Cainkar, Louise

English

epublications@Marquette

Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteSocial and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research andPublications Social and Cultural Sciences, Department of5-1-2016Film Review of Migrations of Islam: Muslim AmericanVoices in the 21st Century by Swarnavel E. Pillai, SalahD. Hassan, Swarnavel E. PillaiLouise CainkarMarquette University, Louise.Cainkar@mu.eduPublished version. Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies,Vol. 1, No. 1 (May 2016): 92-95. DOI. ©Indiana University Press. Used with permission.Film ReviewsMigrations of Islam: Muslim American Voices in the 21st CenturyDocumentary, 2015, 58 minutes, Directed by Swarnavel E. Pillai, and Produced by Salah D. Hassan and Swarnavel E. PillaiMigrations of Islam is thematically rooted in the integral historical relation-ship between Islam, migration, and the production of new cultural forms and hybridities. Over the centuries and across thousands of miles, Islam has brought, absorbed, infl uenced, and reshaped culture. Whether one is look-ing at Malaysia or Spain (and thence Mexico), Nigeria or France, Yemen or Morocco, Turkey or Bosnia, India or Uzbekistan, the blending of Islam with local cultures is both distinctive and elemental. And so too, as this documen-tary explores, Muslims are producing creative innovations at the intersection of Islam and a range of U.S. subcultures and American cultural forms. Particularly since 9/11, according to writer and playwright Wajahat Ali, interviewed in the fi lm, there has been an American Muslim “explosion in the arts.” Th e docu-mentary treats viewers to a broad range of contemporary American Muslim artistic genres, including theatrical readings, staged performances, stand up poetry, hip hop, classical oud, and comedy, as well as artists’ commentaries on their autobiographical paths to these creative outputs. All are segments of per-formances and interviews conducted at Michigan State University and Grand Valley State University between 2011 and 2012. This content downloaded from 130.194.20.173 on Sun, 23 Sep 2018 23:00:02 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/termsCainkar / Film Reviews  93Th e task of facing and surmounting challenges permeates the documentary. Muslim Americans speak to challenging their family’s and community’s sense of the proper career path for their children (you should be a doctor not a per-former). Th ey speak to the fl att ening and homogenizing eff ects of Islamophobia, something their artistic work challenges not only in content but because it exists at all. Muslim Americans interviewed in the fi lm point out that every American Muslim has had to grapple with how to come to terms with 9/11 and its aft er-math, and emphasize that each has done so in their own unique way. Th e chal-lenges are multi-faceted as gender, race, socioeconomic status, and sexuality intersect with being Muslim and American; so in turn Muslim American artistic productions are complex and multi-dimensional.   Th e documentary fi lm begins and ends with staged readings of Wajahat Ali’s award winning play Domestic Crusaders. Th e segments shown focus mainly on Muslim American (or American Muslim) intra-family dynamics and the dia-logues, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, that take place between youth and parents when the former choose to strike out on paths that diff er from their par-ents’ visions. Following this are segments of Hijabi Monologues, a performance in which Muslim American women articulate slices of life for women who wear hijab. “I am not a head scarf ” is the theme that critiques both the essentialized views of outsiders — where are you from? Do you do anything besides pray? — as well as internal community sexism.Th e next segment of the documentary, “Americans and Islam,” shift s from performance art to a collection of material on how non-Muslim Americans perceive, react to, and experience Islam. Filmed during Islamic Awareness week at Michigan State, we hear about the encounters of non-Muslim women wearing hijab for a day, observe a Muslim public pray in, and listen to the challenges of non-Muslims att empting to observe a fast. While the point of this segment is that outreach and education are forms of Muslim activism that must parallel artistic ventures, more could have been done to tie it in thematically to the rest of the documentary. Also included in this segment are Muslims noting that violence and radicalism are found in all religions and Religious Studies Professor Mohammad Khalil’s observation that Islamic studies has surged since 9/11. Th e next segment, entitled “Islam and its Discontents,” is also somewhat of a hodgepodge of refl ections. It includes American Muslims speaking of experiences with discrimination and repres-sion in the Arab World as well as institutional discrimination, harassment, surveillance, and securitization in the US. Following these voices are Muslims speaking of the universality of Islam and its varying contextualization and of oppressions that exist within Muslim communities, such as of left ist and gay Muslims. All of these points disclose important aspects of the Muslim This content downloaded from 130.194.20.173 on Sun, 23 Sep 2018 23:00:02 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms94  Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, Vol. 1.1American experience, but at times one feels that the fi lm is trying to do too much.Th e rest of the documentary returns to a focus on Muslim American cul-tural production. We are treated to performances of Omar Off endum’s hip hop, Saad Omar’s poetic visions tour, and Erin O’Conner’s spoken word poetry and interviews with comedians Dean Obeidallah and Azhar Usman. Each of these artists has a distinctive way of critiquing the Islamophobic context within which American Muslims live and seek to thrive; some also turn a humorous glance inward at the ways in which some Muslims respond to being in “America.” Th e overarching theme of these latt er segments is the critical importance of creat-ing culture, and especially popular culture, to staking one’s place as an integral part of the society in which you live. In the words of Ashar Usman, “American and Muslim are not dichotomous.” Spliced into these segments is a vulgar, anti-sharia rally. Th is footage feels out of place; it could have been more eff ec-tively woven into the theme that far too oft en outsiders have constructed the American Muslim narrative; today, American Muslims are constructing their own narratives.Th e strength of this fi lm lies in the broad range of Muslim American cultural productions one observes and in their framing by a diverse group of American Muslim voices: male, female, immigrant, refugee, US born, and convert. Professor Khalil provides authoritative commentary on matt ers religious and historic. Th e overriding message is that we not only confront the stares, insults, institutional discrimination and securitization, we are active creators of our own cultural forms of resistance. Th e migration of Islam to the US both requires and shapes it. Th e fi lm should be applauded for its rendering of the complexity of the American Muslim experience as well as for giving voice and platform to the spirit and creative energies of young Muslim Americans. As it does so, it knocks Orientalism and essentialization on their head. For these reasons it is well-suited for undergraduate classroom use. If there is one fault with the fi lm it is that it introduces too many topics, all important on their own and merit-ing more extensive discussion than given. Th is problem is somewhat overcome by the fi lm’s organization into thematic chapters. Depending upon the course in which it is used, it might be best shown in segments, followed by student refl ection and discussion. Producer Salah Hassan might consider the addition of such refl ection questions to the fi lm’s website (htt p://www.muslimsubjects.org/migrationsofi slam/). Overall, the fi lm does what is says it will do: represent American Muslims creatively making their mark “between Islamophobia and conservative reli-gious interpretations” on American culture, while at the same time craft ing and This content downloaded from 130.194.20.173 on Sun, 23 Sep 2018 23:00:02 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/termsShamas / Film Reviews  95reshaping, yet again, what it means to be Muslim. Scholar Sherman Jackson’s work on Islam and the Blackamerican illuminates earlier products of this reshaping, as does emerging research on Islam and the Black Atlantic. Hisham Aidi’s impres-sive contribution has been to do so both historically and globally in Rebel Music. Migrations of Islam demonstrates some of the ways in which American Muslims are imparting unique artistic responses to the intense and highly negative social and political predicament that followed 9/11.Louise CainkarAssociate professor of sociology and social welfare and justice in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquett e University, Milwaukee, WI. She is also Director, Interdisciplinary Major in Peace Studies. Cainkar is a scholar of Arab and Muslim Americans and current President of the Arab American Studies Association. She is the author of 2009 Homeland Insecurity: Th e Arab American and Muslim American Experience Aft er 9/11  (New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press). Recent publications include 2016 “Becoming Arab American” Middle East Report. Spring: 44–46 and “Learning to be Muslim — Transnationally.” Religions. 5(3), 594-622; doi:10.3390/rel5030594. Her current writing is on transitional Arab American/Muslim American youth.doi:10.2979/jims.1.1.10(T)ERRORDocumentary, 2015, 84 minutes, Co-Directed and Produced by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix SutcliffeLyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliff e’s documentary (T)ERROR provides a rare, insider look exposing the fl awed FBI practice of dispatching informants to target Muslim individuals for counterterrorism investigations, persisting even when there is no indication that any criminal activity is afoot. (T)ERROR has received critical acclaim for not only tackling a controversial topic, but for the fi lmmakers’ daring willingness to get uncomfortably close to their subject by sending their cameras undercover to fi lm an FBI sting operation as it unfolds. However, the fi lm is most remarkable for the context it provides for post-9/11 government surveillance in the United States: (T)ERROR narrates present-day targeting of Muslims as part of a longer history of targeting primarily Black and Black Muslim communities. In doing so, the fi lm also scrutinizes a core pillar of law enforcement investigations, and invites us to rethink the government’s This content downloaded from 130.194.20.173 on Sun, 23 Sep 2018 23:00:02 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Film Review of \u3cem\u3eMigrations of Islam: Muslim American Voices in the 21st Century\u3c/em\u3e by Swarnavel E. Pillai, Salah D. Hassan, Swarnavel E. Pillai

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1242&amp;context=socs_fac

Film Review of \u3cem\u3eMigrations of Islam: Muslim American Voices in the 21st Century\u3c/em\u3e by Swarnavel E. Pillai, Salah D. Hassan, Swarnavel E. Pillai

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