Women Decide About Work, Career, and Motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
47. Eric Plutzer. "Work Life, Family Life, and Women's Support of Feminism." American Sociological Review 53 (4, 1988): 640-649.
48. Tim F. Liao and Yang Cai. "Socialization, Life Situations, and Gender-Role Attitudes Regarding the Family Among White American Women." Sociological Perspectives 38 (2, 1995): 241-261.
49. Suzanne E. Tallichet and Fern K. Willits. "Gender-Role Attitude Change of Young Women: Influential Factors from a Panel Study." Social Psychology Quarterly 49 (3, 1986): 219-227.
50. Brian Powell and Lala Steelman. "Sexism and Fundamentalism Revisited: A Reanalysis of Peek and Brown." Social Forces 60 (4, 1982): 1154-1158.
51. Eric Plutzer. "Work Life, Family Life, and Women's Support of Feminism."
52. Shahin Gerami. Women and Fundamentalism-Islam and Christianity. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996.
53. The respondents consisted of approximately thirty American Muslim women across the United States from the ages of 18 to 55
54. The respondents were interviewed as part of Mahruq Khan's thesis, "Queer and Feminist Muslims in America: The Struggle to Reconstruct Religious Identity and Practice." Ph. D. dissertation, Sociology, Loyola University Chicago, 2007.
55. Based on selected responses of SAMA women who were interviewed by Mahruq Khan for her Ph.D., "Queer and Feminist Muslims in America."
56. A respondent from Mahruq Khan's dissertation "Queer and Feminist Muslims in America."
57. This statement is said to be derived from a saying hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad
58. Shabana Mir. "American Muslim Women College Students: Identity Strategies and Campus Climate". Unpublished doctoral research conducted in 2002-3 for a dissertation in Education, University of Indiana. Mir's revised work will be published as "Stretching the Ordinary: American Muslim Women on Campus." University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
59. The difficulty of specifying discrete numbers for generations of immigrants and their children "0", 1, 1.5 etc. is discussed in the literature including Rubén Rambaut and Alejandro Portes. The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley and New York: University of California Press and Russell Sage Foundation, 2001.
60. There are now six full-time Islamic schools in the greater Chicago area serving various communities. Interestingly, most were founded around 1990, marking the emergence of a second or in some cases a third generation of American Muslims. Universal and Aqsa (girls only) Schools (Bridgeview 1990) serve mainly Arab-Americans, while the Islamic Foundation (Villa Park 1988), Muslim Educational Center (primary) (Morton Grove 1990), College Preparatory School of America (Lombard 1991), and the Averroes Academy (primary) (Glenview 1999) have primarily South Asian student bodies, although teachers and pupils come from many ethnic backgrounds. The orientation of these schools is generally conservative rather than "traditionalist" and the curriculum conforms to state regulations and encourages positive civil engagement while allowing dialogue with other communities. Other centers offer Islamic Sunday schools, some level of primary classes, or day care programs. In addition, several Qur'an memorization academics provide full or part time instruction to youth (primarily male) and a full time "traditional" madrasa operates in Elgin. Marcia Hermansen. "Chicago." Encyclopedia of Islam in America. Jocelyne Cesari (ed.). Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2007, 136-7.
61. Jasmin Zine, "Safe Havens or Religious 'ghettos'? Narratives of Islamic Schooling in Canada." Race, Ethnicity, and Education 10 (1, 2007): 71-92 reviews this debate and the literature surrounding it.
62. Samana Siddiqui. "The Prom: 8 Prom Tips for Parents." http://www.soundvision.com/Info/parenting/parent.promtips.asp Viewed May 20, 2009.
63. "The Prom: Not Just One Night of Haram." http://www.themodernreligion.com/teens/teen_promonenight.htm Viewed May 20, 2009.
64. This also attracted journalistic attention, for example, Patricia Leigh Brown. "For the Muslim Prom Queen, There Are No Kings Allowed." New York Times, June 9, 2003.
65. Ihsan Bagby. "The Mosque in America: A National Portrait." Washington: Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2001. http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/The_Mosque_in_America_A_National_Portrait.pdf.
66. Khan conducted her research at Salaam Academy during the spring of 2003. She used participant observation by sitting in Islamic school classrooms over a period of four months and by observing SAMA girls outside the class, such as in the cafeteria, the pre-class assembly hall, gym, informal conversations in hallways and after-school social interactions. She also interviewed approximately twenty individuals working in various capacities at the school. While trends observed at the school cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the entire SAMA population, the school's class and ethnic diversity provides some meaningful insights into this particular burgeoning SAMA community.
67. Mahruq Khan. "A Half-Way Trip Back Home: Muslim Americans Negotiate Assimilation By Imparting Morality Through An Islamic Parochial School." Master's Thesis. Sociology, Loyola University Chicago, 2004.
68. The school's faculty also reflected a mixture of immigrants and U.S.-born Muslims. It consisted of sixteen U.S.-born teachers: nine Indian-Pakistani Americans, three Caucasian-American converts, and four Caucasian-American non-Muslims. There were also ten immigrant teachers, of whom six were Arab immigrants and four are Indian-Pakistani. The Principal and the Islamic Studies Director were Indian-Pakistani immigrants as well, and the Vice-Principal was Arab.
69. Asma Gul Hasan. American Muslims. New York: Continuum, 2000.
70. Maha Azzam. "Gender and the Politics of Religion in the Middle East." Feminism and Islam, Mai Yamani (ed.) New York: New York University Press, 1996.
71. For example, a sign in a mosque reading, "No Women beyond this point." Observed in Chicago, 2008.
72. The discussion of college-aged SAMA girls is based on participant observation and informal conversations between both authors and SAMA students at mosques, Muslim community centers and organizations and public universities across the greater Chicagoland area from the mid-1990s to the present. Most respondents were SAMA girls and young women who were involved with the Muslim Students Association at their respective campuses.
73. Neil Macfarquhar. "For Muslim Students, a Debate on Inclusion." New York Times, February 21, 2008.
74. "Hijabi" is the term for a Muslim woman who observes modest dress including the covering of the hair with a scarf. Hijab literally means barrier or curtain but in "Muslim English" is has come to refer specifically to the headscarf.
75. Shabana Mir. "American Muslim Women College Students: Identity Strategies and Campus Climate". Ph. D. dissertation. Education Policy Studies and Anthropology, University of Indiana is a source for some of these observations on college life among SAMA girls.
76. See Marcia Hermansen and Shabana Mir. "Identity Jihads: The Multiple Strivings of American Muslim Youth." Religious Perspectives on Spirituality in Childhood and Adolescence, Aostre Johnson and Gene Roehlkepartain (eds.) Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, 423-436.
77. Tess Kay. "Daughters of Islam: Sisters in Sport." 138.
78. In the 2007 LinkTV, "One Nation: Many Voices", contest for films featuring perspectives on Muslims in America, major awards, including first prize, went to young female SAMA film-makers for, "A Land Called Paradise" by Lena Khan and "Arranged" produced by Mediha Sandhu. These films can be viewed at http://www.linktv.org/onenation2007/winners. Accessed Sept. 25, 2009.
79. American Muslim self-representations are not unproblematic as studied by Evelyn Alsultany inY "Selling American Diversity and Muslim American Identity through Nonprofit Advertising Post-9/11."YAmerican Quarterly 59, (3, 2007): 593-622.
80. Mucahit Bilici. "Finding Mecca in America: American Muslims and Cultural Citizenship." Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2008.