Visit at the Northern Nevada Muslim Center (NNMC)

The goal for this week was to visit at the Northern Nevada Muslim Center (NNMC), which encompasses the community center and the Mosque for the Muslim in the Reno area.

Mirit and I arrived at the center on Sunday morning, it was difficult to locate the business, and my comment was that the building looks like a Chinese restaurant, which turned to be true. The NNMC was recently relocated to its location and Sparks and it is now going under reinvention.
We met with Aileen, Aileen was in the process of painting the NMCC meeting room, she was dressed with large cloths that were appropriate for painting, and her head was covered with hijab, which is a traditional head covering for Muslim women. Beside of the hijab, we were surprised that Aileen looked like a typical Western European with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Aileen eased our confusion, by telling us that she was born as an Irish Catholic in New York, later on she tried to convert to Judaism, but the process was long and difficult. Eventually, a friend gave her a copy of the Muslim bible (the Quran), she read it and found her true faith in the Muslim religion.

Aileen gave us a quick tour of the NNMC, she discussed with us issues concerning the Muslim community in the Reno area. She mentioned few comments that she heard recently against Arabs, most of the comments were due to ignorance and fear of the unknown.

Later on, few more people came to the NNMC, among the people was the Imam’s wife, she also converted to the Muslim religion few years ago. She was married eight years before she became Muslim. While she follows the Muslim tradition, she said, she is not very religious. We had an interesting discussion with her, she told us about some cultural differences between her and her husband in the beginning of their marriage, mostly due to wrong assumptions of each one of them about gender roles in the family. Her advice was never to assume and always keep open communication between the couple. She also told us that while her husband wants their daughter to marry Muslim, both of her daughter are currently dating American guys and although it upsets the father, he and his wife understand, that they cannot limit their daughters and should allow them do whatever they feel rights.

Reflection
I was nervous prior to going to the NNMC; I guess the nervousness was due to the unknown and fear that the people at the NNMC might be offended from an Israeli coming to talk with them about their feeling as a minority in Reno. Although, we met with people who converted to the Muslim religion and we did not meet anyone who was born as a Muslim, hearing about this culture through the eyes of people who decided to become Muslim was very rewarding. We heard about the beauty of the religion and the welcoming nature of the community. We also heard about the challenges and the difficulties that Muslim experience in the Reno area.
Overall, it was a very rewarding visit, it changed my perception about the Muslim population and it motivated me to explore more and learn more about this community and its struggle to fit in the American (Western European) society.

Interview with Alice Azzam

I met Alice Azzam few months ago at a beauty salon. She is a hair stylist that moved few years ago from Los Angles to Reno. She is originally from Iran, but her family used to go back and forth between Iran and Spain for business. Her father was a very rich and influential person in Iran in the times of the Shah prior to the Iranian Revolution in 1979. In 1979 during the revolution, her family was in Spain, and they decided to stay in Spain instead of moving back to the new Iran. Of course, the family lost all of their assets in Iran and had to start new life with no financial support.

Alice went to school in Paris and became a hair stylist, she used to work both in Paris and Spain until she and her husband decided to join the rest of their family in the United States. Most of Alice’s distance family is still in Iran, beside of occasional phone calls, they have no way to reconnect with the family or even visit them in Iran.

Alice feels that although it was her decision to immigrant to the USA, she was forced originally to leave her country. She misses her family and friends; she misses the culture prior to the revolution. She knows that the culture that she was accustomed in Iran, does not exist anymore and she and her family had to adapt to a new reality and develop new culture here in the USA.

Alice is very close to her family in Los Angles, she visits them often and they come to visit her here in Reno. She said that while she meets many people in her profession, her true friends are other Iranians that their life story is similar to hers.

Alice is not a religion person, and her family does not go to the Mosque or practice any of their old tradition. She is upset that her kids that were born in the USA are becoming fully Americanized, without knowledge about their heritage and background, but she says, that she believes that with the current situation in Iran she feels much safer living her in the United Stated and not in Iran.

She does pray that one day, she will be able to go back to Iran and reunite with her family and friends, but she knows that her children will not fit in the Iain culture in Iran, and she is happy that her kids will have a brighter future here in the USA.

Reflection
Alice’s story is very similar to other stories that I read and heard. This is a story about immigrants that were forced out from their countries and were looking for the best place to reestablish themselves and provide their family better opportunities. I feel sympathy to those people, I do not see them anymore as the enemy, I do see them as equals members of the society that try to live decent life while supporting their families and securing their children’s future.

Chat Room Logs

Here is a log for a chat that I had with two individuals about Arabs in the USA. Gea from Brazil and MRscramento from Morocco.

Local resources for Arabs in and around Reno, Nevada

This post will include a list of different community and religious centers for Arabs (both Christians and Muslims) in and around Reno, Nevada.

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

Shaheen, J. G. (2001). Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people. Interlink Publishing Group.

Shaheen (mass communication, Southern Illinois Univ.; Arab and Muslim Stereotypes in American Popular Culture) has written a meticulous, passionate, and very articulate description of the persistent and prolonged vilification of Arab peoples in mainstream Western movies. Offering primarily reviews of the 900 films he has seen or researched over 20 years, he documents a century of offensive stereotypes and shows how the image of the "dirty Arab" has reemerged over the last 30 years, even as other groups have more or less successfully fought to eliminate the use of racist stereotypes. The appendixes include lists of the best and worst depictions of Arabs in popular films, alternate titles, a list of epithets thrown at Arabs in films, and a list of the fictional locations used in films. Although the work is aimed at a college-level audience, the clear writing and lack of jargon make it accessible to a much wider readership. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries, as well as for other libraries with collections dealing with racism or Arab culture.

Under this post I will list movies that will help me explore the opposing viewpoints about Arabs in the United States and develop my own critique about the way Hollywood present the Arab culture in the US.

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

In this note, I will post relevant articles that I found in the University of Phoenix Online Library about the topic of Arabs in the United States as well as Arabs and Family Therapy. I believe that learning about a culture is the first step in learning to appreciate the culture, the challenges that people in this culture experience when living in the United States. I also believe that by increasing my awareness to this culture, I will be able to overcome some of my own imprinted biases about this culture.

Cultural Challenge

The object of this is assignment is to push myself to examine a multicultural issue that might be a personal challenge for me as a Marriage and Family Therapist. Using my Self-Awareness analysis as a starting point I identified that one of the area of cultural challenge might be working with Arabs population is a therapy setting.

This blog will detail my learning about Arabs in the United States and will serve as a weekly reflective journal.

In the next few weeks, I will try to stretch myself. I believe that learning occurs in many venues, reading, both academic and fictional literature, and poetry can educate us to other cultural or ethnic groups. Films can expose us to issues with we have not been personally involved. Attending religious or cultural events can expose us to community that we do not encounter in our daily lives.

This blog will be integrated with the academic learning that is occurring in class CNSL557 - Social and Multicultural Foundations.