Lone Star Muslims : Transnational Lives and the South Asian Experience in Texas / Ahmed Afzal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Afzal, Ahmed, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homosexuality--Religious aspects--Islam--Case studies.

Homosexuality.

Pakistani Americans--Texas--Houston--Ethnic identity--Case studies.

Pakistani Americans.

Pakistani Americans--Texas--Houston--Social conditions--21st century.

Muslims in popular culture--United States--Case studies.

Muslims in popular culture.

Muslims--United States--Social conditions--21st century--Case studies.

Muslims.

Houston (Tex.)--Ethnic relations--Case studies.

Houston (Tex.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : New York University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Lone Star Muslims offers an engaging and insightful look at contemporary Muslim American life in Texas. It illuminates the dynamics of the Pakistani Muslim community in Houston, a city with one of the largest Muslim populations in the south and southwestern United States. Drawing on interviews and participant observation at radio stations, festivals, and ethnic businesses, the volume explores everyday Muslim lives at the intersection of race, class, profession, gender, sexuality, and religious sectarian affiliation to demonstrate the complexity of the South Asian experience. Importantly, the volume incorporates narratives of gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent, countering the presumed heteronormativity evident in most of the social science scholarship on Muslim Americans and revealing deeply felt affiliations to Islam through ritual and practice. It also includes narratives of members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America, of Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses, of community activists, and of radio program hosts. Decentering dominant framings that flatten understandings of transnational Islam and Muslim Americans, such as “terrorist” on the one hand, and “model minority” on the other, Lone Star Muslims offers a glimpse into a variety of lived experiences. It shows how specificities of class, Islamic sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities and mediate racism, marginalities, and abjection.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Houston

2. “A Dream Come True”

3. “It’s Allah’s Will”

4. “I Have a Very Good Relationship with Allah”

5. The Pakistan Independence Day Festival

6. “Pakistanis Have Always Been Radio People”

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

9781479858880

1479858889

9781479851638

1479851639

OCLC:

895161930