participant remarked that her apartment was the one location where she
“didn’t feel out of place all the time.”
The home certainly offered some protection from harsh mistreatment.
The privacy and security that muslim Americans hoped to attain, however,
proved elusive. in the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks,
federal immigration officials and law enforcement agents conducted raids
on muslim residences and businesses in virginia, Georgia, new york, and
other locations along the east Coast.36 vivid accounts of dozens of armed
men searching homes and seizing possessions while frightened mothers and
daughters were handcuffed on the floor spread like wildfire through the
muslim community, as did news that the government was now engaged in
the wholesale monitoring of telephone conversations and e-mail messages.37
As concerns about government surveillance mounted, so, too, did
other anxieties within muslim households. The respondents reported that
one of the most significant tensions that erupted between family members
after 9/11 was related to their dress and other aspects of their physical
appearance. religious visibility was a key predictor of who was, and was
not, discriminated against after 9/11. Because visibility was so important in
determining the likelihood of being harmed, it is understandable that much
discussion and debate ensued within muslim homes and the larger faith
community regarding acceptable norms of dress in the disaster aftermath.
Repercussions / 131
Among the participants in this study, more than half the men said that
their mothers or fathers asked that they change some aspect of their physical
appearance after 9/11 so they would look “less Arab” or “less muslim.” most
often, the men’s family members wanted them to trim or shave their beards.
Other times, the men faced opposition when they attempted to wear islamic
attire outside the home. Farook, who lived in Colorado, wore a kufi, which
is a brimless, rounded cap donned by some muslim men. The day after the
terrorist attacks, Farook and his parents, who lived in new mexico, got into
an argument over the telephone regarding his decision to keep his kufi on:
my parents wanted me to take it off. The day after, i was fighting
with my parents on the phone about it. They wanted me to take it
off—they ordered that i stop wearing it. i took it off, and i sat it on
my knee. But then i thought about how the [muslim] sisters would
be treated, because you can see them even more than you can see a
muslim man. so i felt like i had an ethical responsibility to leave it on.
i took it off for about twenty minutes, but then i put it back on.
nearly three-fourths of the women who covered reported that their
parents told them to wear the hijab in a “less muslim way” (i.e., instead
of letting the headscarf drape around their shoulders and bosom, tying
the headscarf back tightly around their heads) or they insisted that their
daughters quit wearing the headscarf altogether. leila described what
happened to her after 9/11:
When the whole thing happened, after two hours i’m getting phone
calls from my relatives saying that i should take off my headscarf,
saying, “no way in hell. you shouldn’t even go out. Take off your
headscarf. you’re going to get yourself killed.” i’m like, “What are
you talking about?” my relatives were giving lectures to my parents
and telling them, “you should stop your daughter from wearing a
headscarf.” i’m the only child living with my mom and dad right now.
They were like, “no way. no headscarf.”
leila quit wearing her headscarf to appease her parents. she was
distressed, however, that she was unable to express herself or display her
identity as a muslim. When i interviewed her four weeks after 9/11, she was
wearing the headscarf again, unbeknownst to her parents. she said, “i go
to school, i put it on, and then i take it off when i leave.” This was far from
an ideal solution. leila felt extremely guilty about doing something against
her parents’ wishes and without their knowledge. At the same time, she was
unwilling to stop wearing the hijab.
132 / Chapter 5
they attempted to balance the demands of their family members and the
practices of their faith. several college-age women who participated in a
focus group in Brooklyn described how adamant their mothers and fathers
were that they take off their headscarves following 9/11:
sArAH: my family was like, “i knew you shouldn’t have covered.” my
mom used to cover, and now she doesn’t. she and my father are
like, “Why are you punishing yourself? you’re not going out like
that. you’re going to wear a hat.”
minA: my father literally stood in front of me. . . .
rAinA: my family doesn’t cover. [ Everyone talks at once. ]
minA: my dad said to stay home for a couple of days until everything
calms down. He said, “you’re going to get really bad reactions if
you go out that way.” But after the first week, he let go. He trusted
that we know what we’re going to do. no way am i going to take
it off. [ Everyone talks at once. ]
DAriA: my dad was yelling at me, “you take that off your head.” He
actually said to me, “it’s for safety purposes.” in our religion, you
are allowed to take off the headscarf if you are in danger. He was
so angry at me, because i wasn’t obeying him. i said, “no, i’m
not taking it off.” right now—thank God, i don’t want to jinx
myself—ever since this has happened, nobody has really come up
to me or said anything or physically tried to do anything to me.
it’s all about how you feel inside. if you know what kind of person
you are, and if you carry yourself . . . [w]hen people stare at me
on the train, i stare right back at them. i’m not going to put my
head down.
The respondents quoted above, as well as many others who had similar
confrontations with their family members, understood that their parents
asked (or demanded) that they stop wearing islamic attire because they were
truly worried about their physical and mental well-being. nonetheless, some
of the participants were hurt that their mothers and fathers would make
requests that violated their religious beliefs. Habeeba, a native of india,
shared what happened with her family:
my mom wants me to take my headscarf off, because she’s terrified
that somebody is going to hurt me. This is my religion. i can override
whatever my parents want. i have to do what the religion says. i told
them, “leave me alone. i want to wear it. you can’t tell me to take it
off.” But it’s very hurtful, growing up in an islamic home and then
Repercussions / 133
having your parents say this to you because they’re scared. it makes
me feel very sad. i lock my door and think about how they’re so reli-
gious and they pray all the time. What is going through their minds?
How do they feel when i leave the house in the morn
ing? They know
that they can’t stop me. if i want to do something, i’m just going to
do it. it’s hard that this happened and the situation that it puts us all
in as muslim women.
many of the women in the study were quick to point out that their
decisions to wear the headscarf had provoked conflict long before the post-
9/11 backlash began. The headscarf is one of the most contested symbols in
islam, and an array of complex cultural, historical, political, socioeconomic,
and religious factors influence whether women in nations around the world
accept this form of dress. For example, in some of the respondents’ or their
parents’ countries of origin, women who wear the headscarf represent the
most poor, uneducated, or stigmatized members of society. moreover, a
number of the participants’ parents had immigrated to the United states
to escape repressive social conditions that required all muslim women to
cover. some of the mothers and fathers viewed wearing the hijab as strictly a
cultural practice—not mandated by God and certainly not required for girls
or young women. Given these varied perspectives, it is not surprising that the
women described many different familial reactions to their choices to wear
the hijab, reactions that ranged from happiness to shock and even anger.
Hiba, who began covering five years before the 9/11 attacks, recounted her
family members’ initial response to her decision:
For my dad, after i put on the headscarf, it was “Why are you wear-
ing that?” Then when i started wearing the jilbab, it’s like, “Oh my
God, those are Arab clothes. Why are you wearing Arab clothes?”
The way we were raised, women don’t wear this. if you see the
muslim women who are on television, the majority don’t even cover.
so for them, it’s not even an issue. But the fact that our generation
wants to cover—my relatives are so Westernized, you can’t even
tell they’re Arab, let alone muslim. They have blonde hair, [light-
colored] contact lenses, tight clothes. They’re like, “Why are you
wearing that?” i’m like, “Why not? Why aren’t you wearing it? i
should be asking you that question.” They’re like, “you’re young;
you shouldn’t do that to yourself.” They think that i shouldn’t wear
my headscarf until after i get married. And even if i wear it now, i
should wear more tight clothes and be more Westernized. i think
they want that. if i tell them something, they’re like, “Oh my God,
are you the priest or what?”
134 / Chapter 5
randa described similar opposition from her family after she decided to
cover:
On 9/11, they were worried about me, but even before that. . . . There
are all these sentiments about religion that result from being from
a colonized country, like insecurity about their religion. especially
educated middle-class and upper-class people tend to think that if
someone wears a scarf, that means that they’re ignorant and unedu-
cated, poor, lower class, backward. educated people don’t do that. my
parents tend to have that feeling. They also think that it’s not neces-
sary. you can be muslim and not wear a scarf, but i wanted to move
to another level. They still have a hard time with it. i’m working on
trying to explain things. it’s hard when it’s your family, when you’d
think they would understand.
Those women who had encountered familial resistance to wearing the
hijab before 9/11 were especially likely to describe elevated tensions within
their households after the terrorist attacks. semira’s experience underscores
this point. she started covering when she was a teenager. Her actions were
met with disapproval by her parents, who were natives of egypt and who
wanted their daughter to have “every opportunity” in the United states.
Thus, semira’s islamic dress had been debated in the household for years.
After 9/11, semira received angry stares and verbal insults from strangers,
but she decided not to tell her family members, because she assumed that
they would advise her to stop wearing the hijab. The struggle between semira
and her parents intensified after her father witnessed her being harassed a
few weeks after 9/11. she described what happened:
my father had come to pick me up after work, because they weren’t
allowing me to take the train again yet. They were too scared
something was going to happen to me, so my dad was driving me
everywhere. He came to pick me up one day, and i was just sitting
on the bench in front of the office building. As my dad pulled up,
this gentleman and his wife, they were in the next car over. The man
raised the middle finger to me and started cursing. my father saw
this happen, and he started yelling at the couple in the car, “Why are
you doing this? Why are you looking at her?” He was so mad to see
me, his only daughter, treated this way. But at the same time, he was
so angry at me. We went home, and my mother, father, and i had this
huge fight. it was all “We told you that you shouldn’t cover. We told
you that you are going to get hurt. What if i wouldn’t have been there
to protect you? What if you get yourself killed?” it was absolutely
Repercussions / 135
terrible. i know that they love me very much. i know that they want
me to be safe, but it was a very difficult time.
Beyond the conflicts with their parents regarding their clothing and
appearance, many of the younger respondents, and especially the women,
who still lived at home were required to adhere to stricter curfews after 9/11.
some parents also asked their children to “report in” and let them know
where they would be and whom they would be with during all evening and
weekend outings. The interviewees with the most protective mothers and
fathers described how their parents began checking up on them constantly.
For instance, iffat, who was twenty-two years old, detailed the lengths her
parents had gone to after 9/11: “my parents got me a cell phone. yesterday i
went to the library to study in school. i checked my voicemail, and there were
nine messages from my parents at two-minute intervals! i turned it off after a
while. [ The rest of the women in the focus group laugh and nod. ]”
even though the interviewees sometimes joked about their highly
cautious parents, they understood their apprehension and obviously shared
many of their parents’ concerns. At the same time, it was difficult for the
interviewees to relinquish freedoms that they had taken for granted before
the terrorist attacks.
As the participants began returning to other normal activities in the
weeks following 9/11, their family members encouraged them to take special
precautions to try to reduce their vulnerability. specifically, parents urged
their children to keep a low profile and to try to avoid drawing attention
to their religious or ethnic identities. some of the interviewees’ parents
insisted that they stop attending activities associated with Arab or islamic
organizations. Kamilah, a second-generation American of egyptian de
scent,
noted that her mother no longer wanted her taking part in events associated
with the Women in islam club at her college, even though Kamilah was the
president of the group: “my mom has always been supportive. They have
always let me do whatever i want to do with my life. They’ve never butted
in—except for now. my mom won’t let me go to food sales, fundraisers for
Women in islam. she’s like, ‘no. people would know. They’ll follow you
around.’ she’s not scared of me getting killed. i’m not scared of getting killed.
But i’m scared of getting harassed.”
Hamad, who was active in the msA and a palestinian human-rights
organization on his university campus, similarly noted that his parents
told him to “stay away from politics, to stay away from everything” after
9/11. Despite their warnings, Hamad said, “i just couldn’t stop, though,
because i’ve always been involved in certain things.” Hamad continued his
association with these student groups, but he was forced to hide his actions
from his parents, which left him feeling guilty and unsettled.
136 / Chapter 5
The men in this study also described how worried their parents were
about their participation in activities at their local mosques. immediately
after the terrorist attacks, law enforcement officers interrogated and arrested
thousands of muslim men across the nation. in the ensuing years, the FBi
sent undercover agents posing as worshippers into mosques and allegedly
pressured muslim men to become government informants.38 Ali, whose
parents were indonesian, said that the public and governmental backlash
that followed 9/11 “posed big challenges for me personally.” He elaborated: “i
know that my parents have not been happy that i go to the mosque to pray
in the morning. They have never been very happy, but now they really don’t
want me to go to the mosque in the morning. They are worried i could be
attacked there or that the government will follow me and accuse me of being
an extremist.”
Faraaz, whose family was originally from yemen, had a cousin arrive for a
visit to the United states the day before the terrorist attacks. even though the
cousin, Amin, was in the United states legally, his presence in the household
caused “a lot of tension” within the family. in particular, the fact that Amin