City of Residence:
Minneapolis, MN
Occupation:
Small Business Owner / Psychologist
Excerpt:
Jamila:
“Again because I come from an interfaith background that’s really where my interests lie and also where I feel I can be most helpful to the community at large. I know how the dominant culture thinks. I have an understanding of what the fears are. And I think it’s important that others see the Muslim community as people and that we’re a very diverse community. And so we not only come from other countries, but we also are home-grown as well. And this is where I feel I can help, you know, educate people. And that’s really what it’s about – I think is helping others to see that we are just people like everybody else and, you know, we’re from here, we’re from different cultural backgrounds, even from here. And so this is how, this my story of how I came into the community.”
Amin:
“I see a lot of similarities coming from a Japanese background and knowing the history of what happened after World War II with, with racial biasing of, towards Japanese Americans and then I understand after 9/11 the sudden reinvigoration of cultural differences and particularly now the media perhaps harping on it. But, I do understand the quandary that many of our, of our Muslim brothers and sisters have, especially coming from my, my background and being Japanese American and knowing what my parents and grandparents went through. I feel very deeply that, how unjust it is and on the same token I understand where it comes from. I don’t condone it, but I understand where it comes from.”
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