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Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11
Louise A. Cainkar
"Homeland Insecurity is rare in its ability to connect governmental policies at the national level with events on the ground in Chicago. Cainkar documents the War on Terror with a strong critical eye, showing how it was animated by a combination of local and global forces, by an American media culture that was prone to depict Muslims and Islam negatively, and by deep historical patterns of anti-Arab racism. Intimate ethnography, based on years of acquaintance with Chicago's Arab communities, and savvy political commentary, backed up by painstaking research, come together in this forceful study, which will double as a guidebook to those who want to understand, and undermine, the mechanics of anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim politics in the U.S. today." -Andrew Shryock, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan
"This book turns the Bush Administration's concept of homeland security on its head. Where the government treated Arab Americans and Muslim Americans as potential threats to the security of the United States, Louise Cainkar documents the U.S. government's threats to the security of these minority populations, almost none of whom were ever shown to be dangerous. In the words of one of Cainkar's interviewees, 'After September 11, I don't think anybody felt safe ... but Muslims definitely did not feel safe.'" -Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology, University of North Carolina
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Contact: Michael Hamill Remaley at (212) 750-6037
America's Arabs
and Muslims Had Most to Fear Following 9/11
In New Book Expanding on Ethnographic Research, Arab and Muslim Americans Speak Out on Experiences with Government, Public Mistrust, Discrimination and Harassment
New York City - The Russell Sage Foundation announces the release of a new book by Louise A. Cainkar, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11. The book argues that 9/11 did not create anti-Arab and anti-Muslim suspicion but rather that socially constructed images and social and political exclusion of these Americans existed long before the attacks. Those prejudices created an environment in which public misunderstanding and hostility following the attacks would thrive and in which the government would defend its use of profiling.
Focusing on the metropolitan Chicago area, Cainkar conducted more than a hundred research
interviews and five in-depth oral histories. In this, the most comprehensive ethnographic study of the post-9/11 period for American Arabs and Muslims, native-born and immigrant Palestinians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Jordanians, and others speak candidly about their lives as well as their experiences with government, public mistrust, discrimination, and harassment after 9/11.
The book reveals:
-Muslim women wearing the hijab are more vulnerable to assault than men, as their head scarves are interpreted by some as a rejection of American culture.
"I have been called a bitch and a whore since I began wearing hijab. My husband works on the west side. He does not have any problems. He prays right in the store. In the black community they all understand and accept this." ( p. 34)
-The closing months of the 2008 presidential campaign saw a surge in anti-Muslim violence in Chicago's
heavily Republican western suburbs.
"Longtime U.S. representative Ray LaHood (R-Illinois) told the press on October 20, 2008, that while he supported the Republican presidential ticket, he was profoundly dismayed by crowds shouting "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" -assumed to refer to Democratic presidential candidate Obama." (p. 8)
-The majority of practicing Muslims (76%) reported a deepening of their religious faith after 9/11 and that many formerly non-practicing or secular Muslims joined religious congregations.
"I yearn more for my roots, and my religious spiritual roots personally. After 9/11, I felt like I stuck out, [was] more scrutinized, and that brought out a lot of self-scrutiny too. I felt that had gone dormant, my
relationship with my religion and culture, both. And I felt also that I must under all circumstances make sure that my children also experience a spiritual journey to exploring their Muslim faith." (p. 277)
Despite well documented discrimination, the vast majority of those interviewed for Homeland Insecurity report feeling optimistic about the future of Arab and Muslim life in the United States. Governmental and popular hostility proved to be a springboard for heightened social and civic engagement. Immigrant organizations, religious leaders, civil rights advocates, community organizers, and others defended Arabs and Muslims and built networks with their organizations. Local roundtables between Arab and Muslim leaders, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies developed better understanding of Arab and Muslim communities. These post-9/11 changes have given way to stronger ties and greater inclusion in American social and political
life.
"The title of this book emerged from research data showing that during the three years following the attacks of September 11, 2001, a majority of Arab Muslim Americans reported feeling unsafe and insecure in the United States. This sense of insecurity, which was not only articulated in narratives but was palpable, was an outcome of their treatment by the American government and some members of the American public and by portrayals of them in the mainstream American media, which proffered constructions of reality that repeatedly supported notions of the collective culpability of Arab and Muslim Americans for the attacks," says Cainkar in the book. "But we have once again learned an old lesson: that social constructions applied to entire groups of people can be extremely damaging to them, especially when a government uses such ideas to guide its policies."
"This book turns the Bush Administration's concept of
homeland security on its head," said Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina professor of sociology who reviewed the book. "Where the government treated Arab Americans and Muslim Americans as potential threats to the security of the United States, Louise Cainkar documents the U.S. government's threats to the security of these minority populations."
Continuously updated information on Homeland Insecurity is available here.
Louise A. Cainkar is assistant professor of sociology and social justice at Marquette University. |
