Arab American Immigrants

In the airports, Muslim people became “the usual suspects”, were thoroughly searched and often interrogated. In her article, O’Connor claims that the lives of American Muslims changed forever, and the statement is hard to disagree with (“How 9/11 Changed These Muslim Americans’ Lives Forever.”) Those who had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, their children and grandchildren were sentenced to face racism, hate and violence.

Post 9/11 negative stereotypes and attitudes toward Muslims intensified in many Western societies. “The FBI recorded a sixteen-fold increase in hate crimes (e.g., acts of arson, aggravated assault, property crimes) against Muslim Americans from 2001 to 2002” (Rodriguez Mosquera & Khan & Selya, 2013). All of this goes to show that Non-Muslim Americans were taking out their emotions on innocent Muslims. Not only was all this going on, but the U.S. Congress’ response to the attacks was the USA Patriot Act. The USA Patriot Act gave, “the government investigative powers to fight against terrorism and subsequently targeted those in the Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities with not just prejudices against these communities, but blatant racism toward innocent people, just because they appear to look like they “identify” with those who have made terrorist threats” (Akiyama, 2008). The discrimination post 9/11 was awful. The hijab which was seen as a prideful garment for Muslims became a target for discrimination. In the article, “9/11 Ten Years Later: Muslim Women, Organizations Work to Fight Discrimination, Patel talks about a woman, Wasan Mohamad. Mohamad talks about how she and her friends/family were discriminated against ten years after 9/11. Her daughter in class got told that her people were responsible for 9/11. Her friend changed his name from

What are Arab Americans? An individual can be classified as “Arab” if the person speaks Arabic, practices Islam, and identifies with the traditions of Arabic-speaking peoples. (Aguirre and Turner 276)These individuals are usually subject to negative and differential treatment by others. It is essential to identify the differential treatment of Arab Americans by others in society. The mistreatment of Arabs in the United States can be contributed to many factors; however, there have been certain events that have occurred in the United States, which have increased and enraged these strong emotional feelings in many Americans. Discrimination and stereotypes of a culture or group mainly develops from a lack of understanding. We can become a

Many young Arab Americans were forced to work under hostile circumstances. Reports reveal that Muslims and Arab Americans were traumatized due to the discriminatory behaviors in the workplaces. According to Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), over 800 cases of work discriminations were recorded following the year of 9/11(Hussein 2003). The major discriminatory activities included various types of harassment in the workplaces, ineffective job placements and no consideration for promotions. According to Faisal Rabby and William M. Rodgers, “...9/11 and the anti-terrorism measures were associated with a relative

1. Between September 11th and November 9th the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee confirmed 520 violent incidents directed toward Arab Americans, and 27 incidents in which Arab Americans have been expelled from a flight. Complaints from Arab Americans to the ADC also include employment discrimination, law enforcement profiling, and tensions in schools. (ADC, 1)

Historically, the United States of America has a long history of shaping its ideology from a series of significant events that hold unspeakable brutality. This leads Americans to draw conclusions, which often leads to denouncing a particular body of people. For example, the enslavement of African Americans, the decimation of Native Americans, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Currently, while enduring several years in the U.S., Muslim Americans face similar difficulties as a human being would. However, these hardships differ because they include U.S. discrimination triggered by 9/11, current terrorist events, and negative reinforcement from the media and the general public. Muslim Americans experience the harmful effects of terrorism because acts of terrorism influence the way the U.S. views and thinks about Muslims.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers associated with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda attacked the United States. They flew two planes into the World Trade Center and also attacked the Pentagon resulting in the deaths of 2,996 people. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi Arabian, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon, and one was from Egypt. Following the 9/11, racial profiling in the United States resulted in people of Arab or South Asian origin being targeted in the United States as they were perceived to look similar to the Islamic terrorists of groups such as Al-Qaeda. The racial profiling of Americans of Arab or South Asian descent has led to their rights, guaranteed to them by the U.S. law and Constitution have been violated, which is a grave injustice..

As I begin to type this essay, I cannot help but feel an oquet barcode over my head. This barcode, having been with me since birth, contains all of the terms used to describe me: Muslim, Brown skinned, Arab American. These terms, a result of the natural human characteristic to categorize what we see, are fallible, inaccurate, and potentially dangerous. For example, because of these terms entire groups of people can become labeled to certain attributes. As an Arab American, people assume many things about before I even speak with them.It is hard to have a different view of people when all you see or hear of them are from indirect sources such as the media, whose priority object is to make profit, even if it requires the creation of a twisted

Arabs have been coming and settling in the United States for quite a while. In fact, Arabs have been coming here for hundreds of years. Spanish explorers brought Arab slaves to the United States in as early as the 15th Century.

However, there are hundreds of people across the nation who have decided to discriminate Muslims because of the terrorist attack. There was a major increase in anti-Islamic violence after the attacks (Villemez). In 2000, there were a reported 28 hate crimes towards Islamic people, whereas that number jumped to 481 in 2001 (Villemez). In a survey done, a majority of Muslims have experienced verbal harassments and increased airport security (Villemez). Prior to 9/11, 80% of Americans opposed racial profiling, but that same number turned to support discrimination against those who were assumed to be Arab or Muslim (“A Rage Shared by Law”, 1267).

Mogahed, a Muslim woman living in America at the time of the terrorist attack on 9/11, speaks about her experience with white America after the attack. She talked about what made her attracted to the Islam religion and how her friends reacted when she started wearing the Hijab. Her young friends asked her why she would willingly subject herself to the oppression that Americans see in Islam, she told them that wearing the Hijab is actually a feminist act. After 9/11 she faced strange looks, profanity shouted at her on the street, and the fear of what might happen if she didn't listen to the news. Muslims were told to stay indoors and not

The abrupt public focus on Muslims has changed the significance of being a Muslim American for many people. There were some who wanted to hide their Muslim identity or distance themselves as a result of all the negative attention they were receiving. Muslim Americans were affected by a societal backlash in 9/11, mainly by the war on terror. The suspicion of Muslim terrorist intensified after 9/11 that shifted racial identity amongst citizens, rather than it being a person who follows the religion (religious category) it became a racial identity. However, on the other hand in her research, Ewing has found that, "In some cases, the backlash has also led to an affirmation or strengthening of Muslim identification” (p. 19). Not all post 9/11 community attitudes toward Muslims are negative, in some cases as such it strengthen one’s identity. The importance is how these experiences feed into the process of how one felt before and after the tragic event and how the way Muslim communities and identities have

News Media as well as entertainment helped fuel the suspicion against Arab-Americans, with sensationalized news reports and depicting Arabs as terrorists. This worked to desensitize the average American to the plight of the Arab American while also inciting their anger towards a group of innocent people. Suheir Hammad writes in reference to a woman she saw crying in a parked car after the terrorist attack in New York, “I offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said, ‘we’re gonna burn them so bad, I swear, so bad’” (254). An act done by a group of Arab-Americans had become the responsibility of all Arab-Americans. They were to be responsible for this act; they are the problem, because they are foreign. No ‘real’ American would

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

Jamal, A. A. (2008). Race and Arab Americans before and after 9/11: From invisible citizens to visible subjects. Syracuse University Press.