Uncertain safety: uncovering the religious racial socialization process among Muslim American families during the 2016 election

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racial socialization refers to the process through which children come to understand their own and others' racial identities, roles, and positions in various contexts, and how race will function in their lives. Although research on the racialization of Islam is growing, the socialization of racialized religious identities is less understood. This article draws on two years of ethnographic and interview data collected among Muslim American families whose children were enrolled in Islamic private schools in suburban Metro Detroit during the 2016 presidential election season. Within this political milieu, second-generation Muslim American parents engaged in what I term religious racial socialization. I show how the process of protecting children from the harms of Islamophobia meant practicing both cultural socialization and preparation for bias with the aid of Islamic schools and mosques. Yet, because the process is incapable of completely buffering against Islamophobia, parents' strategies highlight the tension of individual survival strategies within the context of existing religious-racial hierarchies, offering Muslim American children uncertain safety. The findings from this study contribute to family studies by showing how for some religiously minoritized populations, the processes of racial, religious, and political socialization are not only inextricably linked but are also co-constitutive and mutually reinforcing.