THE hookah pipes are neatly stacked on a shelf near the display window. Outside the shop, there is a makeshift DVD stand offering Egyptian movies at US$10 (RM35) each. Except for a handful of translated titles such as The Way to Belly Dance and My Soul Mate, the DVDs were all in Arabic.
Other shops had signs like Taiba Halal Meat, Andalous Travel – Hajj & Umra (that’s how it was spelt) and Eastern Night Cafe. Arabic script is seen everywhere.
Women in veils are frequently spotted as well in this small but vibrant Arab community on Steinway Street in the Astoria neighbourhood of Queens, a borough in New York.
They seem to blend in with the crowd of assorted faces out for their Sunday shopping. Caucasians, Asians, Arabs, African-Americans; it was a mixed pot indeed.
“There is no discrimination against women wearing the hijab here, at least officially,” said Sheikh Omar Saleem Abu-Namous, an imam in New York.
He, however, cautioned that there was some hidden, unadmitted prejudice against these females especially in employment.
“Either they will not be hired or they will be told to abandon the veil if they wanted the job,” he said.
To be fair, though, the imam noted that there were employers who had no qualms hiring women who covered their head. “I have seen such employees in Duane Reade (a large pharmacy chain),” he said.
When Jakkiah Basran, a Malaysian, learned that her husband would be posted to the United States, she wondered about the climate there for Muslim women like her who wear the tudung.
That was two years ago. Today, 45-year-old Jakkiah has no apprehension at all about her choice of attire.
“Initially, I could see that some Americans did not know how to react to me. They stayed away a little and I did not know whether they had felt awkward or otherwise,” said Jakkiah, who is the wife of the Malaysian Consul-General in New York.
Jakkiah decided to take matters into her own hands so to speak. She made the first move, flashing a smile and extending her hand to those around her.
“I got very involved with the Consular Women’s Club (CWC) and the Women International Forum. One day, an Irish woman at the CWC came up to me, saying that she had observed that I was very selective with the food I eat.”
“I explained about the halal requirements in Islam. I also told her that these requirements were not only peculiar to Islam but likewise in other faiths such as the Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws. We became the best of friends since,” Jakkiah said.
Her experience in other US cities like Boston and Atlanta were similar, too, where she found that the Americans were not put off by her tudung.
Based on her observations, even those who wear the full purdah faced no difficulties here.
“I was quite surprised to see some women here wearing the purdah which exposed only their eyes. Yet, they move about freely and nobody bothered them,” she said.
To her, the United States, which is home to six million Muslims, is indeed the land of the immigrants.
Hossein Kamaly, adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s Department of Religion, was of the view that Americans were much more okay about women wearing the hijab.
“Unlike countries such as France, people here are far more comfortable with the dressing of others.”
(Schools in England, for instance, are allowed to decide whether students should be banned from wearing full-face veils.)
He said the composition of the Muslim population in the US was very diverse but “the openness of the American system will, hopefully, make it possible for Muslims to contribute positively and more visibly to this society.”
Do Americans generally decline to speak frankly about Islam to avoid offending their Muslim counterparts?
“I don’t think there’s any hesitation on their part. Freedom of speech is the hallmark of American society although that doesn’t mean you should insult others,” he said.
Others, however, felt that the New York experience was different compared to other parts of the US and that there were many types of prejudices out there.
But in the meantime, life seems to thrive in the little Arab community in Queens.
