1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910796472503321

Autore

Afzal Ahmed

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

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

©2014

ISBN

1-4798-5888-9

1-4798-5163-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Classificazione

REL024000SOC002010

Disciplina

305.697077641411

Soggetti

Homosexuality - Religious aspects - Islam

Pakistani Americans - Texas - Houston - Ethnic identity

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

Muslims in popular culture - United States

Muslims - United States - Social conditions - 21st century

Houston (Tex.) Ethnic relations Case studies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

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

Sommario/riassunto

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.