Young Muslim Americans unnerved by fear and loathing

A couple of nights ago, at around 11pm, Mariam Fayad was about to step outside her parents' house in suburban Phoenix to get the mail from the front garden. Suddenly her father spoke up: "I'd rather you didn't." It stopped her in her tracks.

Fayad (21) recalls the moment as a small example of how unsettling everyday life has become for many American Muslims. “My parents have been incredibly protective,” she says. “It’s a little bit scary. They’re always afraid, always trying to keep in contact with me and make sure everything is okay.”

Fayad, a poised, self-confident student in graphic information technology, was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents but has spent much of her life in the United States. She became a US citizen last January and beams with pride at the recollection of that "exciting" day.

The happy occasion, a formal cementing of her relationship to the country where she was raised and educated and long called her own, has coincided with events that have left many in her generation of American Muslims – young children at the time of 9/11 – anxious and afraid.

A spate of recent hate crimes, including the killing of an Imam in Queens, an arson attack on a mosque in Texas, and an attack on two Muslim women in Brooklyn, has taken a psychological toll. But the political backdrop has has caused the greatest alarm.

A little terrifying

"I feel a little dumb saying it out loud, but it's a little terrifying walking out on to the street," Fayad says evenly. "If I'm driving, I'm always scared. If I see a car with a Trump sticker, and I know the gun laws are really loose in Arizona, I'm afraid for my life, honestly."

Fayad is sitting in an airy, modern lecture hall at the Arizona State University campus, the afternoon sun streaking through the windows as a meeting of the Muslim Students' Association finishes up. She joins fellow students Zain Siddiqi and Hadi Naseredden to reflect on the election campaign.

All three are first-time voters, and all three intend to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton to help ensure that Donald Trump doesn't win.

Along with other minorities, such as Hispanics and African-Americans, Muslims have been on the receiving end of some of the Republican candidate’s most egregious insults. He has proposed banning Muslims from entering the country and has suggested that profiling would be an effective way of preventing terrorism.

Most galling in the community has been his repeated questioning of the loyalty of America’s Muslims.

"It's very jarring that this is happening," says Siddiqi (19), a political science major whose grandfather migrated to the US from India in the 1940s.

“He is not suggesting ‘go and do these violent acts’, but because in his message Muslims are the enemy, they’re being treated as the enemy by his supporters . . . It makes you think, these people have been here all this time and it took one guy to activate this within them.”

Most alarming is that Trump has signalled to his supporters that it’s acceptable to vilify Muslims, says Naseredden (19), an electrical engineering student who describes himself as “half-Palestinian, half-Dutch and full American”.

“So it makes you think that anyone you see on the street could be a Trump supporter and have those same ideas in their head.”

Harder for women

Naseredden has not faced any abuse in his daily life (“It’s a lot harder for women since they have their scarves”), but all three students attest to a changed climate. Fayad recalls an episode in which she was followed around a supermarket by an angry man who tailed her until she left the shop and made her way, pepper spray in hand, to her car outside.

Siddiqi’s grandmother doesn’t like him going to Friday prayer at the mosque because she worries that something will happen.

“I think she is being a little bit overprotective, but people are genuinely concerned,” he says. “During Ramadan, when we were at the mosque every night, the police were there every single night.” On another occasion, about 250 mostly armed anti-Islam demonstrators protested outside a local mosque.

In the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders enjoyed strong popular among young Muslims. Fayad was an avid supporter, and still has a Sanders sticker on her car. All three say they will vote for Clinton, though with no great enthusiasm.

“Have you noticed in the debates how her only reference to American Muslims is for us is to be informants for the threats in our community,” says Siddiqi.

Fayad agrees. “She gives this idea that Muslims are just covering up for each other, that there’s always terrorism in the mosque, and everyone knows who it is but no one will say anything about it.”

Comfort in unity

Notwithstanding all these concerns, members of the community have found comfort in the unity with which Muslims have responded. Arizona has one of the biggest Muslim populations in the southwest; the community is drawn from all over the world and is spread widely across the state.

Siddiqi says these difficult months have brought them closer together. He is also gratified by the solidarity shown by Christian, Jewish and Hindu students on campus.

For his part, Naseredden is encouraged by polls showing that traditionally red Arizona could turn blue for only the second time since the 1940s. “I find that to be a positive sign, and a testament to how absurd Trump’s rhetoric is even to Republicans.”

In the same vein, Fayad tends to be optimistic when she takes the long view. She quotes a line from Barack Obama to the effect that Donald Trump is merely a symptom rather than the cause of the current malaise.

“The problem is an underlying one that existed in society,” she says. “It’s just that he brought it to the light. My hope is that after this election season, people will be able to see that and we’ll be able to solve it at its roots.”