University Hall echoed with the words of a call to action for change in college diversity – a change that isn’t about consuming culture in pre-packaged movies and then pretending to understand a certain ethic or religious group.
On Tuesday afternoon, author and anthropologist Shabana Mir gave a lecture on the topics in her book, “Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity.” The book discusses the findings of her study on what it’s like to be a young Muslim woman in a post-9/11 America.
Mir conducted her study on two private college campuses in Washington, D.C., and had 13 participants from each university. Over the course of a year, she interviewed women at least once a month and followed their struggles with identity, culture and religion. The women identified as Muslim – although on varying levels – and were all American born or raised. Furthermore, the participants were ethnically diverse, coming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Somalia and other nations.
Throughout her lecture, Mir shared stories from her interviews with the college women who participated in her study and asked the audience to analyze the social ramifications of what some of the women experienced. One woman, Intisar, came to the U.S. as a refugee when she was in elementary school and assimilated American culture by playing basketball.
“’I wasn’t some Somali outcast ... I could just play basketball
and be Intisar who plays basketball and also happens to be Somali and Muslim when those things would, at first, define me,” Mir quoted one of her research participants as saying.
However, when Intisar’s mother said it was time for her to wear a hijab, the Muslim veil that covers the neck and chest, Intisar said she was stereotyped by her peers. In basketball games, Intisar was no longer picked first for scrimmages and people were surprised when she played well. Mir stressed that the women in her study continuously struggled with simply wanting to be themselves amidst the pressures to define their identity in regard to religion and culture.
“If (the women), particularly in areas of social culture, if they didn’t fit the stereotype of what American culture said a normal undergraduate would do, they would be assumed to be foreign, kind of weird, kind of uptight and just not normal,” Mir said.
As she discussed the pressures the Muslim women faced from both their American and Muslim communities, Mir mentioned pop culture examples of people who have succumbed to cultural pressures. Mir argued that Jon Stewart, whose birth name is Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, is a prime example of someone who has succumbed to cultural assimilation, changing his name to sound less Jewish.
“These kinds of clips of identity bring out the undercurrent of stigma that is still there for Jews, Latinos (and others),” Mir said. “Cultural assimilation is still an expectation. The dominant culture remains white and Anglo.”
Kaitlyn Sommer, a sophomore in the College of Agriculture, and Andre Larsen, also a sophomore in the College of Agriculture, attended the lecture as part of a class in their agriculture curriculum titled “Multicultural Awareness.”
“We’re doing a project on Islam and the differences between men and women, so we came just to gather more information and hear what (she) had to say,” Sommer said.
Students from a first-year honors anthropology class were also present and had read Mir’s book as part of their class. However, Mir called for a bigger change – something that will take more than just a few classes discussing the culture in America. She said this change needs to begin with administration in order to really impact the social culture amongst peers on college campuses.
“People say higher education is inclusive because we have diversity policies, we have quotas, we have affirmative action, we have an office for ‘something’ and student organizations for every ethnic group there is, but (it) is on a different level,” Mir said. “I think a lot of higher education efforts are focused on what I call ‘University Theater.’ Really it’s nothing; it’s just a lot of show. A lot of what happens in higher education, I feel, is a lot of busy work to show people are doing something. Why can’t overall culture change be a real agenda?”
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