12 minute read
Representation Matters
ISLAM IN AMERICA Representation Matters
Latino Muslims need to be seen as part of the global Muslim community
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BY WENDY DÍAZ
Fifteen years ago my husband and I, both Latino converts, welcomed our first son into this world. He was the first Muslim child born into our two families, a blend of Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian heritages, living here in the U.S.
His fitra, that innate faith in one Supreme Creator, was untainted. Unlike us, he did not have to discover Islam later in life. We named him Uthman, after the “bearer of the two lights” who was both a son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi was sallam) and the third righteously guided caliph. And so began our Muslim parenting journey, one that we are still striving to navigate efficiently as more and more challenges and blessings present themselves.
As convert parents, our objective is to raise righteous Muslims by God’s will; as Latinos, we endeavor to preserve our culture within the Islamic framework. We learned early on that despite what we heard from some well-intentioned Muslims, Islam did not come to take away our identity. In fact, Islam is part of our rich history as Latinos — an inheritance left by our ancestors that has been largely buried and forgotten.
Unfortunately, this reality remains largely unexplored in contemporary circles of knowledge because non-Latino Muslims do not consider Latin America part of the Islamic narrative. Yet, as more of us return to Islam, we are unearthing this truth and are eager to pass it on to our children with pride.
When we began searching for Islamic books and material to teach our first son in our native language, we were unsuccessful. However, as a mother who wanted to instill a love of reading in my child, I settled by purchasing books in English and translating them simultaneously to Spanish as I read them to my son.
I soon began reaching out to publishing companies that specialized in Islamic books and offered to translate their children’s books. After receiving no response or downright rejection because as they said, there was “no market for Spanish material,” I realized that if I wanted books for my children, I would have to write them.
Thankfully, I love writing as much as I love reading. However, I also knew from my experience with traditional Islamic publishers that they would most likely reject my manuscripts. My husband and I investigated self-publishing and, after investing our own capital, published our first bilingual Islamic children’s book: “A Veil and a Beard” (2010). Other books followed, including a series on the prophets, a book on Ramadan and another one on the Friday congregational prayer, a WE LEARNED EARLY THAT DESPITE WHAT WE HEARD FROM SOME WELL-INTENTIONED MUSLIMS, ISLAM DID NOT COME TO TAKE AWAY OUR IDENTITY. IN FACT, ISLAM IS PART OF OUR RICH HISTORY AS LATINOS — AN INHERITANCE LEFT BY OUR ANCESTORS THAT HAS BEEN LARGELY BURIED AND FORGOTTEN.
children-oriented artistic representation of the Hadith of Gabriel and others.
We sought support from friends and family through our nonprofit social project and dawa organization, Hablamos Islam, Inc. Due to the high demand for these books throughout Latin America, we were able to supply Spanish-language Islamic children’s books to needy communities in over a dozen countries. Thanks to God, we also began creating Spanish-language children’s programming on our YouTube channel, Hablamos Islam. So far, it has been viewed in over 40 countries. Nevertheless, this was not enough.
After my first — and then second and third — child entered school, I began to see another concerning trend: As the only Latino children in their Islamic schools, they experienced some alienation and bullying. My eldest son was often taunted by his classmates, who called him “Mexican” and said he ate tacos, despite him telling them that he was half Puerto Rican, half Ecuadorian and that tacos are not a staple of either country.
My second son’s teachers complained about his behavior and suggested that he was having trouble in class because we were converts and thus, he did not have many Muslim relatives as role models. And yet their last name, Guadalupe, a blend of Arabic and Latin (wadi [valley], al [the] and lupus [wolf]), was always mispronounced and ridiculed. Despite bringing this up to the school’s administration, little was done to curb the occurrences and misconceptions that fueled his classmates’ poor conduct.
At this point, I understood that the problem was not just the absence of Spanish-language Islamic books for children, but also the lack of Islamic books with Latino representation for all Muslims — children, parents and educators included. Latin American Muslims needed to see themselves represented in Islamic literature and be accepted by other Muslims as part of the general Islamic community.
Later, when we moved and I was forced to enroll my children in public school, I faced yet another issue: the need to educate non-Muslims about my Latin American Muslim family. This is when the idea for my most recent books was born.
Since the beginning of 2020, I have published six important pieces of literature that represent our experiences as Latino Muslims here in the U.S., both inside and outside the Islamic community. ◆
“De Puerto Rico to Islam With Love: A Collection of Poetry about Identity and Faith” — A book of memoir and poetry detailing the events that led to my conversion and that decision’s aftermath. ◆
“The Secret of My Hijab” (English and Spanish) — a children’s picture book showing the various reactions to the questions my hijab-wearing daughter encountered in public school. ◆
“The First Day of Ramadan/El primer día de Ramadán” (second edition) — a bilingual children’s book that follows a Muslim family’s first Ramadan fast and provides a glossary of the relevant vocabulary in both English and Spanish. ◆
“Yo Hablo Islam/I Speak Islam” — A Spanish-English dictionary for Muslim children to learn Spanish vocabulary, including terms related to their identity as Muslims. ◆
“Why Do Muslims…? 25 Questions for Curious Kids”— A Q&A children’s book with 25 facts about Islam and Muslims. The main character is Latino. ◆
“Eid Empanadas” — A book celebrating the Ramadan and Eid traditions of a Latin American Muslim family.
My mission is to be a voice for the underrepresented Latin American Muslim community, and especially for our children. Hopefully these books — and those yet to come — will help us understand each other and become more welcoming to those whom we do not know.
After more than a decade of being involved in this work, my family and I are now beginning to see other authors and even publishing companies starting to work toward filling this gap of missing Spanish-language material and representation for Muslim children. For that, we are profoundly grateful.
However, there is still a lack of support for these important resources. I hope that you, my dear reader, will help us raise awareness of this cause by adding these books to your home library, discussing diversity within our community with your children or students and sharing this article with others so that they can benefit from it as well. May God reward you, and may He bring back the unity in our commUNITY. Ameen! ih
Wendy Díaz is a Puerto Rican Muslim author, award-winning poet, translator and co-founder of Hablamos Islam, a social project focused on creating Spanish-language educational resources about Islam. Read more about her at hablamosislam. org and follow her on Facebook and Instagram @authorwendydiaz and @HablamosIslam. Her books are available at amazon. com/author/wendydiaz.
Facts, fiction, and future representation
BY SAHAR KHAMIS
Aquick Google search for “Muslim women” generates hundreds of photos of women totally cloaked in black garments head to toe, and even artistic images of women confined to the harem in a Shahrazad-like fairytale fashion.
As a communication and gender studies specialist, I stress that such images exist within a specific context and are not generated by coincidence. Rather, they reflect long-held and deeply rooted false stereotypes about Muslim women being submissive, repressed and silenced, or as overly sexualized objects—or both—from purely Orientalist, Western and/or male perspectives.
The danger of stereotyping lies not just in creating skewed misrepresentations, but also in translating them into actual biases and discrimination. Muslim American women are not immune to these threats. Despite being part of a fast-growing population segment that has been making significant economic, cultural and social contributions to American society for many years, they still suffer from these negative attitudes. Oftentimes, such discrimination is directed more against those who wear the hijab, a marker of their visible Muslim identity. Although there are laws, such as the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which can protect their right to wear the hijab, it takes more than laws to change societal mindsets, negative attitudes and prejudices.
According to the “American Muslim Poll 2018: Pride and Prejudice” conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU: https://www.ispu.org/public-policy/ american-muslim-poll-2018/), Muslim women and young people are more likely to experience racial discrimination. It also revealed that Muslim American women report higher levels of discrimination
compared to Muslim American men (68% vs. 55%). The “American Muslim Poll 2020: Amid Pandemic and Protest (https://www. ispu.org/public-policy/american-muslim-poll/) revealed that 65% of Muslim women report experiencing religious discrimination in the following circumstances: at the airport (47%), when applying for a job (32%), at their place of work or school (47%) and while interacting with strangers in public places (53%). American women are no exception in this regard (https://www.ispu.org/public-policy/ community-in-the-time-of-corona/).
An ISPU 2020 report documented many shining examples of their putting themselves forward to serve not only their own community, but also the larger one, to do what they can to help others deal with this pressing crisis. These remarkable yet little known efforts have ranged from coordinating their mosques’ responses to Covid-19 to distribut-
Since fear of the “Other” is always ignited by ignorance, which, in turn, ignites antagonism, the best formula to counter such negative realities is to replace fiction with facts to conquer fear. ISPU data reveal that Muslim women are more likely than their male counterparts to be middle class (43% vs. 38%) and to have completed post-high school education (73% vs. 57%). They also tend to be more liberal-minded compared to their male counterparts, with 47% supporting feminism (compared to 37% of Muslim men), and nearly 75% of them supporting their faith community’s efforts to build coalitions with groups like Black Lives Matter, compared to 58% of Muslim men.
Any attempt to overcome the obscurity of Muslim women’s roles, identities and realities must pay attention to two important factors, namely, the pandemic and contemporary American politics.
The pandemic has had a double-edged sword effect on women worldwide. On the one hand, it has negatively impacted them more than men in terms of detrimental economic, social and health effects, including losing jobs, providers and loved ones, while having to shoulder the additional burdens of caretaking. On the other hand, it granted them unique opportunities to step up and assume more visible and effective roles in serving their communities. Muslim ing free food items, face masks and personal protective equipment; serving as frontline workers, as well as doctors and nurses; and providing online education and training.
American politics, especially during the Trump years, posed another paradox for Muslim women. While the Trump presidency witnessed an unprecedented surge in Islamophobia, which impacted all Muslims, especially women, it also provided an unprecedented incentive for them to resist discrimination and push back against unjust policies, such as the Muslim Travel Ban.
This was reflected in their relatively increased civic engagement and political participation, best exemplified by the reelection of the first few Muslim congresswomen, Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), thereby ushering in a new era of visibility for fellow Muslim American women and setting bright role models for future generations to emulate.
This positive development was also reflected in their utilization of social media as an alternative mediated sphere in which to express themselves and resist their misrepresentation. One good example is the #CanYouHearUsNow Twitter campaign, which Muslim women launched to raise their voices in response to Trump’s attack on Gold Star mother Ghazala Khan during the 2016 general election, falsely depicting her as “silenced.” Another example is the Facebook pages and groups created by young Muslim women, such as “American Muslim Women in the Media,” which connects and coordinates the small but growing community of Muslim women who decided to take charge of changing their traditional stereotypical images by redefining their narratives and retelling their stories in their own voices.
It is certainly the hope that this new dawn of Muslim women’s civic engagement, social leadership and political participation, now coupled with their relentless efforts to amplify their voices, unveil their identities and redefine their narratives using a variety of tools and platforms, will translate into a more accurate representation of them in all spheres. All this effort will, if successful, greatly help counter stereotyping, discrimination and Islamophobia, while also supporting causes that are important to Muslims worldwide. This latter point is evident in the efforts exerted by Reps. Tlaib and Omar, who, together with other progressive Congress members, proposed actions to support the plight of the Palestinian people and to alleviate their suffering during the recent Gaza crisis.
The Biden era ushers in a new dawn of hope for minorities in the U.S., including Muslims, who voted for him with an overwhelming majority of 69%, according to a CAIR 2020 Muslim Voters Presidential Election Exit Poll (https://www.cair.com/ press_releases/breaking-news-cair-exitpoll-shows-american-muslims-vote-in-record-numbers-69-voted-for-biden/). The fact that President Biden is fulfilling his promise of putting together a new administration that “looks like America” when it comes to diversity and inclusion is very assuring.
While it’s fair to say that this country still needs to see more Muslims, especially women, represented in the Biden administration and beyond, it’s also fair to say that the opportunities for this to happen are now much greater than ever before.
All it takes is more hard work and investment in the realms of community engagement, activism and alliance-building—all of which are areas of strength for Muslim women. It’s only a matter of time. ih
Sahar Khamis, Ph.D., is associate professor of communication, affiliate professor of women’s studies, and affiliate professor in the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity, University of Maryland, College Park. Her area of expertise is Arab and Muslim media. Twitter: @skhamis
