Wearing "Our Sword": Post-September 11 Activism Among South Asian Muslim Women Student Organizations in New York

At the time after September 11 happened, the campus was dominated by joking and all that stuff like, "Oh, you look like a terrorist, you dyke." It was like blame was imputed to us. So, it was very sad.... But for me, I think that the experience made me feel even stronger about our decision to wear the hijab outside.... If I had had to take my hijab off at that time, I would have become extremely weak and broken down.... You know, taking off a hijab was like giving up our sword (Aisha, Pakistani-American college senior). (1) ********** THE SEPTEMBER 11 TERRORIST ATTACKS AND THE CONSEQUENT POLITICAL TENSIONS profoundly affected the lives of many Muslim women residing in the United States. Those who wear the Islamic headscarf (or hijab) became an especially easy target for scapegoating, since this religious dress code had been seen as the most definable marker of the faith. Along with a dramatic increase in hate crimes targeting Muslim individuals and institutions, the local media and affiliated associations stressed a dramatic increase in human rights violations specifically targeting women. Such acts include the attempted forceful removal of their hijab and public taunting with ethnic aspersions. (2) This swift rise of violence centering on this cultural practice has reasserted continuing racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism against ethnic minority women. Focusing on this striking challenge in Muslim women's social lives, this article explores the forms of collective activism that these rigorously persecuted women develop against this social injustice. The examples presented here are based on the author's four-year ethnographic study of two student groups of South Asian Muslim women in two socio-geographically different campus communities in New York. By describing the process whereby members expand the meaning of their religious practice of veiling to a political one and use it as the major tool for their collective resistance, this article suggests how "being different" and "marginalized" becomes a significant, driving force for group mobility, solidarity, and strength in "identity movements" (Melucci, 1995, 1996; Alcoff, 2000, 2005). According to Melucci, the women's movement is based on "the themes of identity and difference as an assertion of the priority of the right to be before the right to do and as a claim for a life-space in which to withdraw from the structures of social control" (1996: 136; emphasis added). In the models of Goffman's study on stigma (1964) and the work of assimilation theorists, difference has typically been conceptualized as a point of weakness and frailty for ethnic minority groups (Gordon, 1964; Alba and Nee, 2005). Responding to this conformist view, Chin (2000) and Nagata's (2000) historical studies on Asian American women suggest that "difference" should be considered from the perspective of resiliency and strength, as well as the ability to cope with adversity. These findings concur with the recent increasing voice among scholars of Asian American feminism and "identity movements." As the above narrative, "taking off a hijab was like giving up our sword," metaphorically underlines, the women in this study are not simply resigned to the stigmatization of their religious practice; instead, they transform it into a symbol of might and dignity, as well as loyalty to other Muslim "sisters," asserting their right to be Muslim. Revealing such women's perspectives toward their political action is especially important for the study of South Asian women and their identity movement by providing a window to see forthcoming issues, coping strategies, and boundary formation among future generations of South Asians. (South) Asian American Women's Activism Many scholars of women's movements have suggested that the strategies and views chosen by Asian women in their activism differ from those that white and Black women's groups embrace. In contrast to mainstream white women's leaders, who typically situate gender as the central agenda, many Asian women activists view gender as only one part of social relations (Shah, 1994; Purkayastha et al. …