Behind the Backlash
Behind the Backlash
Muslim Americans after 9/11
Lori Peek
temple university press
philadelphia
Temple UniversiTy press
philadelphia, pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2011 by Temple University
All rights reserved
published 2011
library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data
peek, lori A.
Behind the backlash : muslim Americans after 9/11 / lori peek.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-59213-982-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — isBn 978-1-59213-983-5
(pbk. : alk. paper) — isBn 978-1-59213-984-2 (e-book)
1. muslims—United states—Attitudes. 2. muslims—United states—ethnic identity.
3. muslims—United states—social conditions. 4. september 11 Terrorist Attacks,
2001—influence. 5. public opinion—United states. 6. Cultural pluralism—United states.
7. United states—ethnic relations. i. Title.
e184.m88p44 2010
305.6'97073—dc22
2010010131
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American national
standard for information sciences—permanence of paper for printed library materials,
Ansi Z39.48-1992
printed in the United states of America
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
For Justin
Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
1 introduction
1
2 Under Attack
17
3 encountering intolerance
36
4 Backlash
60
5 repercussions
103
6 Adaptations
140
7 Conclusion
164
notes
181
index
207
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the help of many
people. The most important debt of gratitude i owe is to the muslim
women and men who participated in this study. Because i promised
to keep their identities confidential, i am unable to thank each by name
here. They should know, however, that the most compelling and insight-
ful words in this volume belong to them. i am an outsider to their faith
community, and i entered their lives during a time of intense sadness and
uncertainty. yet from my first encounter with each of these individuals,
i was treated with a level of trust and respect that i had not yet earned.
Over the years, their kindness and generosity never faltered. i am grateful
beyond measure for their willingness to share their experiences with me.
i began this research during my years as a graduate student. my
mentors and the members of my dissertation committee—patti Adler,
Denny—were always gentle but firm in offering critiques of my work.
Their feedback ultimately helped shape many of the ideas that appear in
print here.
As this project progressed, a number of friends and colleagues
provided various forms of intellectual and emotional support. sama
Alshaibi, elaine enarson, Wendy estes-Zumpf, Julie Gailus, sandy
Hills, eric Klinenberg, Heidi marshall, michelle scobie, rachel smith,
Jeannette sutton, megan Underhill, and sammy Zahran encouraged
x / Acknowledgments
me and offered clear-headed advice regarding the publication process.
When i was feeling stuck, i turned to Jeni Cross, Jessica Hamblen, rachel
luft, David neal, and Debra schneck for suggestions. Their comments
on particular sections of the book enabled me to find the right words at
just the right time. The wise and wonderful nancy Whichard kept me
motivated and moving forward with the writing.
norbert Baer helped me navigate new york City after 9/11. Without him,
i would have been lost—literally and figuratively. since our days in graduate
school, Alice Fothergill has guided and reassured me at every turn. Alice
is not only my most frequent scholarly collaborator; she is also a friend in
the truest sense of the word. Kai erikson has brought many gifts to my life,
and his compassion for those who have endured unspeakable calamities
continually moves me. i have lost count of the number of times that Kai
paused from his own pressing work so that he could help me with this book.
i hope he knows how truly grateful i am.
The faculty and staff in the Department of sociology at Colorado state
University gave me the time and space i needed to complete this book. The
graduate students who participated in my Qualitative methods seminar in the
spring of 2008 showed a sincere interest in this project, and they helped me
think through the conceptual organization of the chapters. laura ridenour,
a student in that class who later worked as my research assistant, deserves a
special word of thanks for her many helpful suggestions. sandy Grabowski
expertly transcribed thousands of pages of interview data, and Darshini
munasinghe and Clark niemeyer-Thomas assisted with the management of
the data. sara Gill conducted literature searches and many other research
errands on my behalf. my warm thanks go to Jennifer Tobin-Gurley, michelle
lueck, and Andy prelog, who carefully reviewed the chapters and checked all
the endnotes. Their keen attention to detail is unsurpassed.
i am ever grateful for Huma Babak, sahar Babak, isra’a Belgasem,
samina Hamidi, sayaros mohamed, and meena Oriakhel. each one, in her
own way, helped me consider broader trends and patterns affecting the day-
to-day lives of muslim Americans.
As i finished each chapter, i would send the pages off to Zaki safar,
a friend who now lives halfway around the world. Zaki read every word
with an incredible level of care and precision. He also provided an insider’s
perspective, and his knowledge allowed me to clarify several key details in
the book.
Once i had assembled a full draft of the manuscript, i mailed it to Jen
lois. Jen is an amazing sociologist, and her methodological and theoretical
insights pushed me to sharpen my core arguments. larry palinkas, mentor
extraordinaire, helped me start writing this book. He also offered valuable
suggestions on a second draft of the manuscript. A third draft landed in
Acknowledgments / xi
the able hands of my brilliant friend and colleague Kate Browne. Kate not
only provided me with a set of thoughtful comments; she also encouraged,
supported, inspired, and guided me through the entire process.
i owe a great deal to the three anonymous reviewers who offered
feedback on my book proposal and three early chapters. russell Dynes and
Brenda phillips deserve recognition and thanks for their careful review of the
complete manuscript.
i offer my deepest thanks to micah Kleit,
executive editor at Temple
University press, for taking a chance on me and my work. micah’s interest
and enthusiasm made me believe that a book really was hidden away in
the dissertation, and his editorial expertise improved the final product
considerably. i also thank Gary Kramer, irene imperio Kull, Joan vidal,
Heather Wilcox, and the rest of the team at Temple for all that they did to
bring the book to life.
i thank the American Association of University Women, the Center for
Humanities and the Arts and the Graduate school at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, the national science Foundation, the natural Hazards
research and Applications information Center, and the public entity risk
institute. my participation in the research education in Disaster mental
Health (reDmH) program, which the national institutes of mental Health
funded, played a crucial role in the conceptualization and completion of this
work. Fran norris, who established reDmH, introduced me to new ways of
thinking about loss and trauma. i will always be thankful for Fran and for all
the knowledge and wisdom that she so generously shares.
i cannot imagine completing much of anything, let alone this book,
without my family. i owe my parents, Cathy and Bud peek, an entire lifetime
of thanks. my brothers and their wives—Brad and Heather, matt and Gina,
and Zach and laura—continue to keep me grounded and laughing. much
gratitude also goes to my in-laws, Dorothy and Chris Bell and nora and ron
Gottschlich.
Justin Gottschlich, my husband and best friend, is a constant reminder of
all the most extraordinary things in life. His sense of humor, loving patience,
intelligence, and passion for knowledge continually inspire me. This book is
dedicated to him for countless reasons, but most of all because he has been
with me every step of the way.
Behind the Backlash
1
Introduction
The attacks that occurred on september 11, 2001, unleashed an almost
unimaginable torrent of pain and destruction. since that day, count-
less scholarly articles, books, edited volumes, and impressive pieces
of investigative journalism have dissected and analyzed the events lead-
ing up to and the consequences of the terrible calamities that will forever
mark that moment in history. This book is distinct in that its central
focus is on those persons who were caught up in the extraordinary wave
of hostility and backlash violence that followed the terrorist attacks.
specifically, Behind the Backlash chronicles the exclusion that
muslim American men and women faced before and especially in the
aftermath of 9/11. This book draws on the voices of muslim Americans
to describe the range of discrimination they experienced, to explain the
personal and collective impacts of the backlash, and to shed light on the
ways in which muslims adapted in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
To begin, i offer a brief explanation regarding the origins of this work
and my encounters with the people whose experiences are the subject of
this text.
Growing up, i, like the majority of Americans, knew little about the
beliefs and practices of the more than one billion people around the globe
who follow the religion of islam.1 no muslims lived in my hometown
in rural eastern Kansas, where the vast majority of the population was
white and protestant and the most serious religious divisions were
2 / Chapter 1
between the Baptists and the methodists. i was first exposed, albeit briefly,
to islam when i went away to college and took a class on world religions. The
course description promised an introduction to the histories and central
beliefs of the world’s major religions, including the three great monotheistic
faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and islam. Three fifty-minute class sessions
were dedicated to islam as part of the larger section on “eastern religions.”
Although educational in some respects, these lessons also served to promote
the incorrect view of islam as a foreign religion practiced only in distant
lands.
my first serious introduction to islam came a few years later, when i
moved to the mid-size city of Fort Collins, Colorado. it was 1997, and i
had accepted a position to coordinate a program aimed at retaining ethnic
minority university students who were pursuing degrees in the natural
sciences. Aisha—a native of Afghanistan—was one of the undergraduates
selected to participate in that program. she was a sophomore in college at the
time and was working on her bachelor’s degree in computer science. When
i first met Aisha, i had no idea that she was muslim. she wore no headscarf
or other visible signifier that might have offered some clue to her religious
beliefs, and i was not yet savvy enough about the world to know that nearly
all Afghans are muslim.2
soon after i started my job, Aisha approached me and asked if she could
use one of the vacant offices so that she could pray between classes and work.
she explained that she was muslim and that one of the requirements of her
faith was that she pray facing toward the holy city of mecca five times each
day. Because she spent long hours on campus, it was difficult for her to find
a private space to perform her noon and midday prayers. i readily agreed
to Aisha’s request but then quickly admitted my ignorance when it came to
virtually everything associated with islam. Aisha laughed and, in her usual
good-natured way, assured me that i was not alone. she then asked if i might
like to have dinner at her house one evening so that i could meet her family
and try some of her mother’s homemade Afghan food. i did not know it at the
time, but Aisha would become the first of many who would teach me about
what it means to be a muslim in America.
looking back, i suppose that, in some respects, i was drawn to Aisha
because of our differences. Although only a few years separated us in age,
our lives had unfolded half a world apart and in extraordinarily different
ways. Aisha was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, just before the soviet invasion
in December 1979. like all other Afghans, Aisha and her family suffered
tremendous losses in the protracted and bloody ten-year war that followed.
Aisha’s father, both of her grandfathers, and several other family members
died in the fighting. One of her uncles and several other family friends were
taken by the Communist-controlled government and were never heard from
Introduction / 3
again. Aisha’s mother was forced to quit her job as a teacher after she and
the other women at the school received death threats. soon thereafter, Aisha
and her three siblings had to stop attending school because of the growing
risks that daily bombings and frequent landmine explosions posed. Aisha’s
immediate family was financially well-off before the war started, but they
would eventually lose the land that they owned, their home, and all their
material possessions.
Aisha was nearly ten years old when she, her
two sisters, her younger
brother, their mother, and four other female family members fled Kabul.
The nine of them—like the millions of other Afghans who were displaced
as a result of the conflict—left everything that they had behind and boarded
a bus headed to pakistan. They traveled for days through the treacherous
mountains of their war-torn country, only to be turned back by soviet
guards at the border. Aisha and her family returned to the bus devastated,
but a sympathetic driver encouraged them to find another way to pass the
checkpoint. Two days later, under the cover of night and hidden in a rice
truck, Aisha’s family slipped across the Afghan border and into the city of
peshawar, pakistan.
Upon their arrival in pakistan, the family managed to rent a tiny
apartment with the help of Aisha’s grandparents and an uncle who had
emigrated to the United states. Aisha attended a school in pakistan that was
opened specifically for Afghan refugees. The students sat on cold, dirt floors
in the unheated and overcrowded building. They had no desks, books, paper,
or pencils, and the teacher was forced to write the day’s lessons in chalk on
the dirt classroom walls. Aisha and the other children didn’t mind, though,
as they were thankful to be alive and in school. They had seen too many of
their former classmates killed or maimed in landmine explosions back in
Kabul.
As a child, Aisha often fantasized about living in the United states, and,
after nearly three years in pakistan, her dream came true. Aisha’s uncle, who
had recently married and moved to Fort Collins, sent word that the family
had been granted immigration papers. plane tickets were waiting for Aisha
and her eight other family members who had survived the war and escaped
Afghanistan. Upon receiving the incredible news, the family closed the door
on their apartment in pakistan and never looked back.
Aisha and her family arrived in Colorado in 1992. school officials were
not sure what to do with her and her siblings, because the children did not
speak any english and no school district employees spoke their native Farsi
language. Aisha was thirteen years old at the time, and, because of her age,
she was ultimately placed in the eighth grade. For the first several months
of school, however, she had absolutely no idea what the teachers or the other