Hyphenated Selves: Muslim American Youth Negotiating Identitieson the Fault Lines of Global Conflict

Selcuk R. SirinNew York University

Michelle FineThe Graduate Center, The City University of New York

In the wake of the events of September 11, Muslim-American youth found that themultiple cultures within which they live were suddenly and alarmingly in conflict.The developmental consequences of living in a world fractured by religious andethnic terror have yet to be determined forMuslim youth in the United States. Thisexploratory, mixed-method study begins to examine how Muslim youth negotiatetheir identities in these challenging times. Documented in the surveys, narrated inthe interviews, and drawn into their identity maps, Muslim-American youth(n ! 70) ages 12 to 18, vividly portrayed their interior lives as a dialectic laborof psychological reconciliation – piecing together what we call hyphenated selves.The results show that Muslim youth experience discrimination, sometimes to anextreme degree. We observed diversity in how youth deal with the challenges ofgrowing up Muslim in post 9=11 US, ranging from ‘‘telling nobody’’ to policingeach other within the Muslim community. In addition we found that males andfemales negotiate their Muslim and American identities in different ways.

‘‘I guess you could say I live on the hyphen.’’Hadice, Syrian-American, age 17

Adolescence is a developmental period duringwhich young people form, and then reform, theircultural identities (Erikson, 1980; Fine & Torre,2004; Fine, Burns, Payne & Torre, 2004; Helms,1990; Solis, 2003; Way & Robinson, 2003). Thismay be a particularly complex psychological taskfor youth living in contexts, or historic moments,in which their diverse racial, ethnic, national,religious, sexual origins stir in tension (Willis,2002). When one’s social identity is fiercely con-tested by the dominant discourse either throughformal institutions, social relationships, and=orthe media, one of the first places we can witnesspsychological, social and political fallout is in thelives of young people. As Willis (2002) suggests,youth embody and perform the very economic,and we would add cultural, conflicts that consti-tute global politics. Adolescence is precisely the

moment in which international, national, socialand personal ‘crises’ erupt most publicly and spon-taneously, and, unfortunately, they are more oftenthan not misread as simply personal, hormonal,disciplinary or developmental ‘‘problems’’ (AbuEl-Haj, 2005; Appadurai, 2004; Fine, et al., 2004;Sen, 2004; Sirin, Diemmer, Jackson, Gonsalves,& Howell, 2004; Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2005).Growing up in the midst of what Fazal Rizvi(2005) calls Islamophobia, Muslim Americanyouth offer us a lens into the developmental chal-lenges that confront teens who live on the intimatefault lines of global conflict; teens who carryinternational crises in their backpacks and intheir souls.

For Muslim youth living in the US, negotiatingtheir identities across different cultural terrainsbecame decidedly more challenging after theevents of 9=11 (Cainkar, 2004). On one hand, theirlives, like those of everyone else in the U.S., wereunder attack. On the other hand, they were per-ceived as a potential threat to the safety of theirneighbors. Ideologically represented as a threat,since 9=11 ‘‘they’’—Muslim Americans—havebeen watched, detained, deported, and invaded inorder to protect and save ‘‘us.’’ Just as life in their‘home countries’ erupted in international and

We thank Sabah Lodi, and Mairaj Ahmed for assisting uswith the recruitment process and Drs. Maram Hallak, PeterHopkins, Ethel Tobach, Nida Bikmen, and Lauren Rogers-Sirinfor their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Correspondence should be addressed to Selcuk R. Sirin, PhD,Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, 239Greene Street, New York, NY 10003. E-mail: sirins@nyu.edu

Applied Development Science2007, Vol. 11, No. 3, 151–163

Copyright # 2007 byLawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

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domestic conflict, these youth and their familiescame to be perceived as potential threats to U.S.national security. This situation did not dissipateafter the initial attacks of 9=11, but rather, it con-tinues today, reinforced every time there is news ofa security threat. At this moment in history in theUnited States these young people are at oncebecoming more religiously grounded and nation-ally rootless; transnational yet homeless (Bhabha,2005; Levitt, 2000).

Since 9=11, we have learned much about theU.S. attitudes toward Muslims and other cultures(see Gerges, 2003), but the developmental conse-quences for youth of a world fractured by religiousterror and global conflicts have yet to be determ-ined, particularly for Muslim youth upon whomthe heaviest burden may lie—at least in the U.S.We take seriously young people’s experiences ofwitnessing and critically speaking back to global,national, cultural and economic contradictions(Fine, Roberts, Torre, Bloom, Burns, Chajet,Guishard, & Payne, 2004), and believe they bringpassion, loss, desire and critical action to ongoing,shifting cultural formations. It is our view thatthese young women and men offer a theoreticallens on many groups of youth who struggle witheconomic=cultural oppression, hegemonic repre-sentations of self (Deaux & Philogone, 2001; Solis,2003) and diminished opportunities for selfhood inthe post 9=11 U.S. context.

In our efforts to build a conceptual frameworkthat can guide our study, given the paucity of spe-cific research on Muslim Americans, we gainedinsights from three areas of related research onimmigrant minority youth. Research on immigrantyouth shows that the successful integration of bothone’s own culture and the dominant culture, leadsto more positive developmental outcomes (Berry,1997; Berry & Kim, 1988; Nesdale, Rooney, &Smith, 1997; Oppedal, Røysamb, & Sam, 2004;Oppedal, Røysamb, & Heyerdahl, 2005; Phinney,Cantu, Kurtz, 1997) whereas marginalization, thatis disengagement from both cultures, is associatedwith mental health problems for immigrant youth.Previous research on minority youth in general(e.g., Fisher, Wallace, & Fenton, 2000; Lorenzo,Frost, & Reinherz, 2000; Romero & Roberts,2003), and immigrant youth in particular (e.g.,Berry, 1997; Nesdale, Rooney, & Smith, 1997;Suarez-Orozco, 2005), also show strong evidencethat minority stress (i.e., discrimination and stressassociated with one’s social status) can lead tomental health problems in terms of depression,anxiety, and psychosomatic complaints Thus, thedevelopmental process for immigrant youth notonly originates from the challenges of reconcilingmultiple cultural systems of reference but also

from discrimination and stress due to one’sminority status (LaFramboise, Coleman, &Gerton, 1993).

Further, drawing theoretically from the writ-ings of Amartya Sen (2004), we also recognizethat culture is but one aspect of self, flowing ininteraction with other complex dimensions ofselfhood; that culture is ‘‘not a homogeneousattribute’’ (43) but rather is filled with the ten-sions and delights of discordance; that ‘‘cultureabsolutely does not sit still,’’ (43) and that ‘‘cul-tures interact with each other and cannot be seenas insulated structures.’’ (44). We add to Sen’sworking definition by noting that when a cultureis under siege, it becomes particularly prominentfor those who live within the diaspora, like immi-grant Muslims in the U.S. The social and psycho-logical tensions are exacerbated when homecountries shatter in conflict, when one’s cultureis hijacked by terrorists, and when one’s newcountry marks you as suspect. In times of tensionand conflict, as Yuval-Davis (2001) notes, cul-tural binaries and oppositions proliferate. Theintense stereotyping and dehumanization ofMuslims in the U.S. reflects this dynamic poign-antly. It is in the very sinews of adolescent livesthat we come to see how culture and global poli-tics enter the body and soul of U.S. youth (seeRao & Walton, 2004).

In this article, we offer a theoretical andempirical analysis of hyphenated selves; MuslimAmerican young men and women who live inti-mate lives on the fault lines of global conflict. Byhyphen we refer to the identities that are at oncejoined, and separated, by history, the presentsocio-political climate, geography, biography,longings and loss (Fine, 1994). In this exploratorystudy of what seems to be a rather complex andcomplicated developmental phenomenon, we hopeto lay the groundwork for a workable hypothesis,a conceptual framework based on a mixed-methodinvestigation of ‘‘hyphenated’’ lives of MuslimAmerican young men and women.

The focus of this exploratory study is tounderstand how Muslim youth in the U.S. carvetheir identities under surveillance and collectivesuspicion. In a mixed-method design of quantitat-ive surveys, focus group interviews, and identitymaps, we theorize hyphenated identities in thecrosshairs of global conflict. Specifically, our goalin this study is to explore: (a) the challenges ofbeing young, Muslim, and American; (b) theways Muslim American young men and womennegotiate their gendered identities, and (c) the dif-ficulties faced at home and within Muslim com-munities as these youth try to find their uniquevoices.

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Methods

Young men and women were recruited from anumber of mosques, community based organiza-tions, social networks, and schools, all located inthe New York metropolitan area. A multi-methoddesign was created involving surveys, focusgroups, and identity maps. Surveys primarilyfocused on Muslim youths’ perceptions of accul-turation and discrimination, and the psychologicalconsequences of these, in terms of indicators ofanxiety. Focus groups were conducted with a sub-sample of the survey participants to give voice tothe young people themselves in order to betterarticulate their multiple cultural, ethnic andpsychological identities. Additionally, the majorityof the focus group participants produced identitymaps to portray how they incorporate theirhyphenated selves.

Participants

Participants were 70 (32 girls, 38 boys) self-identified Muslim American adolescents, rangingin age (12 to 18; mean age of 15.27, SD ! 1.92)and grade level (6th to 12th). All participants tookthe surveys and a representative subsample(N ! 27, 14 girls and 13 boys) also participatedin the focus groups. Identity maps were voluntarilyproduced by the 19 young men and women whoparticipated in the focus groups.

Table 1 summarizes the demographic back-ground of the full sample. The majority of theparticipants (84.1%) were born in the U.S., speakEnglish as a first language (77%), go to publicschools (76.8%), and wear traditional dress suchas Hijab (head scarf) for women and skull capfor men (51.7%). They represented a wide rangeof ethnic backgrounds, based on their parents’country of origin, which varied from Guinea toMalaysia, with Southeast Asians and Arabs repre-senting the two largest groups. This ethnic distri-bution parallels the national trends for Muslim

Americans (Leonard, 2003). A majority of parentswere born outside of the U.S. (84.3%), whichmakes most youth in the participating cohort firstgeneration Muslim Americans. In terms of edu-cation, parents of participating youth representeda highly educated group. The modal educationallevel for this sample was a college degree formothers and an advanced degree for fathers. Only14.7 percent of fathers and 23.5 percent of mothershad an educational degree of high school or less.These statistics parallel the trends in the overallMuslim population in the U.S., as their edu-cational level tends to be higher than that of thegeneral public.

Instruments

We utilized data gathered from surveys, focusgroups, and identity maps to understand hyphen-ated selves of Muslim American youth in the post9=11 U.S. Surveys included demographic ques-tions, as well as measures of discrimination, accul-turation, and anxiety.

Discrimination was measured by a 10-itemmeasure of ethnic and religious discrimination(Krieger & Sidney, 1996). The measure assessesthe degree to which one experiences discriminationbecause of one’s ‘‘religion’’ or ‘‘ethnicity’’ in vari-ous settings including school, playgrounds, whileshopping, on the street, and in a public setting.Frequency of discrimination was described usinga 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘‘never’’ (1)to ‘‘almost daily’’ (5). The internal consistencyAlpha for the current sample was .89.

Acculturation was measured using the Accul-turation, Habits, and Interests MulticulturalScale for Adolescents, (AHIMSA) by Unger,Gallaher, Shakib, Ritt-Olson, Palmer, & Johnson,(2002). This scale was designed for immigrantand ‘‘bi-cultural’’ adolescents to measure theirengagement in a variety of social (e.g., ‘‘My bestfriends are from . . . ’’ or ‘‘I am most comfortablebeing with people from . . . ’’) and cultural activities(e.g., ‘‘The holidays I celebrate are from . . . ’’ or‘‘The food I eat at home is from . . . ’’). Respondentsindicate whether they engage in these activitieswith people from ‘‘the US’’ (Assimilation), ‘‘thecountry my family is from’’ (Separation), ‘‘both’’(Integration), or ‘‘neither’’ (Marginalization). Theintegration score represents the degree to whichthe person combines different aspects of both cul-tures by adding the number of times one checksoff the ‘‘both’’ column.

Anxiety was measured using the Revised Chil-dren’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS; Reynolds& Richmond, 1985). The RCMAS is a 37-item,self-report inventory used to measure anxiety in

Table 1. Demographic Characteristics

Variables Parentages

Gender 54% Female46% Male

Study abroad 17% Studied abroad a semester or more.Birth country 84% USA

16% AbroadLanguage 77% English first language

75% Fluent in two languages24% Fluent in three languages

School type 76.8% Public14.5% Private, non-religious8.7% Private, religious

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children, ages 6 to 18. The RCMAS provides threefactor scores. The Physiological component mea-sures the degree to which the person experiencesphysiological signs of anxiety, such as sweatyhands or stomach aches. The Worry=Oversensitivitycomponent assesses the degree to which the personinternalizes experiences of anxiety and the extent towhich he or she may feel overwhelmed andwithdraw. The Concentration anxiety componentmeasures the degree to which the person is likely tofeel inadequate, unable to concentrate on tasks,and unable to meet the expectations of otherimportant people. Numerous other studies showthe internal consistency level for the full score above.80 (Gerard & Reynolds, 1999). In the current sam-ple, the internal consistency Alpha was .87 for thefull scale and it ranged from .62 to .79 for the threecomponents.

The focus groups were conducted to increaseunderstanding of how Muslim American youthnegotiate multiple identities and deal with thedevelopmental challenges of being young Muslimsin varied academic, religious and community con-texts post 9=11. Because there were more volun-teers than needed for the focus groups, weconstructed three diverse groups in terms of gen-der, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, andschool type for the focus groups. Each groupwas designed around a) the main question of‘‘What’s it like to be a Muslim teenager in theU.S., post 9=11?’’ and b) the group discussion ofthe identity maps that each participant constructedprior to the focus group session.

There were three focus groups: one gender-integrated (N ! 6), one all-male (N ! 12), andone all-female (N ! 9). Participants were ran-domly selected to be in mixed versus all-femaleand mixed versus all-male groups. Focus groupdiscussions were transcribed but one taped ses-sion did not record well, so for that session werelied upon handwritten notes taken by the twoco-facilitators, Michelle Fine and Selcuk Sirin.The authors coded the transcripts using themesanticipated theoretically, including identity nego-tiations, social representation and experiencesand reactions to discrimination, all of which weredrawn from our readings of cultural psychologyand adolescence among historically oppressedgroups (Du Bois, 1982; Fine, et al., 2004; Helms,1990; Phinney, 1990; Solis, 2003; Steele, 1997;Tolman & Brydon-Miller, 2001). Other keythemes emerged in the focus groups and duringthe map exercise and were thereby generated asgrounded theory (Glaser & Straus, 1967). Ouranalysis of the qualitative data sought commonthemes across the sample and key axes of intra-group variations.

Identity Maps. Drawing on the writings ofWilkinson (1999) and Milgram (1976), we askedthe participants to design pictoral descriptions oftheir identity as a Muslim young person in theU.S. They were provided with drawing materialsand drawing paper. The identity maps were con-structed individually by the same gender focusgroup participants (n ! 21). Two of the youngmen in the all-male group did not produce identitymaps so we had 19 usable identity maps (9 girlsand 10 boys). After constructing the maps, theparticipants were asked to describe their maps inthe group. Analytically, maps were coded basedon the way they integrated both aspects of theiridentities using the framework of ‘‘integrated’’and ‘‘fractured.’’ The inter-rater agreement levelbetween the two coders was 87%. The final ident-ity category was decided only after the two codersreached full agreement, which was achieved for allthe maps and codes in the study.

Procedures

The participants were recruited in communitysettings and through a snowball sampling method.Once the parental and youth consent forms weresigned, research assistants distributed the surveysin person in participants’ homes, community cen-ters, and at a university campus. Each participantwas asked whether they would like to take part inthe focus group session, from which the focusgroup subsample was generated. All the names ofthe participants were changed in order to protectthe confidentiality of the participants. Each par-ticipant was paid $20 for their time and effort.

Results

The results section is organized around thethree questions that guide this study, namely theexperiences of discrimination and stereotypes,identity negotiations, and pressures within theMuslim community. In addition to the statisticalanalysis of the survey data, we also identified sev-eral common themes from the qualitative data thatwere voiced collectively by the sample of MuslimAmerican youth. Thus, for the purposes of thisexploratory study, we collapsed the data fromthe surveys, maps, and focus groups, treating thedata as a whole rather than analyzing them separ-ately by method (e.g., qualitative vs. quantitative).

(a) Challenges of Being Young, Muslim,and American

We heard stories of airport delays, dates brokenbecause ‘‘my parents wouldn’t understand,’’ and

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tongues bitten in history class for fear of being sentto the principal for a dissenting opinion. If therewas one thing that all the participants in this studyagreed on, it was that 9=11 made life much moredifficult for them as children, students, and famil-ies. As one focus group participant, Aisha, age 16,described:

‘‘I remember that day (9=11=01) my father drovehome a number of children from school, areligious school. As he dropped them at theelementary school, where they would meet theirparents, the police were there, taking names,phone numbers, and licenses. That was frighten-ing enough, but as we drove off we found our-selves in a big traffic jam and some womanscreamed out of her car, ‘Why don’t you just gohome?’ I knew then that everything was goingto be different.’’

A similar experience was shared by Basil, age15, who attends a racially=ethnically integrated,middle-class public high school.

Basil: ‘‘I know they’re thinking I may be a terror-ist.’’ Michelle: ‘‘How do you know?’’ Basil: ‘‘Iknow . . . ’’ [voice drops] ‘‘I just feel constantlyviolated . . . . even if they say nothing.’’

Ahab, the youngest and smallest in our group, atage 12, joined our conversation with a whisper,‘‘I don’t like it either when people think me, ormy father, is going to throw a bomb.’’

Survey data also confirmed the everyday experi-ences of discrimination and its implications for theyouth. Specifically, 84.3 percent of the survey part-icipants (59 out of 70) reported that they haveexperienced discrimination because of their religi-on or ethnicity during the past year, either atschool, on the playground, while shopping, onthe street, or in other public settings. Eight of theyouth in the survey sample, 4 girls and 4 boys,reported experiences of daily discrimination. Wealso observed a developmental trend in perceiveddiscrimination. There was a significant correlationbetween participants’ age and their worries(r ! .27, p < .01). The older they were and=orthe longer they had been in the U.S., the more

likely they were to perceive more discriminationdue to their religious and ethnic backgrounds.

When dealing with peers the assaults and fearswere relentless, particularly for the young men.As one young man, Zeki, age 18 spoke of playingfootball with neighbors in his new ‘‘White’’ neigh-borhood (Clifton, ‘‘new city’’) and was shocked tobe called ‘‘Palestinian’’ (he is Syrian). He was told‘‘Go back to where you came from!’’ In his moreintegrated community in Patterson (which herefers to as a ‘‘ghetto’’), he felt embraced by youngmen of color, ‘‘brothers who know what it is like.’’There he believes youth subscribe to the lyrics ofthe singer Jadakiss, ‘‘No more hating in theworld.’’ But not in his working-class, ‘‘White’’neighborhood, where the schools mandate anEnglish-only policy. As he spoke, other youngmen in the group nodded their heads signalingthey understood the kind of experiences Zeki wasdescribing. In his map and discussion, Damascusis considered his home, and although the way hedepicts this is vague and lacks detail (‘‘where I’vebeen so far’’), his map of the depictions of familyand buildings from Damascus appear tension-free.

(b) Negotiating Hyphenated Selves—A GenderedJourney

We examined survey data for possible genderdifferences. There was no statistically significantgender difference in the three study variables(e.g., discrimination, acculturation, and anxiety).In gender-specific correlational analyses, however,we found several important patterns. First, as canbe seen in Table 2, there was a unique pattern inhow discrimination was related to the accultura-tion and anxiety indicators. For boys, discrimi-nation was significantly related to the indicatorsof acculturation, whereas for girls it was signifi-cantly related to anxiety. Specifically, for Muslimboys, discrimination was positively related to inte-gration (r !".53, p < .01), and not significantlyrelated to any of the anxiety indicators. ForMuslim girls, on the other hand, discriminationwas not related to any of the acculturation indica-tors, but it was related to physiological (r ! .42,

Table 2. Intercorrelations between scales for Females (N ! .38) and Males (N ! .32)a

Measures Mean SD Range 1 2 3 4 5

1. Discrimination 1.67 .74 1–4.6 ".04 .42## .32# .262. Integration 4.19 1.79 0–8 ".53## ".22 ".08 ".163. Physiological anxiety 2.88 1.98 0–9 .19 ".30 .56## .59##

4. Worry anxiety 4.75 2.97 0–11 .12 ".19 .54## .63##

5. Concentration anxiety 2.51 1.97 0–7 .33 ".34 .68## .55## –

aCorrelations for females are on the right side of and correlations for males are on the left side of the diagonal matrix.#p < .05; ##p < .01.

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p < .01) and worry anxiety (r ! .32, p < .05). Itseems that the more Muslim boys were integratedin social and cultural activities in both the main-stream U.S. culture and their home culture, the lesslikely they were to report discriminatory acts. ForMuslim girls, however, their acculturation prac-tices did not appear to be associated with their per-ception of discrimination at all. Rather, in girls,discrimination was related to their physiologicalanxiety and worries: the more they perceived beingdiscriminated against, the more they felt physio-logically anxious and worried.

To get a better sense of the role gender plays inthe lives of Muslim American youth we turned tothe qualitative data. Both boys and girls narrateda geographic sense of living in a vibrant buttroubled diaspora. While all articulated complexhyphenated selves, the psychological labor of‘‘working the hyphen’’ varied dramatically by gen-der. In our conversations with Muslim youth inthe U.S., we heard stretchy connections, longingsand commitments to both ‘‘home’’ country andthe U.S. Although all of our participants articu-lated a sense of self across multiple worlds thatare fracturing under their feet, they varied in theirresponses to this shift. The young men’s storieswere streaked with a sense of despair and defeat,but also with, a strong romance with the idea of‘‘peace at home.’’ A young boy, Malik, age 12,exemplifies this. When asked for his input on beinga young Muslim during an all-men focus groupsession, he mumbled, ‘‘It’s just hard.’’ We probedhim, but he was unwilling to elaborate. ‘‘Justhard.’’ The air was heavy, vacant of spoken wordsbut filled with emotions, as was true so often in theboys’ group.

In marked contrast, the young women in theall-female group—all but two veiled—filled theair with a powerful sense of authority, protection,a mission to educate others, and a confident senseof their global ‘‘expertise.’’ Many of these youngwomen mentioned times in school when everyone‘‘turns to me, like about the war. Like I am sup-posed to educate them.’’ We asked if they mindbeing singled out as an authority. Most said thatthey didn’t mind, although they were a bit discom-forted by the attention. Hadice, age 17, offered anelaborate retort:

‘‘I guess it’s better that I educate them than theystay ignorant. I want to tell them there is moreto know than just today, them alone, the mall,boys, music. I want to tell them to learn aboutwhat’s going on in the world. But they don’twatch the news or read the paper. I listen toCNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, and French newsevery night. So maybe it’s best that I do answertheir questions. There is a big world out there,

and I personally believe I am just one smalldot in this world. There is something muchbigger than any of us. I wish the American stu-dents understood that.’’

Both boys and girls were equally frustrated bythe absurdity of questions tossed their way (Areyou a terrorist?, Why do you dress like that?,etc.), but the girls were, nevertheless, eager forothers to ‘‘just ask me a question . . . don’t assumeI’m gonna throw bombs . . . or I’m an uneducatedwoman!’’ They wanted the opportunity to sharethemselves, to teach, and to change minds.

The very gendered work at the hyphen was evenmore evident when we looked at the identity maps.Almost 90% of the young women (eight out ofnine) designed maps that reflected fluid movementbetween being a Muslim and being an American.Independently, they generated maps that revealan attempt to blend elements of their Muslimand American selves. In contrast, 70% of theyoung men (seven out of 10) designed ‘‘fractured’’maps of conflict, tension, institutional and per-sonal struggles with racism, white supremacy,U.S. aggression, and war.

As the two identity maps below reveal, (seeFigures 1 and 2) Muslim American youth crafthyphenated selves in a sea of contested global rela-tions and representations. How young peoplenegotiate at the hyphen varies widely, and oftenby gender, class and type of schooling (public,religious, home schooling). What is commonacross all of these youth is that they all work thehyphen or ‘‘live at the hyphen.’’ Consider themap on Figure 1, created by Muhammed who, atage 14, humanizes what we heard from so many

Figure 1. Split selves of a young Muslim boy.

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of the young men we interviewed: the fractures ofbeing Muslim and being American have searedhim in half, filling him with ‘‘tears for racism,’’ afrown, a severed soul. Living with the hauntingghosts of ‘‘terrorist’’ looming around him, he, likeso many young Muslim men, feels swallowed by arepresentation he can’t actively resist, lest heembody the hegemonic trope—young Muslimman filled with rage.

Selina, age 15, draws a distinct, yet equallypowerful visual narrative of fluid selves—Americanand Islamic—at the hyphen (see Figure 2), voicingwhat somany of the young women told us. Activelyrefusing to separate the currents of Islam andAmerica that move through the river of her body,yet still recognizing the distinct pools of waterfrom which they gather, Selina insists on thepsychological project of synthesis, a fluid sense ofidentity, rightfully claiming both currents at thesame time, decorated with smiles and (in color) abeautiful blending of shades. Not at all naıve tothe flood of stereotypes held about Muslim womenas uneducated, oppressed or dupes of religion, sheexplained in our focus group that she looks forways to educate those who stereotype and ‘‘don’tknow any better.’’ To resist the trope of ‘‘oppressedwoman,’’ the young women exhibit strength, auth-ority and confidence in re-presenting themselves,

their families and their community as they see it,in their own terms.

Particularly during the all-female focus groupsession, young women also spoke a great dealabout veiling, their reasons to cover or not to covertheir hair and the constant questions they get fortheir choices. Hadice, the veiled 17-year-old, hasdescribed this situation eloquently: ‘‘I finallyfigured out what to tell people about the Hijab. Iwear it like a bicyclist wears a bike helmet. It pro-tects me from danger, and it gives me the freedomto wander where I dare not without it. Then theyleave me alone!’’ Filled with confidence andwonder, the young women, ages 13 to 17, voicedconcern that ‘‘people are afraid to talk to mebecause I wear the Hijab.’’ Nevertheless, they seekcontact with a larger world, eager to tell their peers,‘‘Yes we shower!’’ ‘‘No we don’t swim in Hijab!’’‘‘It’s not that my parents won’t let me go to thedance, I don’t want to go!’’ ‘‘We use cell phones,and can tuck them in, hands free!’’

In contrast, in our discussions with the youngmen, hyphenated selves were splintered with theweight of the world; split open with the searingknife of global conflict. As Muhammed and Jaborarticulate in their identity maps, so many of theyoung men view the U.S. as an oppressive forceon their souls (‘‘get rich,’’ war, country sucks).Some wax eloquent with a mystifying romance(‘‘wanna go home’’) to return to their ‘‘homelandsof peace.’’ This is despite the fact that an over-whelming majority of the participants were bornin the U.S. and have very limited, if any, real lifeexperiences outside of the U.S.

Adamant about the splits between the U.S. and‘‘Muslim countries,’’ Hasim, age 15, wrote on hismap, under U.S.A.: ‘‘People are accused of someterrorist attacks that did not even happen, andtaken action against them. Muslims [in the U.S.])are hated and discriminated against because ofsomething probably (sic) one person did and allhave to pay back for it. [The U.S.A. is] Land ofopportunity, rich, war, get drafted, and die.’’ Onthe other side of his map, the heading reads‘‘Muslims in other Countries’’ and under that iswritten: ‘‘People are accused but are not hurt orno action is taken against them. Muslims love eachother and take care of each other. Land of peace.’’

Similarly, Ahmed, age 16, provided text on hismap: ‘‘[In] Pakistan and other Muslim states, theyteach us to pray and put our belief in god andfollow the Islamic law. And teach us to prohibitfighting (sic).’’ Under ‘‘America’’ he writes, ‘‘Weget blamed and pushed around for something wedidn’t (sic) do.’’

Torn between the land where they live and feelpersecuted, and a strong imaginary ideal of peace

Figure 2. Fluid selves of a young Muslim girl.

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abroad, these young men carry global conflict intheir bellies. Taunted often at school and on thestreet, they try to prove the stereotype wrongand in turn struggle to contain their anger, theirrage, and to not fight back. Usually they succeed.Sometimes they do not. Either way, the priceseems to be a looming sense of despair, an itchingdesire for some to go back ‘‘home,’’ coupled with afierce, if justified, anger at the U.S. for some of theyoung men.

(c) Dealing With the Weight of the Hyphen

Despite high incidences of discrimination, mostyouth in the study indicated that they did notaccept discrimination as a fact of life. Approxi-mately, 70% of the participants (49 out of 70)who took the survey reported that they try to dosomething about such unfair treatment. Interest-ingly, the youth who try to do something aboutdiscrimination tend to have very different experi-ences than those youth who accept discriminationas a fact of life. Specifically, those who try to dosomething about discrimination reported signifi-cantly fewer incidences of religious and ethnic dis-crimination than those who did not, M ! 1.54,SD ! .59 versus M ! 1.96, SD ! .95, t ! 2.26,p < .05. More importantly, young people whoresisted discrimination also appeared to be signifi-cantly less worried compared to their counterpartswho accepted discrimination as a fact of life,M ! 6.35, SD ! 3.07 versus M ! 4.10, SD ! 1.81,t ! 3.1, p < .01. In other words, youth whoaccepted discriminatory treatment as a fact of lifereported more discrimination and more anxiety.It is not clear whether the internal coping stylechanges the perception of discrimination, orwhether the experience of discrimination shapesthe coping style. It may be that because youthwho tend to internalize their experiences and feelhelpless (it is a fact of life) are more sensitive todiscrimination and experience more anxiety thanyouth who cope by taking a more active approach.It is also possible that young people who experi-ence more discrimination might be more likely toadopt the belief that it is a fact of life, while youthwho experience less discrimination might havemore confidence when they do encounter it.

Following up these survey results in focus groupsessions, we asked the youth who they turn to whenthey are treated badly because of their Muslimbackground. Most of them admitted in surprisingunison: ‘‘I don’t really tell my parents. They haveenough to contend with.’’ Another boy added justas much: ‘‘[I] tell nobody . . . because I don’t wantto upset my parents, they have too much to dealwith, and if I tell my teachers, I can get in big

trouble. So I work it out myself.’’ When we specifi-cally asked whether they turned to their non-Muslim friends, only one boy believed that his‘‘non-Muslim buddies’’ would understand anddefend him. As one young man, age 13, explained,with a kind of fatalism about how to deal withdiscrimination:

‘‘Yeah, basically, my opinion on the whole thingis that wherever you are and wherever you go,you’re always going to face racism. So, basically,the only thing you have with you is your faith andyou have to have a strong faith in God, and youhave to have humility and humbleness amongother people, and God will help you and you’llstart gaining respect from other people for it.’’

Salma, age 16, points out another aspect ofparent–child support when it comes to beingMuslimin the U.S. Originally from Macedonia, her fatherworks in the food industry at a major hotel.Importing a long and deep history of hiding hisMuslim identity, at the hotel he remains silentabout his ethnic and religious commitments.Asked by the hotel chef to ‘taste’ a new chickendish dipped in wine, he politely refused and latertold his family that he told the chef he was‘‘allergic to chicken.’’ Salma laughed, ‘‘Dad, thisis America. You can say you are Muslim andyou don’t drink wine.’’ And then turning to thefocus group, she continued, ‘‘My parents hideeverything but we’re free here.’’ Protecting parentsfrom knowledge of persistent discrimination and‘‘parenting parents’’ about U.S. ways of lifeappear to be two of the related labors of ado-lescent hyphenated selves.

In the focus group discussions, we also wit-nessed the practices of intra-group policing, inresponse to the growing outside pressures, aboutbeing Muslim in the U.S., with young peopleseparating ‘‘good Muslims’’ from ‘‘bad’’ ones.Cennet, a 15-year-old nonreligious Muslim girl,who does not wear Hijab but ‘‘practices all thereligious traditions,’’ told the group, ‘‘I feel likethe bad Muslim girl. The aunties—mothers of herMuslim friends—see me as the corrupt onebecause I talk to boys. They think I’m loose orgoing to get pregnant or something.’’ As shespoke, her friend Selina, age 15, much moredevout, but also without Hijab, explained: ‘‘I feellike I want to be pure Muslim inside but I don’thave to wear Hijab to show that.’’ Another youngwoman, Ima, age 18, who was the only non-veiledfemale in the mixed-gender group, simply justifiedher flowing hair by saying, ‘‘I’m just not matureenough. I have to be honest, I love movies, andmakeup, and the mall. I swear I’m going to wearHijab, but I’m not mature enough. And (giggling)

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I really like my hair.’’ All three of these youngwomen in both groups felt that they needed tojustify their obvious decision not to wear Hijab.In fact, in the all-female group, the two youngwomen who did not wear Hijab seemed a bitworried about being judged by other MuslimAmerican women and offered stories of veiledcousins who could have been placed in the ‘‘badMuslim’’ basket.

Islam sets very different standards for girls andboys ranging from the way they can dress to theway they can socialize, and we could certainlyhear Muslim youth feeling the press for standardsetting and enforcement, especially for howMuslimfemales should behave and dress. For example,Hadice, a 17-year-old daughter of a Euro-AmericanMuslim mother, challenged her Syrian father whenshe wanted to visit a mosque in Damascus (onlymen were permitted to enter the mosque during reg-ular times there). Clear in her justification, she didnot understandwhy her father, who is open-mindedand Western educated, did not side with her inbreaking the sexist (or ‘‘cultural’’ as she put it)barriers. In another example, Melek, experiencedanother challenge of diversity in her community—frustration with inconsistencies in head coveringand dress codes among Muslim women. She toldthe focus group members, ‘‘I used to be the only,really the only Muslim girl in my school but nowanother girl came, and she wears Hijab but shetakes it off for gym!!! And I just got finished tellingeveryone that we don’t take Hijab off in public! Ireally hate that!’’

Discussion

The results of surveys, focus group interviews,and identity maps highlight a wisdom born ofsocial oppression—gathered too young. Theseyoung U.S. citizens anticipate the onslaught ofmisrepresentations, delight in the [rare] goodnessof strangers and remain buoyed by the Koran,structured spiritual and religious beliefs, strongcommitments to culture, religion and ritual. Onthe one hand, these youth pay the price of a globalconflict through humiliation and mistreatment, onthe other hand, many participants also seemed toreject discrimination and tried to do somethingabout it, mostly on their own and sometimes bytightening the lens of their own internal judgmentsabout what is and what is not a ‘‘good Muslim.’’

Overall, young men and women did not differin terms of their perceived discrimination, accul-turation practices, and anxieties, but the ways inwhich they negotiated their identities was quite dif-ferent. On the one hand, Muslim young men see

and live in a much more fractured world wherethey perceive ‘‘Muslim’’ and ‘‘American’’ as two,almost contradictory parts of their hyphenatedselves. Even when they may have experienced lessdiscrimination by integrating in both worlds, theyseemed to still feel ‘‘split’’ between immersing intheir home culture and integrating in both cul-tures. Partly as a result of the complex nature oftheir identity formation process, we observedmuch more anger and frustration, more silencesand even a sense of hopelessness in the all-malegroup. These findings parallel what Hopkins(2004) observed among young Muslim men wholive in Scotland. Research with other immigrantyouth also confirms our finding that immigrantgirls appear to have more flexibility to embracehyphenated, bi-cultural identities than immigrantboys in the U.S. (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001;Waters, 1999).

On the other hand, young Muslim women seeand live in a much more fluid, intertwined worldwhere ‘‘Muslim’’ and ‘‘American’’ are not twocontradictory influences on their identity, but arerather complementary ‘‘currents,’’ each offeringits own opportunities and challenges. The youngwomen seem to have gained more freedom in theU.S. to choose their own path in terms of theirreligious practices, educational goals, and careerexpectations. They see both of these worlds asequally important parts of their identity, as illu-strated in Aisha’s picture where two rivers becomeone. This, however, does not mean that they donot struggle with the same set of issues as theirmale counterparts. Rather, the young women seemto feel more empowered than their male peers totake the best of what both worlds have to offer.They walk under the shadow of the stereotype ofthe ‘‘oppressed woman’’ because of their choiceto wear Hijab, but they also recognize that in theU.S. they are choosing to wear it, and, hence, theyfeel empowered by their choice itself. In addition,the young women voice a skeptical but alsoromantic view of the freedoms available to womenin the U.S.

While one would expect that Muslim girls whoare veiled, and therefore more visible, to havea more difficult path than [relatively invisible]Muslim boys, young women in our sample helpedus understand what, initially, seemed like ananomaly. For many of the young women, theU.S. offers a questionable but desirous freedom,a deep sense of power and the opportunity foryoung women to engage Islam without fear ofrepercussion. These young women spoke as if ina chorus of women about the liberties availablein the U.S., the ‘‘fluidity’’ of their hyphenatedselves, the authority and power they carry and

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the strength of education, religion and peace. Still,these young women do worry about the fragility ofthe world that they live in, as is evident in theirelevated salience of anxiety in relation to perceiveddiscrimination. It appears, however, that althoughthey experience anxiety, their mode of coping is todraw on their inner sense of conviction and toreach out to teach. While so many of the youngmen in our sample come to see themselves ashomeless or displaced, most of the young womenpresent themselves as transnational, or belongingto multiple places as citizens of the world.

Documented in the surveys, narrated in theinterviews, and drawn into their identity maps,Muslim American youth in the present studyvividly portray their interior lives, post 9=11, as adialectic labor of psychological reconciliation—piecing together what we call hyphenated selves.As if they had read George Herbert Mead(1934), Edward Said (1978) or Gayitri Spivak(1987), these young people describe daily walksto school, on the streets, at the mall, in the library,on the bus, escorted by the specter of terrorist(for boys) and oppressed=uneducated (for girls).Walking in the shadow of the Other (Said, 1978;Spivak, 1987), they are forced to contend with thepress of media produced and socially legitimated(mis)representations (Bhabha, 2005; Deaux &Philogone, 2001; Gordon, 1997; Moscovici, 1984).

On September 12, 2001, Muslim-Americanyouth found themselves evicted from the moralcommunity of psychological citizenship in the U.S.(Opotow, 2004) and, as Homi Bhabha (2005)described, ‘‘. . . amongst those whose very presenceis both ‘over-looked’—in the double sense of socialsurveillance and psychic disavowal—and, at thesame time, overdetermined—psychically projected,made stereotypical and symptomatic.’’ (13). Fromthat point forward, maybe before and certainlyafter, these young people experienced a relentlessundertow of challenges to their psychologicalwell-being, social relations and public life. Theseyouth were placed at once under intense surveil-lance and rendered fundamentally invisible ashuman, critical, engaged citizens. In a stew of dis-torted representations and high-stake threats tocitizenship, these young people find themselves liv-ing in the new ‘world,’ but now as outsiders within(Collins, 1990). They deal with a considerabledegree of discrimination in the larger society aswell as intergenerational tensions at home andwithin the community, and, sometimes, enjoy aproud sense of their global expertise.

We heard young women and men in our samplereference relatives who were ‘‘not good Muslims.’’Mimicking what happens from the outside, thegaze glides across bodies, within the borders of

the group. There is, perhaps, no age cohort moreattuned than adolescents to comment upon, andre-enact the judgments made from the outsideand from within. Indeed, teens are terrific radarstations for the beams of conformity, resistance,and what constitutes transgression. It is predict-able that a marginalized group, under siege andunder surveillance, like Muslim Americans post9=11, is not only judged routinely but learns tojudge itself, to engage in what Cohen (1999) callsself-policing. As they challenge the externalhegemonic gaze, they tighten the lens of theirown internal judgments. Foucault (1997) alsowrites on the panopticon as a dynamic of pro-found, pervasive and penetrating institutional sur-veillance, a social prison, where all are witnessed,judged and watched, and soon all learn to watchthemselves and watch others. This dynamic ofoppressed groups suffering under surveillance,and turning around to survey themselves, has along and painful history which doubles for the his-tory of coercion and hegemony (Gramsci, 1971).As in the Panopticon, the young people in ourfocus groups feel preyed upon visually, ‘‘violated’’as one young man told us, watched and under sur-veillance. Over and over in our focus groups youngpeople reiterated, ‘‘Don’t judge a book by itscover.’’ ‘‘Don’t judge us. We are not who youthink we are.’’ ‘‘Ask us questions and find out!’’And yet, from outside the group and also within,accusations and judgments proliferate.

Conclusions

The present study provides findings from amixed method, exploratory study focusing onMuslim American youth living in the New Yorkmetropolitan area. We believe that our findings,although preliminary, highlight important pat-terns, themes, and even some explanations forhow Muslim youth deal with historical, cultural,and global challenges that create a difficult contextfor their identity formation process. While all ofthe youth identify as Muslim American, and thisstudy was designed to understand that particularidentity, our collapsing of youth across countryof origin, class, neighborhood, and immigrant gen-eration should not be read as an essentializing ofthe group. This work lifts up and complicates theconcept of hyphenated selves, which could be theo-rized and tested in any variety of political=ethnicminority groups. The research further revealshow cultures form and reform in context; how cul-ture must be studied in relation to history, ques-tions of power, class and gender. From theyoung people we learn that in the cultural spaces

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of contention and compliance, among youth andacross generations, culture is made, and remade,in the prayers, around the dining room table, inschools and gym class, and in the midst of familyarguments.

Finally, the evidence gathered here suggests thatgovernment policies, social relationships andmedia representations fundamentally affect youthdevelopment, although the trajectories may behard to see empirically, and will vary by gender,community and context. Mixed methods in thisexploratory study allowed us to begin to theorizethe webs of influence and reciprocity that connectyouth to adults, everyday life to governmentpolicy, marginalized communities to the very coreof U.S. values, and state policy to the terrified soulsof youth. Psychology may, indeed, be at its mostuseful in illuminating these strings that connect,so that we may design social conditions in whichpositive youth development and aspirations flour-ish in contexts supportive of democratic partici-pation and respect for differences.

Future Research

We see this study as an opening for futureresearch that can address many of the issues raisedin this study. There are several areas that needfurther work. First, given the size of the samplewe could not more directly test how gender med-iates (or moderates) the identity formation processwith our survey data. Although correlationalanalyses provided initial evidence for the criticalrole gender plays in lives of these youth, future stu-dies should more directly test this assumption con-currently with both survey and qualitative data.

Second, although we used several surveys, someof which are reported here, we found severalimportant problems with the validity of these mea-sures for Muslim youth. Despite satisfactory inter-nal consistency levels, we suspect that some of thethemes that emerged from focus group sessionsand identity maps should be used as a buildingblock for future survey studies with this popu-lation. Since this is an under-studied population,it is possible that many of the quantitative mea-sures available are not capable of capturing impor-tant aspects of their lives. Furthermore, strongthemes emerged in the focus groups that we simplycould not capture quantitatively. Thus, the quali-tative work should act as a means for establishinga knowledge base about this population. As thisknowledge base grows, we can gain insight intohow to adapt existing measures, or to create newmeasures, that are valid with this group. Forexample, although our qualitative data shows avery clear gender difference in how young people

perceived and dealt with discrimination, there werefew gender differences found in the quantitativedata. We need culturally validated survey mea-sures to better understand how Muslim youthnegotiate their identities across contexts.

Third, we found that some of our assumptionsabout gender differences were inaccurate, andmore research is needed to better understandhow young men and women negotiate their iden-tities. Contrary to our expectations, young womenshowed strength and an empowered desire to edu-cate others, rather than fitting into a stereotypeof the oppressed, Muslim woman, while boysappeared to be struggling in their efforts toclaim their Muslim-American identity. Muslim-American women bring a lot of resources to theiridentity formation process. At this point we donot know the source of this gendered patternbut one possibility is the unique challenges ofhyphenated selves for young men and women.While being a Muslim in America may bring upthe status of women it may act in just theopposite way for the young men, taking awaysome of the privileges taken for granted in theirhome cultures. As the ‘‘hyphen’’ provides girlswith more privilege to pursue education and toeducate others, as well as the choice of practicingtheir religion on terms similar to Muslim men,being Muslim in the U.S. may take some poweraway from men. Thus, given the gendered natureof the patterns that emerged in focus group inter-views and on identity maps, future research ingeneral, and survey research in particular, mustfind ways to test this and other assumptions inorder to explain why and how gender emergesas an important marker for this particularpopulation.

Finally, the finding with regard to age is impor-tant to note for future studies. It was found that asthe young men and women get older their percep-tion of discrimination also increased significantly.Given both the cross-sectional and correlationalnature of this data we did not elaborate about thisparticular finding, but we believe there are impor-tant developmental processes that these youth gothrough and which can only be truly capturedvia a longitudinal study. For example, in Hopkins’(2004) study, focusing on an older group of youngMuslim men, ages 16–25, physical markers (i.e.,dress, having a beard, or darker skin color)mediated their acculturation and perceived dis-crimination. Given the limitations of the presentstudy we could not verify such an effect butsuspect that those young men visibly appear‘‘Muslim’’ may have somewhat different experi-ences in the U.S. than those who can ‘‘pass.’’ Thus,future studies should employ longitudinal methods

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to capture unique developmental trajectories ofMuslim young men and women. This will allowresearchers to better understand important shiftsand transitions in how Muslim youth negotiatetheir identity across contexts.

Although attitudes toward Muslims have longbeen tinged with disparagement, in the U.S. thereis ample evidence that the events on and after9=11 have created a sea change in how Muslimsare perceived both globally and in the U.S. In thischanged context, we do not know what the futureholds for this particular group, but what is evidentin our data was the urgent need to learn more. Wehope that our study serves as a vehicle to open upthe dialogue about both the vitality and thevariability of research on Muslim youth in the U.S.

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Received May 14, 2006Last revision received March 20, 2007Accepted March 23, 2007

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