Huda Fahmy is an Egyptian American author who writes about her experiences as a Muslim woman in America. One of her works, “Huda F Are You?”, is a personal narrative set in her freshman year of high school. Internal and external conflicts, such as her struggle to find cultural identity, the discrimination she faces as a Muslim American, and the expectations of her family, drive the plot forward and shape her high school experience. Throughout the book, Huda struggles with cultural identity and finding a place to fit in. She had moved from a town with a relatively small Muslim population, to Dearborn, a town where she wasn’t the only Muslim in her school. This caused her to struggle to fit in, shown when she said, “Now I’m not the Muslim, I’m …show more content…
This internal conflict is resolved later in the book, when she finally begins to accept who she is and stops forcing herself to be a part of the community because it’s what she “should do”, shown when she said, “I don’t follow “the rules” to make my parents happy. And I don’t wear hijab because it makes me stand out. I’m Muslim because I want to be Muslim”, (Fahmy, 123). This quote shows how she’s beginning to accept herself and her community because it’s what she wants. One of the major external conflicts throughout the novel is the struggles with prejudice Muslim Americans face. One incident of Islamophobia present in the book is when a boy in Huda’s school is arrested for a radio that the police mistook for a bomb in his backpack. The headline of the newspaper read, “Muslim boy, 14, Raidio mistaken for bomb”, (Fahmy, 128). This highlights the tension and discrimination Muslims face in the community. Another instance of Islamophobia, closer to Huda, would be when her teacher instructed the class to read an Islamophobic text, saying, “Today you’re annotating an article on how the Islamic religion encourages violence among its followers”, (Fahmy,
The “F Word” is an essay about an Iranian girl’s struggle with finding who she is, in a foreign land known as the U.S. It acknowledges her inner struggle with an outward showing character of herself that she holds, her name. During the essay the reader learns about how the girl fights her inner feeling of wanting to fit in and her deep rooted Iranian culture that she was brought up to support. Firoozeh Dumas, the girl in the book, and also the author of the essay, uses various rhetorical tactics to aid her audience in grasping the fact that being an immigrant in the U.S. can be a difficult life. To demonstrate her true feelings to the audience as an immigrant in the U.S., she uses similes, parallelism, and even her tone of humor.
Before 1975, Vietnam was divided into a North and South. The North was ruled by communism while the south was under United States protection. On April 30th 1975, communists attacked South Vietnam with the intentions of ruling both north and south in which succeeded. The Unwanted is a self-written narrative that takes place in Vietnam, 1975. At this time the United States had just pulled out of Vietnam as a result of the communist’s takeover. In effect of the flee, the U.S. left behind over fifty-thousand Amerasian children including Kien Nguyen. Kien was one of the half-American children that endured the hardships of communist’s takeover. Born in 1967 to a Vietnamese mother and unknown American father who fled to the U.S.
Shabana Mir authored the book “Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity” in The University of North Carolina Press in the year 2014. In her book, Shabana explains how Muslim American college students face difficulties in there colligate career. She provides examples of what actions she had to do when she was in college and what other Muslim Americans are doing right now in college. She claims that Muslim Americans that live on college campuses have to hide their culture and true identities to fit in with the “regular” Americans. Also, she says that Muslim Americans have some “Painful” maturing to do as they live and interact with a diverse group of people in college. And lastly, she explains how Muslim Americans
As she is forced to explore the differences between herself and her new community , she comes to a realization that culture isn 't a concrete idea or written down in a code of laws, culture is something that stems from ones imagination. Muslims have reasons to why they are skeptical and hateful towards Americans. When American expatriates go to Middle eastern countries to “help” and they are rejected they become “anti-Arab” pessimists. Wilson declares that people who have lost so much because of the Westerners can not be expected to believe that they are now going to be helped by the same enemy that destroyed them. She states “they fail to realize that people who have lost dignity and opportunities to the “clash of civilizations” can not be expected to welcome peacemakers who have lost nothing” (Wilson
Dilshad D Ali publicized her article "Raising My Kids to Be Unapologetic American Muslims" on March 21st, 2018. With this article, she made known the struggles she went through as a Muslim American and hit the emotions of many who did the same. Dilshad D Ali's main point was to remember not to stray away from who you are but instead be proud of it, embracing it and all the culture that came with it. She advocated for the Muslim audience, successfully using ethos, pathos, and logos to display a beautiful message about the dual identities Muslim Americans shared, how it affected them, and how they can embrace it. By using personal experiences, first-hand accounts of Islamophobia and prejudice, and real-life statistics, she manages to pull in
The "Arabs of Chicagoland" offers a comprehensive and insightful exploration of the Arab-American community in Chicago, but it is not without its critiques. While Hanania effectively captures the diverse experiences and contributions of Arab-Americans in Chicagoland, some readers may find that the book occasionally lacks depth in its analysis of certain issues. For instance, while Hanania acknowledges the challenges faced by Arab-Americans post-9/11, a more nuanced examination of the intersections between race, religion, and citizenship could provide a deeper understanding of the community's struggles for inclusion and acceptance. Despite these shortcomings, Hanania's work remains a valuable contribution to the literature on immigrant experiences in America. As Hanania aptly notes, "The story of Arabs in Chicagoland is not just one of struggle and hardship, but also of resilience, cultural pride, and community solidarity"
Islam in America has historically been misunderstood, and this is due to the misconception of culture and religion as well as lack of education and incorrect portrayal in the media, which gives a skewed idea of Islam. Especially in the United States, Islam has been seen as the “terrorist religion” or a religion for the extremists and a religion in which freedom is not an option. Among the countless misconceptions, the basis of stereotypes by Americans is due to the mix up between religion and culture. Furthermore, the media only fuels fire to these misunderstandings and lack of factual information about Islam causing Americans to lash out on American Muslims without reason.
Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a tale revolving around the life of a young Afghani boy named Amir and his path to redemption; the reader is a constant companion to Amir’s life events, they are there to witness every major success and struggle that he has in his life. Throughout the story, Amir meets many people that have a serious impact on his life and play a large role in the development of his character; the overwhelming majority of these people however, are male. Although women don’t have many roles in The Kite Runner, the types of roles that they do play are quite significant in terms of story and character development, such as acting as a mother or guidance figure. The reason for the lack of female characters in the novel could be because Hosseini wanted to exemplify life for all women in Afghanistan; today, women in Afghanistan are almost hidden from the public eye, so therefore, Hosseini, in a way, “hid” them in the story. Women in the United States have lives that are full of freedom and opportunity: they are able to work a good job; they can support their families, and are free to act and wear what they wish. Now, Afghani women, rather than going out and looking for a job, are not allowed to work or leave their home without their husband’s or father’s permission. Women are dominated in Afghan society and in The Kite Runner, women have roles that are few and far between, however, the roles that they do have are quite important to the development of the story.
In the book Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi, the main character, Bitter, lives in the dorm of an art school called Eucalyptus, which is in the town of Lucille. There is one problem in Lucille, which is how many innocent civilians died at the hands of a man named Dian Theron. In order to stop this, Bitter summons a monster named Vengeance to take care of him, but things get out of hand. The biggest message of this book is that violence is not the answer to our problems. Bitter uses different types of activism to show how the people of Eucalyptus and Assata fight against violence to make the world a better place.
She talks about how innocent Muslims were attacked after 9/11 where they were “being pulled out [of their houses], beaten in the streets [and mosques were being firebombed]” (3). According to Mogahed, people were treating Muslims as if they were a tumor in the body of America. “The only question is, are [they] malignant or benign” (3)? “A malignant tumor you extract altogether, and a benign tumor you just keep under surveillance”, just like the Muslims were treated (Mogahed, 3). Building up the argument, she illustrates her experience of driving across Middle America after the attack, crouching as low as she could in her seat, and for the first time ever, she was afraid to identify herself as a Muslim (Mogahed, 3). To finish it up, Mogahed tells a story of an unfortunate young married couple living in North Carolina, where their neighbor Craig Hicks murders them “in their apartment, execution style after posting anti-Muslim statements on his Facebook page” (5). Little did we know that such “[bigotry actions aren’t just immoral, they] can even be lethal”(5). On the other hand, not all Americans are against Muslims, some are actually rational and well informed. Mogahed illustrates this example, as she tells a story of Muslims congregating to the mosque, on a Friday, for prayer. On that Friday after the 9/11 incident, the mosque was filled with “Christians, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, people of faith and no faith, who had come not to attack [Muslims], but to stand in solidarity with [them]” (5). “These people were there because they chose courage and compassion over panic and prejudice”. With a sense of activism, Mogahed asks “what [would you choose at a time] of fear and bigotry” (6)? With that said, Mogahed enables a fourth rhetorical appeal known as kairos, encouraging people to take action and seize the opportunity to bring social
In Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s, Infidel, Ali narrates her life as a woman in the Muslim world and details her perpetual conflict of religion vs. modernity. Hirsi Ali’s oppressive upbringing under Islamic values has fueled her protests against Islam describing it as a backwards and abusive religion. However, Ali’s transition from a society dominated by religion to one of freedom and individual autonomy presented new and unexpected obstacles. In Holland, Hirsi Ali finds that although Dutch liberalism has created a peaceful and functioning society it has also created problems within Muslim immigrant community. Within the Muslim immigrant community Hirsi Ali finds that many of the challenges she faced while in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia are
Araby is a short story that depicts and explores the how the power of universal paradigms such as religion and the family result in the formation of the identity, and the crisis of the individual in coming to terms with the expectations of a given society as the expected code of behavior that is being imposed as a system of conduct or performance which is expected of other from other; an Irish society that is trying to come to terms with its own historical crisis. There are ideological structures in place which guarantee the perpetuation of such practices across generations, such as the concept of a nationality or morality, which usually take the form of a state or a religion—Capitalism, Marxism, Religion and so on. Furthermore, these structures become the preliminary entrance of the individual/other to determining the identity of an individual. This is shown in the story, as a slow process that slowly changes from generation to generation and quest for the boy’s identity. However, I argue that this requires reinvention.
F. Hasan, Asma Gull (2000). American Muslims; The New Generation. New York. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
The Kite Runner is a famous and powerful novel, it’s sold over 9 million copies worldwide, it was translated into over 25 languages and it’s the first afghan book to be written in English. Although even with all that fame, the book placed itself in the ALA top 10 book banned in 2008, the main reason is for the over-use of social discrimination in the plot. Yet, throughout the novel, some messages couldn’t have been conveyed without discrimination. Furthermore, the different type of social discrimination experienced against afghan women develops a real image of their social inequality in their society. Despite the facts, the discriminatory relation between certain characters develops their characterization. Therefore, it is important to keep
As an Arab American, a Muslim and a woman writer, Mohja Kahf challenges the stereotypes and misrepresentation of Arab and Muslim women. Her style is always marked by humor, sarcasm, anger and confrontation. “The Marvelous Women,” “The Woman Dear to Herself,” “Hijab Scene #7” and “Hijab Scene #5” are examples of Kahf’s anger of stereotypes about Muslim women and her attempts to fight in order to eradicate them, in addition to her encouragement to women who help her and fight for their rights.