Growing Up in a Muslim Country: Brooklyn, U.S.A.

Much of the political discourse around Muslims in America continues to frame Muslims as the Other—new, strange, foreign, and incompatible with life in America. Yet, the lived experiences of Muslims in Brooklyn—like many Muslim communities throughout the United States—tell different stories, of long histories of diverse peoples who have been and continue to be integral to American life. For well over a century, Muslims have lived, worked, and prayed in Brooklyn, making it a major center of Muslim life for New York City and the nation. Drawing on the recently completed Muslims in Brooklyn oral histories collection, this presentation will highlight the ways Muslims have made and transformed Brooklyn as home.

About Speaker:
Zaheer Ali is an Oral Historian at Brooklyn Historical Society, a nationally recognized urban history center founded in 1863, dedicated to preserving and encouraging the study of the history of Brooklyn, New York. He records, collects, and curates the lived histories, testimonies, memoirs, and narrations of Brooklynites from all walks of life. Currently, he directs Muslims in Brooklyn, a two-year multi-faceted public history project designed to amplify the stories of Brooklyn’s Muslim communities and contextualize those stories in the broader history of Brooklyn.