Program 10: The Immigrant Experience
There
are between two and four million Muslims in North America. Roughly
half are Afro-Americans; a small number are white Americans who have
converted, usually through marriage. The remainder are immigrants
from Asia, Africa and the Arab world. (Although the first immigrant
Muslims came to North America almost a century ago, the presence of
significant Muslim communities in North America is a recent phenomenon).
For
these Muslims, North American society represents a constant challenge
to their Islamic values and way of life. But by no means all immigrant
Muslims share the same hopes and fears or feel these pressures equally.
The response differs according to the ethnic origin of the Muslim
and the degree of his or her individual success within this society.
Most
Muslims want to preserve their Islamic identity and see it passed
on to the next generation. What are their chances of maintaining those
values? What compromises must they make with American society? And
at what cost?
People
interviewed in this program: Aziz Abraham, Ramsey Hassan,
Sam Hassan, Rabie Ahmed, Tariq Qurayshi, Daud Assad, Abdul Aziz Sachadena,
Salahadin Malik, Akbar Muhammad, Alixa Naff, Somi Malik, Bora Pervane,
Rafil Dhafir, Salwa Malik, Alae-Eldin Sayed, Shakir Zaganjori, Abdul
Hamid, Shiraz Ismail