Culture matters

Research on young Muslims growing up in America has found that many Muslims are living in extremely challenging times. The challenges are multi-layered. Most of their parents are first-generation immigrants who arrived in the United States under either the skilled or humanitarian category. Initially, many first-generation immigrants experience culture shock. Some also remain disappointed with the class structure and racial inequality that persists in some sections of American society. In the new cultural environment, Muslim parents may also become overprotective of their children’s upbringing. In their edited book, Growing Up Muslim, Garrod and Kilkenny discussed the life stories of 14 young Muslims in America. ¹ The stories revealed the dynamics of Muslim identity, cultural norms in some families, cultural sensitivities, wider society’s lack of knowledge of minority cultures, the hijab dilemma, the influence of the diaspora, Muslims’ awareness of American foreign policies and its impact on their freedom of speech, and repercussions of 9/11 on American young Muslims. The stories showed that some young American Muslims remain under tremendous pressure to meet their parents’ cultural expectations. ² In their educational institutions, young Muslims were expected to assimilate with the wider society’s culture. In her book Muslim American Women on Campus, Shabana Mir examined the stories of 26 Muslim girls from two colleges in the United States. ³ Mir observed that American Muslim women experience ‘double scrutiny – from their own communities and from the dominant ones – they found and created spaces within both communities to grow and assert themselves as individuals’. ⁴ In the process of becoming individuals, they encountered many ‘conflicting expectations, resistance, triumph, compromise, and surrender’. ⁵