WASHINGTON - For Muslim immigrants, adjusting to American society, where women and children experience fewer restrictions, can be a huge challenge, said one young Muslim American who was born in Iraq but brought to the United States when he was 1 year old.
“Cultural acclimation both of parents and Muslim youth is huge,” Othman Altalib said during a panel discussion by four Muslim-Americans at the Newseum on Tuesday.
The panelists shared their views on integration, religion, concerns about widespread anti-Muslim rhetoric, and calls to ban other Muslims from entering the U.S. being discussed by political figures during an event organized by Voice of America. was moderated by Akmal Dawi, VOA’s Afghan Service digital managing editor.
The nation’s 3.3 million Muslims account for roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population, but, in the wake of terrorist attacks, they’ve disproportionately dominated news.
"It goes back to slapping labels on people and assuming that Islam is what is defining about someone and then assuming that is the driving force behind their actions," said Oya Rose Aktas in explaining why news of Muslim terrorists seems to dominate the news.
"Language and media is very, very important. The distinction between Islamic and Islamist is important," Aktas stressed. "So when the media isn't sensitive to that, they fall into the trap of perpetuating these misconceptions and creating really strong links between Islam and terrorism that don't exist."
On the panel were Mohamed Hussein, 26, and Mohamad, 19, both of whom were born in the United States. Aktas and Altalib, both 22, were born elsewhere but arrived in the country as children.
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Deadly mass shootings in California in December and in Orlando, Florida, on June 12 – committed by assailants claiming loyalty to Islamic State – have generated calls for identity cards or blocking Muslim refugees from entering the country. And they’ve greatly distorted the image of American Muslims, subjecting a whole faith group to suspicion.
The panelists objected to emphasizing the Muslim identity of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, who was born in the United States to immigrants from Afghanistan. They noted that most perpetrators of crime aren’t identified as, say, Christian.
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"I feel whenever a Muslim does something like that, it's all over the media, there's so much attention to it. But if a Westerner does the same thing, I don't think it has the same impact," said Morsal Mohamad, a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
As one viewer on Facebook, Hanif Miah, said, "Muslims are not terrorists, (terrorists) are terrorists."
They also suggested the religious labeling diverted attention from an assailant’s mental health or other internal conflicts.
“A lot of these people who give a bad name to Islam don’t even come to the mosque,” complained Mohamed Hussein, executive director of the Somali American Youth Foundation in northern Virginia.
They said they’ve all experienced suspicion because of their Muslim identities. Yet they say young Muslims often have more than one identity that defines them.
"It definitely is a struggle, not only being a Muslim, not only being a Muslim-American, being Somali, being black, being young -- there's a lot of identities that you have to reconcile,” said Hussein of the Somali American Youth Foundation in Virginia.
“It's not easy, but luckily, I was born into it and it has been a lifelong process for me, whereas if you immigrate like my parents, for example, you have to shift and learn to change from being a majority to being a minority."
The has estimated that almost two-thirds of U.S. Muslims are foreign born.
Aktas’ family left her father’s homeland of Turkey when she was 9, moving to the U.S. central state of Oklahoma, where her mother came from.
The Muslim religion too often is viewed as monolithic, said Aktas, whose mother is Christian – a Methodist. “Both religious groups are very diverse.”
"I think that oftentimes people try to split it (the Muslim community) into moderate Muslims and conservative Muslims, but there is a lot of diversity past that. And I think that that's one of the nuances that gets lost in discussions about Islam in the U.S.," she said.
Panelists chafed at the politicization of Islam, including calls to suspend Muslims’ entry to the United States or perhaps requiring them to carry identity cards.