the emerging latino muslim community in america

The Emerging Latino Muslim Community in America is an academic report prepared by student researcher Abbas Barzegar as a part of something called the Pluralism Project. The following is just an excerpt (for the whole report, click the link above) but it raises some interesting questions on where Latino Muslims are headed in the future.

Future research that aims at understanding the significance of the rising role of Islam amongst Latinos in the United States needs to be placed along a comprehensive matrix that allows for the analysis of a number of variables simultaneously. Some of the factors that need attention include the religious tone of the Latino community, the role of Latinos in the United States, the location of Islam in American civic life, the relationships between immigrant Muslim communities and Latinos, along with a host of other concerns. I briefly present a few directions for possible future research.

As alluded to before the presence of African American Muslims in major metropolitan areas has, in various ways, contributed to the rise of Latino Muslim conversion. Islam’s visible presence in the black community dates back to the early years of the 20th century and has grown exponentially since. Today the African American Muslim community is extremely diverse in its makeup, which has produced multiple layers of cultural contribution to American society by way of religious orientation. Furthermore, because most Latinos live in metropolitan centers and thus share the same space as many African American Muslims, it is safe to say that Latino Muslims have been influenced whether, directly or indirectly by the African American Muslim community. Researching the correlation between African American Muslim cultural visibility and contribution and its effect on Latinos who convert to Islam may require more than survey questions and interviews. An ethnographic assessment of Islam as it is portrayed in inner city life may produce the information we need to examine the larger implications of Latino conversion to Islam. We may soon be in a position to ask whether or not there exists an identifiable indigenous American Muslim culture, that is, a culture of Muslims in America that is a product of conversion and not immigration.

The fact that Latinos and African Americans are converting to Islam tempts the question of race and ethnicity in America. Why is it that segments of these two historically disenfranchised communities have found meaning in the religion of Islam? Does Islam provide something unique to these communities that they have not found in other religions? Many testimonies of both African American and Latino American Muslims address the way in which the structure of Islamic belief systems serve to combat deteriorating social conditions in both communities, such as drug/alcohol abuse, gang and domestic violence, the decline of traditional family settings, and so forth.

It is also interesting to note that at a time when Islam is dubbed in public discourse a hateful, dangerous and violent religion, conversion rates increase. What might explain this phenomenon? Can it be related to the different ways different communities perceive Islam? If so, what are the contours of these differences? Furthermore, it seems that there is a tendency to emphasize religious identity above cultural and ethnic identity in most Muslim communities, how might this factor into the lived experiences of community members, who have to occupy the Latino and Islamic worlds simultaneously? Are communities forging new identities or manipulating new ones? It is also necessary, no matter how fascinated we are with the idea of Latino Muslims, to ask why there are dozens of millions of Latinos who have chosen not to convert to Islam, and perhaps the thousands that were interested but decided not to? Opening a discourse on Latino Muslims in the United States can be a fruitful endeavor and should be considered.

The simultaneous presence of Islam in the national consciousness of the American public and its rapid growth among various groups in the United States raises an interesting set of questions. To treat the phenomenon of Latino Muslim conversion laxly would be a mistake. Roughly a half century ago there existed a group of ‘so-called’ African American Muslims. Leading opinions of the time considered the movement to be temporal one based off of the charisma of various leaders. However, today there are over an estimated 4 million African American Muslims in America. The empirical trend leads us to question the potential future of the current 40,000 Latino Muslims. If trends continue the landscape of American society in just few decades may look dramatically different. The study of Latino Muslims as a component in the Muslim American landscape may yield insights, not only in related academic fields, but also into the uncertain yet impending future of American society.