Personal Narrative On Being A Muslim American

In the lecture “What It’s like to Be Muslim in America” by Dalia Mogahed, Dalia emphasizes how “Muslims are like canaries in the coal mine, we might be the first to feel it, but the toxic air of fear is harming us all” (Mogahed). This xenophobic behavior is what strives citizens to fear one another and find an excuse to polarize a certain ethnicity for their alleged affiliations with terrorist groups. This overwhelming fear causes the initial hatred towards some people but it ultimately ricochets onto the rest of society. Next, the abundant amount of fear proves to be detrimental to society due to the fact that it provokes disastrous behavior between citizens. According to Dalia, “ISIS has as much to do with Islam as the Ku Klux Klan has to

Moving from Jordan to the United States was challenging for my family. I was the only child at the time and my parents primarily spoke Arabic in the house. The elementary teachers I had described me as a timid student, because I could barely speak English. I had difficulty with simple reading and writing, while other students went through class with ease. Needing extra tutoring classes and years of being in ESL was exhausting. However, learning how to read, write, and speak English fluently was only the beginning of my journey.

I came to US during my 8th grade and that was a life changing moment in my life. It was first time traveling aboard and that also not for a trip but for to permanent settlement. I was nervous my whole time been in the plane that how I will cope up with new environment and with bunch of English speakers. I got more. When it came pilot call for, that it's time to land on the Detroit Airport, tighten your seatbelts and be relax. As soon as the plane landed on American soil, I knew that this was the place where I’d to start a new life. Even though I knew America is the “Land of Opportunity”, everything here seemed so strange to me, the streets, the language and the people that was my first time traveling abroad.

As a child, I didn’t think my life’s situations and experiences were too different from others being a Muslim in Canada. I only came to the realization of this as I grew older. Living as a Muslim we celebrated different holidays, wore different types of clothing, and valued things differently. I grew up in Cambridge, Ontario, and only moved to Mississauga in the ninth-grade grade where I realized how much differently I was treated. It wasn’t always ignorance; they were just unknowledgeable and unaware and I couldn’t blame them as I was apart of a religious minority. I looked at the understanding of my life’s events being apart of an Islamic subculture from a conflict theorist’s perspective where social life was looked at as “privileged groups

Being a latino in the U.S had been and still is the reason for suffering discrimination against one's aspirations and goals in life. Not only that but as an ESL life was far from being the American Dream most people come to this country looking for. The truth is that for those that had not escape from the category of ESL, prejudice will be a stigma that would follow them through high school and life. From these tumultuous waters I rose. Expectations were low and many assume that I was either stupid or incapable to compete with my classmates. My attitude and determination were the floating devices for my sicking life.

I was determined to find meaning and success within the hyphen of Afghan-American. I played for the golf team, despite being the only minority on the team. I ran and was elected to student government. I participated in the community through volunteering at a community center, and working at a pharmacy and a golf club. From all of this, I slowly saw positivity in my situation. My parents came to this country as refugees, hopeful that the land of hope would open its arms to them, and while I’ve faced challenges, the obstacles placed in front of me only added to my appreciation. It has led me to consider that while I face adversity because of my unchangeable identity, I must take advantage of the mobility college can give

Hi, I’m Anna Sophia Wager and I am from Germany. I immigrated to the United States in 1908. There was a big drought and my mother and father were very ill. I was helping my parents and my other family. One day, my father pulled me aside after school. I was a teacher at Berlin British School. He talked very softly. “Anna Sophia,” My father said, “Here is a ticket to Americana. Go and find Ben.” Ben was my older brother. My parents gave him a ticket to the United States. I looked at the ticket. It was a ticket that was golden brown. I gave my father a hug and ran to my room. I started packing, I didn’t know what was ahead of me. It was finally my third week on the crowded boat. When I look own the steerage door I see the dirty faces, hard lumpy beds, and chunky slimy soup.

I am an immigrant. I look and act like any other student at Reading High School, participating in class and school extracurricular activities. But, I live in constant fear. I am afraid that I may never be who I want to be. I worry that I may not get a job, go to college, or even get a driver's license. But what I worry most about is that my parents will be deported back to Mexico someday and I will lose my family, forever.

“Since 9/11, Muslims in America are living in fear” (“In a virtual internment camp: Muslim Americans since 9/11”). When our World Trade Center came crashing down, American had one more enemy, Muslims. 9/11 was a tragic act of terrorism and those victims will not be forgotten, but because of the Muslims that did this terrible act most Muslims in America were grouped into one category, evil.

After many hours of dissecting my own thoughts and ideas about the terrorist acts against my country, the United States of America, I have decided that there is no right or wrong way to handle the situation. The fact is, something just has to be done. I have studied our involvement in World War II, but the attack on the World Trade Center has really affected me. I grew up with the idea that although German- and Japanese-American citizens are innocent, many of us still have stereotypes about them. Why? What is so hard for us to give up stereotypes? Will our society ever be able to accept people of every race and color?

Comparatively Lina's life in America was a big concern for her family because she was a young girl who struggled to acquire personal independence from her traditional Arab parents. Thus she became a typical American teenager, like many high school kids, she wanted to find her identity so she dressed and dated like them and her mom got furious about it. Lina was sent to Iraq to embrace the culture and her roots as an Arab women. Especially seeing how Iraq has no rights and values like America has all because of Saddam Hussein. Being young and Arab in America is not always about discrimination or being the target of a crime they did not commit, being a young Arab can also mean being a part of the teenage culture and its consequences. In Lina's

I remember the stigma Muslims like me had faced following 9/11. We were the subject of hate crimes and the unfortunate acceptor of ridicule. It was in the 5th grade that I was first called a “terrorist” and it truly devastated me. I was being bullied, and it was only a matter of time until I mustered up enough courage to fight the foolish stereotype. It was a feeling of ecstacy and relief to have stood up for myself and end the victimization I had gone through. From that day forward, I made a vow to stand up against bullying in any way possible.

What it’s Like to be a Muslim in America by Dalia Mogahed and A Tale of Two Americas and the Mini-mart Where They Collided by Anand Giridharadas, both talk about what life is like being the “other” in America. Being a minority and trying to live a normal life interacting with the majority is shone to be difficult. There are two worlds living in one country, but neither of them truly understand each other.

I began wrestling since my freshman year of high school, as I have always wanted to wrestle. I did not necessarily at the sport, but I enjoyed it. I earned medals and won tournaments, and for a time I even saw myself wrestling in college. I thought that I had my future planned until I dislocated my knee. I first viewed the incident as a freak accident, but it soon happened frequently. It reached to the point where I required invasive surgery. Mulling over my surgery and repeated injuries, I concluded that wrestling became too dangerous. But I committed myself to wrestling; I had no idea what else to do. Desperate to find an activity to fill the void that athletics left behind, I decided to try something outside of my comfort zone. As a result,

The agonizing terrorist attacks of September 9th, 2001 left the country in emotional distress. The United States of America decided to prepare for tragic attacks like this and reevaluated its immigration and foreign policies, the citizens of the US also became united and stronger from these attacks. This ideology that the US has become more united after an attack that killed nearly 3,000 people has become mainstream and may be true in some cases, but many people overlook the impact it had on the millions of Muslim Americans. The Muslim generation before us had its own problems dealing with racial discrimination and hate crimes, many people believed it stop their but this contempt was passed on to my generation. The discrimination I have received has caused me to change my aspirations in order to ensure that no one else receives the treatment I had gotten.