The World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 fundamentally transformed the context of reception for Muslim immigrants in the U.S., shifting it from neutral to negative while also brightening previously blurred boundaries between established residents and the Muslim minority. This study explores how second-generation Muslim immigrants have experienced and reacted to post-9/11 contexts of reception. It is based on an analysis of ten semi-structured in-depth interviews that were conducted throughout the Portland Metropolitan Area from January to April of 2016. It finds experiences of discrimination to be primarily affected by two factors: public institutions and gender. It also finds, furthermore, that research participants react to negative post-9/11 contexts of reception by redrawing bright boundaries to include themselves within the American mainstream. Because Islam itself has become politicized within post-9/11 contexts of reception, this study also explores how second-generation Muslim immigrants construct and maintain religious meaning as a form of political identity. It finds that research participants unilaterally construct a Localized Islam that is dynamic and variable in its response to familial and social pressures. The thesis concludes by putting forward a typology outlining its four primary forms of localization within contemporary social and political environments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-4775 |
| Date | 21 July 2017 |
| Creators | Smith, Shahriyar |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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