Ten years later

Abstract

Using the feminist ecological model (Ballou, Matsumoto, & Wagner, 2002), I explore the lived experiences of ten college-aged Muslim American women in the context of a post-September 11th United States in this qualitative narrative research study. The informants are individually interviewed and their voices, stories, personal experiences, and perceptions are brought forth in this study. Based on a critical review of the existing literature, the interviews address salient issues for coming of age as Muslim women after 9/11. I use thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to analyze the narratives collected in the interviews. I investigate the sociocultural contexts and structural conditions that enable the personal narratives provided. The resulting themes demonstrate that Muslim American women have diverse experiences of identity development influenced by their access to family and community, and their resources for coping with and reacting to discrimination and violence in their daily lives. Major factors that impact identity development include the practice of hijab, the power of media and government, and gendered stereotypes about Muslim women. This study provides a critique of multicultural research and literature in mainstream psychology by contrasting the personal narratives of my informants with existing knowledge about Muslim Americans and theories of cultural identity development and acculturation.