Category: Diversity in America

These are but a few of many of the Arab-American communities across the United States built around common bonds of language, food, culture, national origin and religion. What do you know about the people of Middle-Eastern descent in your town or city? Dearborn, MI: Dearborn, Michigan, is a city in Metropolitan Detroit that boasts the […]

In 2017, Arab Americans began a national initiative to coordinate and advocate for an Arab American Heritage Month. Governmental agencies throughout the United States responded and several cities and states have issued proclamations in recognition of their Arab American communities. TeachMideast curated this collection of resources to introduce students and educators to the history, culture, […]

The Islamic Center of Washington was “the first major congregational mosque” in America and remains one of the country’s most magnificent. From the outset, the mosque was a multinational effort between diverse Muslim groups living in the capital to construct a shared worship and cultural space. Although the mosque’s architect Mario Rossi was Italian, he […]

Earlier this month, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding released its fifth annual Muslim American Poll. Like previous editions, the American Muslim Poll 2020: Amid Pandemic and Protest offers researchers, policymakers, and the public insights and analysis into the attitudes and policy preferences of American Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, white Evangelicals, the non-affiliated, and [...]

On June 29, 2019, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), NYU Washington, DC, Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC), Justice for Muslims Collective (JMC), and the Arab American Institute (AAI) hosted a program to explore the history and impact of structural Islamophobia. One year earlier, on June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s ban on travel from several […]

Aladdin film poster comparison. Screen capture from YouTube. In May 2019, Disney released a live-action version of Aladdin, which tells the story of an affable street-urchin who accepts the services of a trickster genie to win over the sultan's daughter, Jasmine. The film is an adaptation of a folktale from the 18th-century, Arabic-language collection, A [...]

Dalia Mogahed, Opinion Contributor USA Today The latest iteration of the so-called “Muslim ban” was upheld by the Supreme Court (on July 26th) in a 5-4 ruling, leading many critics to call the decision a triumph of legal technicalities over principle. In this third version of the Trump administration’s attempt to ban citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering […]

Rowaida Abdelaziz, Huffington Post May 2018 Unprecedented levels of Islamophobia and heightened anti-Muslim rhetoric are so rampant that some Muslims are internalizing and accepting problematic stereotypes about themselves, according to a newly released report by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. The study found that Muslims are more likely than members of other faiths to […]

The Voter Study Group report analyzes how most Americans perceive American Muslims vs. how American Muslims see themselves. Their survey discovered that almost 20 percent of Americans would deny Muslims who are American citizens the right to vote.

Following a terror attack bearing the hallmarks of ISIS or other such groups, it is now customary for Muslim leaders to issue public condemnations. Should that be the case? On the one hand, immediately condemning such acts preempts (and, ideally, prevents) any accusations of terrorist sympathies on the part of individual leaders and communities. On […]