Religious Fields and Subfields: Transnational Connections, Identities, and Reactive Transnationalism

Abstract

The relationship between religion and transnationalism has only recently gained scholarly attention to document the influence religious organizations have on mediating transnational ties. While scholarship on second-generation transnationalism has gained interest, second-generation Arab Americans remain understudied. Yet, Arab Americans, especially Muslim Arab Americans, have been progressively encountering overt anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiments for two decades, since 11 September. These experiences of discrimination are bound to affect their transnationalism. Based on 32 semi-structured interviews with children of Arab immigrants from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, this study finds that religious organizations are important transnational social fields for the second generation, especially those who experienced discrimination. This study finds that for Muslim Arab Americans, mosques are important transnational social fields in which they engage in transnational ways of being and belonging that connect them to their parental homeland and transnational identity. Consistent with reactive transnationalism, when experiencing discrimination Muslim Arab Americans increased their participation within their mosques in two ways. First, mosques are places Muslim Arab Americans draw on the support of other Arab Americans who have experienced discrimination. Second, the social networks of Muslim Arabs provide important historical and cultural knowledge about their parental homeland; knowledge that Muslim Arab Americans would later use to advocate and educate others when/if they reencountered discrimination.

1. Introduction

The influence of religious organizations on transmigrant lives and homeland connections can be traced back to 1445 Common Era (C.E.) when the union between the Catholic Church of Rome and the Church of the East took place (Hanoosh 2016). Regardless of this long history, the relationship between religion and transnationalism has only recently gained attention due to the increase in the opportunities that globalization and technological advancements have created for religious organizations to mediate transnational ties (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Hanoosh 2016). However, studies looking at religious organizations’ influence on transnational ties have mostly studied the first generation (Oxfield 1993; Cohen 1997; Vertovec 1997, 1999; Abusharaf 1998; Levitt 1998, 2002, 2004; McAlister 1998; Menjívar 1999; Riccio 2001; Bowen 2004; Ebaugh 2004; Al-Rasheed 2005; Salemink 2006; Pasura 2012). Studies focused on the first generation reveal that religious organizations remain influential because of the symbolic and enduring power over immigrants in the receiving country (Herberg 1990; Warner 1998, p. 3). However, much of this research focuses on how religious organizations help sustain religious ties across borders among migrants rather than how religious organizations play a role in sustaining (parental) homeland connections in the host country. This article aims to do the latter. More specifically, how religious organizations play a role in sustaining transnational ties for second-generation Muslim Arab Americans in Northeast Ohio (NEO) after experiences of discrimination.

The present study is based on semi-structured interviews with second-generation Muslim Arab Americans. The purpose of the study is to understand the influence of religious organizations on transnational connections and their role in mitigating reactive transnationalism. This study finds that religious organizations and programs invigorate transnational ties for second-generation Muslim Arab Americans through transnational fields and subfields. These fields and subfields are essential for building social and human capital, which is instrumental for strengthening parental homeland connection, especially after experiencing discrimination.

In this article, I begin with an overview of the theoretical framework and existing research on transnationalism, reactive transnationalism, and religious transnationalism. After discussing the study methodology and design, I present key findings. Namely, I highlight two findings that emerged from data analysis. First, mosques and Sunday schools represent social closures that strengthen transnational connections and identities by teaching participants about the differences between themselves and other Arab Muslims and improving their understanding of religious and cultural norms. Second, Muslim Arab Americans exhibit reactive transnationalism after experiencing discrimination. This study is germane because it contributes to the growing literature on second-generation transnationalism, especially on second-generation Muslim Arab Americans who are severely understudied and discriminated against, especially since September 11 and the former President Trump’s elections/presidency.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. Human and Social Capital in Transnational (Sub)Fields

This study employs a transnationalism analytic framework to understand the transnational lives of second-generation Muslim Arab Americans. Transnationalism is a social phenomenon that includes familial, economic, social, religious, and political relations that cross borders (Glick Schiller et al. 1992; Levitt 2001a, 2001b). Transnational social fields are made up of “multiple interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organized and transformed,” transcending at least two nations (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1009). In other words, transnational social fields focus on human interactions, personal relationships, and interlocking networks that transmigrants maintain and actively engage (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004). Throughout this article, the term transnational social fields refer to mosques. As part of these larger social fields, participants indicated important programs they found influential to their parental homeland connections and transnational identities; I call these “transnational social subfields”, that is, programs within the larger transitional social fields.

Transnational activities are classified in two ways, “ways of being” and “ways of belonging” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004). This research focuses on ways of belonging, which are transnational activities to consciously connect to a transnational identity and the parental homeland. While it is difficult to untangle ways of being and belonging in second-generation lives, I argue that both types of conscious and unconscious practices help the second generation maintain transnational ties to the parental homeland and their transnational identities. I also argue that engagement in ways of being helps ease the path into ways of belonging activities, thus strengthening transnational connections and identities.

Using James Coleman’s work on social capital (1988), I argue that these transnational social (sub)fields represent social closures that facilitate the flow of information (language, culture, and norms) and build social capital (social network of Arab transmigrants), which in turn ensures the proliferation of transnational ties within and outside of the social field of mosques. Within transnational social fields and through transnational ways belonging to second-generation Arab Americans build networks with other Arabs. These networks—or social capital—encouraged the cultivation of human capital. I use the term human capital to refer to the cultural and linguistic knowledge that is helpful for second-generation Arab Americans to maintain parental homeland connections and transnational identities (Coleman 1988; Holborow 2018). These include learning Arabic, learning important differences between different Arab groups and subcultures, and learning Arabic music and dances. I use the term social capital to refer to the networks of relationships Arab American transmigrants create by attending churches, mosques, and their organizations or subfields. Human and social capital facilitates transnational ties and identity development.

2.2. Transnational Identities among the Second Generation

While much is known about the identity formation of racial and ethnic groups who have a long history of immigration to and assimilation into the United States’ mainstream (Waters 1990), the extent to which the transnational second generation builds their transnational identities is less known (Somerville 2008). Research suggests that the second generation adopts various forms of identities. For instance, some second-generation individuals report transnational identities (Foner 2001), others report hyphenated bicultural identities (Portes 1999), or pan-ethnic identities (Portes 1999). This study views identity as a social construct based on the notion that social conditions, the reactions of individuals and groups to certain situations, and group membership are sites where individual identity is created and assigned (Cornell and Hartmann 1998; Lawler 2008). When immigrants and their children participate in a transnational social field, they are, in fact, being bicultural. A transnational identity can be seen as a type of bicultural identity with transnational involvement as the basis of distinction (Upegui-Hernández 2012). Therefore, transmigrants who engage in transnational ways of belonging in transnational social fields construct their identities within a “complex set of conditions that affect the construction, negotiation, and reproduction of social identities” (Vertovec 2001, p. 573).

Research uses the terms bicultural identities and transnational identities interchangeably. For example, a study focusing on second-generation South Asian American and British-Pakistani transmigrants found that these groups reported hyphenated bicultural identities because of engaging in transnational activities and maintaining transnational ties (Purkayastha 2005; Bologanani 2014). Moreover, research found that religious/cultural institutions strongly influence transnational identity formation (Ahmed et al. 2003). Transmigrants who are active in parental homeland religious/cultural institutions are more likely to have transnational identities and strong connections with their parental homelands (Ahmed et al. 2003). Van Tubergen argues for the importance of this “community effect” (2005). He argued that ethnic groups, such as families and ethnoreligious institutions in sending and receiving countries, are important contexts for immigrants and their children to explore their identities, especially when faced with discrimination (Van Tubergen 2005).

2.3. Transnationalism and Discrimination

A growing subarea within the transnational literature looks at the effect negative experiences in one context have on the strength of transnational ties. Research finds that some transmigrants who experienced individual and institutional discrimination increased their transnational activity (Basch et al. 1994; Smith 2006). This has been defined as “reactive transnationalism” (Itzigsohn and Giorguli-Saucedo 2002). Reactive transnationalism refers to the increase in transnational activity and identification among migrants and their descendants with the homeland due to negative experiences, such as discrimination and low status, in the receiving country (Itzigsohn and Giorguli-Saucedo 2002). Reactive transnationalism is rooted in Portes and Rumbaut’s (2001) notion of “reactive ethnicity”. Itzigsohn and Giorguli-Saucedo tested the reactive transnationalism hypothesis among Latino men and women in the United States (2002). They found that experiences of discrimination and negative perception increased economic and socio-cultural transnationalism, especially among men (Itzigsohn and Giorguli-Saucedo 2002).

Similarly, after experiencing discrimination, French North Africans in Paris reported an increased desire to visit or return-migrate (Castañeda et al. 2014). However, little is currently known about reactive transnationalism among the second generation, and even less is known about Muslim Arab Americans. This study aims to improve our understanding of how religious transnational social fields and their social capital mitigate transnationalism after second-generation Muslim Arab Americans experience discrimination.

3. Methods

3.1. Design and Sample

The research group is based on 32 Muslim second-generation Arab Americans between the ages of 18 and 60. Participants were born to at least one Arab immigrant parent from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria and were currently or previously Northeast Ohio residents. Thirty of the 32 participants were born to two immigrant parents from the same country of origin: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Two participants were born to one parent who is an Arab immigrant from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, or Syria and an American parent. These categories are mutually exclusive. All participants were Sunni Muslims. Twenty-two participants identified as females and ten as males. Fourteen of the participants were married, and eighteen were single. In terms of their educational attainment, 11 participants had a high school diploma, 17 had a bachelor’s or associate degree, and 4 had a graduate or a professional degree. Of the 11 participants who had a high school diploma at the time of the interview, 4 were enrolled in a university or college and were pursuing a bachelor’s degree.

This study utilized a purposive snowball sampling design. A snowball sampling methodology involves asking participants to identify other potential participants, who are then asked to make the same referral, and so on (Davis et al. 2013). Participants were initially recruited through personal networks and Sunni Mosques in the area. Key respondents in these religious institutions were instrumental in facilitating referrals and growing the study sample. Participants provided answers to semi-structured interview questions and probes about the type of transnational activities they engage in, the frequency in which they engage in such activities, the experiences of discrimination, and how these experiences affected their desire and frequency of engaging transnationally. I started each interview by collecting demographic information, parental immigration history, and religious involvement. Each participant in the study was interviewed once for an hour to an hour and a half. Interviews were conducted in-person, recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Subsequently, interviews were cleaned with special attention to preserving the meaning of Arabic words that participants used in instances they felt English words could not capture the cultural or religious meaning. I spelled Arabic words phonetically in English letters and offered a translation or definition in brackets. In presenting my findings, I used ellipses (…) when presenting data to indicate that I have removed interjections or unnecessary text that separated the flow of the participant’s speech.

3.2. Analytic Approach

Transcripts were entered into Dedoose, a web application for coding, analyzing, and presenting qualitative data. Corbin and Strauss (2008) and Berg (2008) recommend that interview coding be done in stages. The initial stage of constructing the coding scheme started with mapping codes to key research questions. The secondary stage of coding entailed further content analysis to identify child codes to capture ideas related to these larger themes of parent codes. The coding scheme emerged from a systematic, inductive procedure that was generated from insights from key interviews. Key interviews are important interviews in which participants shared profound and first-hand experiences of transnationalism and discrimination.

4. Results

4.1. Mosques as Transnational Social Fields and Subfields

Mosques are important transnational social fields for second-generation Muslim Arab Americans that strengthen their transnational connections and identities by building transnational social and human capital. This is because mosques and Sunday schools represent social closures for second-generation Arab American Muslims for two reasons. First, they are places where Muslims Arab Americans learn the differences between themselves and other Muslim Arabs. Second, they are places that improve Muslim Arab Americans’ understanding of religious and cultural norms.

Scholarly work on the Ummah (global Muslim community) captures Islamic leaders’ efforts in the U.S. and around the world to connect Muslims to the Ummah rather than connecting them to a specific country or region (Schmidt 2005; Leonard 2009; Chen 2008). Therefore, the fact that mosques in this study also strengthened transnationalism among Muslim Arab Americans is a latent function. Robert Merton defines a latent function as consequences that are neither intended nor recognized (Merton 1967, as discussed by Helm 1971). Even though mosques and Sunday schools were created to unite and reinforce a membership to the Islamic Umma, Muslim Arab Americans in this study utilized these fields to build a network made up of other Arab Muslims. Coleman (1988) argues that “an organization that was initiated for one purpose is available for appropriation for other purposes, constituting important social capital for the individual members who have available to them the organizational resources” (Coleman 1988, p. 108). Muslim Arab Americans in this study appropriated mosques and Sunday schools for constituting social capital that is important to them as Muslim Arabs. In other words, while mosques and Sunday schools were created for religious purposes and for strengthening the Umma bonds, Muslim Arab Americans in this study used these organizations to strengthen their transnational ties by creating a social network that is exclusively made up of other Muslim Arabs.

Consequently, mosques and Sunday schools are transformed into transnational social (sub-) fields that strengthen transnational connections and identities. Based on participants’ accounts, Sunday school is the main transnational social subfield within their mosques. Sunday school is intended to teach Muslim youths religious texts and Arabic to help them read the Quran. However, Sunday school did much more for Muslim Arab Americans in this study. Sunday school specifically helped Muslim Arab Americans build social networks (social capital) made up of other Muslim Arab Americans in which information and norms flowed. Within these networks, Muslim Arab Americans helped one another clarify the distinction between religious norms and cultural norms. Especially when the lines between religion and culture blurred. For example, Sarah discussed how she realized the distinction between Islamic practices and Palestinian practices:

I got married young. I went to school while I was married. And then it became that whole cross of religion and Palestinian. So that honestly really opened my mind where I started realizing: ‘Ok, it’s not the religion that’s telling us this is what you are supposed to be doing. It’s the culture that was preventing us from doing a lot of things’. It was everything was Aib [Arabic word which means shameful, often used to describe culturally unacceptable behaviors or stigmatized behaviors]. And everything was: ‘you don’t do that or this’. My in-laws were really strong, even stronger than my parents with that kind of thing. Very strict. So, for them, it’s ‘the man is the head of the household’. And is that Islamic or is that Palestinian?’ (…) Really, it’s half and half.

(Sarah, Palestinian, 40)

Within their religious organizations, Muslim Arab Americans observe and participate in religious activities rooted religiously and culturally (Güngör et al. 2011). Religious organizations represent social closures where norms and information flow. For Sarah, these social closures reinforced Islamic and Arab norms such as forbidding dating, respecting the elderly or authority figures, and adhering to traditional gender roles and patriarchy. However, in some cases, the distinction between the sources of these norms and information, whether they are cultural or Islamic, can be blurred in the minds of the second generation.

Like Coleman’s (1988, p. 99) example of the South Korean student radical activists’ study circles, Sunday school classes at the mosque provide social relations on which these social closures are built, and Sunday school classes constitute a form of social capital. This form of social capital within these social closures serves as a resource that improves the second generation’s understanding of whether these norms are based on Islamic teachings or parental and pan-Arab culture.

This, in turn, builds important human capital. These forms of social and human capital are important for parental homeland connections. For example, when I asked Sereena about organizations that helped her connect to Palestine, Sereena identified the mosque and mosque social networks as important ones. Sereena shared her memories of attending the local mosque’s Sunday school classes and then discussed the role other Muslim Arabs played in answering questions that she was unable to ask in her strict home:

The mosque definitely was a big thing because I come from a big family. I always felt like I was afraid to say something wrong and get made fun of. Or ‘We don’t talk about this in this house!’ But when I would go to the mosque, it wasn’t just learning the Quran or reading and writing [in Arabic] and that kind of thing. There was an hour they would let all these younger girls sit together, and they’d bring one of the older girls, and then they’d ask her experiences, and she would explain, ‘Well, this is why we don’t do these things’. She really helped us understand, not just lectured into us. I felt that really helped because you get a whole different understanding of why we [Muslims] do the things that we do and why it’s expected of us. Also, there were so many different [people]. We had ones [mosque members] from Syria, we had ones from Egypt, so it was fun. You got to learn about the different places, and then it made you proud of like: ‘we do we have that there. And we’re free to do this’. And then you learn that some of them, they’re not allowed to go out there, they can’t, so I guess some of it strengthens our pride. Some people look at Middle Easterners, like Arabs and Muslims, and they think that they are locked down. They have to wear the headscarf and the mask and this, this, and this. No, when you go to Palestine, it’s very casual. It’s just like here [the U.S.], but we have more ethnic ties. It’s the food and everything.

(Sereena, Palestinian, 30)

For Sereena and other female participants, the mosque provided a setting where Muslim women could talk openly about gender roles and ask questions that they would have been scolded for asking authority figures at home, especially in mixed-gender company. At the mosque, Sereena and others received explanations for religious and cultural questions they always wanted to ask and learned the distinction between the two. With this deeper understanding and exposure to other Arabs, Sereena learned the difference between herself, a Palestinian, and other Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims. Sereena also shared the newfound pride when hearing others’ stories of their less progressive parental homeland. She drew on her knowledge from her visits to Palestine to explain how advanced Palestine is compared to what others misconstrued. With her questions answered, the new knowledge she gained about the differences between herself and others, and her new heartfelt pride in the progressive nature of Palestine, Sereena reported a stronger connection to her parental homeland.

For Nuha, like Sereena, attending her mosque and Sunday school connected her with a network of other Muslim Arab transmigrants. The differences between her Sunday school peers and herself, specifically Palestinian–Jordanians, provoked Nuha’s interest in learning about Jordan and what it means to be Jordanian. Nuha explained how the mosque increased her connection to and interest in Jordan:

I met more Jordanians when I started going to Sunday school. So, I was starting to learn more from them as well. The only thing that kind of sucked is it’s always Jordanian–Palestinian, not Jordanian–Jordanian. So, I would always get that question: ‘are you Jordanian–Jordanian, or Jordanian–Palestinian?’ So everybody I met was Jordanian–Palestinian. So, it’s like that kind of distinction. Well, that’s different. And I was like: ‘No, I’m Jordanian–Jordanian’. And so, I wanted to know more about this [being Jordanian–Jordanian] rather than a mix of Jordanian and Palestinian. Which I kind of felt bad about because Palestine is an Arab country, and we care about it and everything, but at the same time, I was like: ‘I need to know more about the Jordan part’.

(Nuha, Jordanian, 25)

Like Nuha and Sereena, other Muslim Arab Americans found the social capital at the mosque and Sunday school to be helpful in clarifying ethnic, national, and religious distinctions, oftentimes as a result of inquiring and discussing the differences they saw in their social networks.

Learning about who one is and who others are plays an important role in identity formation. Identities form when individuals communicate and learn what it means to be members of a group by recognizing shared thoughts, norms, and beliefs (Swaab et al. 2007; Thomas et al. 2015). This is realized by discussing the differences between in- and out-groups (Jans et al. 2011; Thomas et al. 2015). As such, by learning about pan-Arab differences, my participants reported an increased interest in their transnational identities and a desire to learn about their parental homelands.

In sum, Islamic religious organizations are fundamental agents in creating transnational communities and connections for second-generation Arab Americans, even when they are not constructed for that purpose. The transnational social field and subfield of the mosque and Sunday school that participants like Sarah, Sereena, Nuha, and others are embedded in strengthen their transnational projects in two ways. First, mosques and Sunday schools cultivate social capital by cultivating knowledge and information, which improves their understanding of the distinction between religious and cultural norms. Second, they provide opportunities for Muslim Arab Americans to connect with one another and create their own niches in these otherwise nationally and ethnically diverse organizations. The networks Muslim Arab Americans build in their mosques become important resources for helping them understand the differences and similarities between themselves and other Arab groups. Muslim Arab Americans also sought their mosques after experiences of discrimination.

4.2. Transnationalism, Religion, and Discrimination

Attitudes towards Arab Americans became increasingly and overtly anti-Arab and Islamophobic in the aftermath of September 11 and, fifteen years later, former President Trump’s elections and presidency. Public discussions regarding Arabs and Muslims are often focused on the incompatibility of Arab culture and Islam with Western ideals (Sniderman and Hagendoorn 2007). This alleged incompatibility creates a divide between Arabs and Americans in the United States (Ghazal Read 2008). Researchers also found that Muslim Arab Americans reported higher levels of discrimination and were more likely to believe that negative public attitudes target them more than Christian Arabs (Hashem and Awad 2021). Participants in this study all reported experiencing discrimination personally or knew someone who experienced discrimination because they were Muslim and Arab. These experiences of discrimination ranged from individual discrimination, such as prejudicial speech or workplace discrimination, to institutional and cultural discrimination, such as law enforcement profiling or negative portrayal in the media. These experiences of discrimination provoked responses consistent with reactive transnationalism. Muslim Arab Americans’ reactive transnationalism appears as reactive religiosity because Muslim Arab Americans increased their affiliation with their mosques. However, as I previously argued, mosques for Muslim Arab American participants are transnational social fields in which transnational social and human capital flow. Thus, Muslim Arab Americans utilized their mosques as part of their reactive transnationalism in two ways. First, Muslim Arab Americans increased their mosque attendance to connect with other Muslim Arab Americans who also experienced discrimination. Second, Muslim Arab Americans increased their mosque attendance to educate themselves about their parental homelands to become better advocates for and examples of Muslim Arab Americans. Overall, Muslim Arab Americans increased their participation in their mosque after experiencing discrimination to connect with other Muslim Arab Americans and to educate themselves, not necessarily to become more devout Muslims.

After discussing their experiences of discrimination, participants were asked how discrimination affected their connections with their parental homeland. Amena, a 38-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman, was fortunate enough not to have directly experienced instances of individual discrimination but shared that she was aware of the discourse of hate and prejudice against Muslim Arab Americans in the U.S., especially after 9/11 and during Trump’s election and presidency. During Trump’s presidency and his discriminatory policies, such as the Muslim travel ban, Amena shared:

I’m more [connected to Palestine] now [after Trump’s election]; I’m more in my conviction of making sure people know that I am a Palestinian Muslim American, to show that we’re good people!

After discrimination, I feel like you want to be around people like you, you know? You want to be with other Muslims, other Palestinians, Palestinians who are Muslim. This is why Saed [her husband] takes the boys to the mosque for Friday, for Salat al Jumma [Friday prayer at the mosque].

(Amena, Palestinian, 38)

In reaction to public hostility toward Muslim Arab Americans during Trump’s campaign and presidency, Amena manifested reactive transnational behavior by publicizing her transnational identity to advocate and portray a better image of Muslim Palestinian Americans. Amena also reported a desire to increase her and her family’s participation in the mosque to connect with other Muslim Arab Americans who could relate to their experiences. Amena also discussed at different points throughout her interview that she increased her activity on social media to show solidarity with Palestine when Trump’s administration passed policies that undermined the legitimacy of the Palestinian State, for example when the Trump administration moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which the Trump administration referred to as the capital as the Israeli State, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of Israeli’s declaration of independence. Amena also mentioned that she increased her fundraising efforts at her local mosque to raise awareness and support Palestine.

Amena’s story illustrates the two layers in which reactive transnationalism can occur. Reactive transnationalism can occur publicly and personally. Reactive transnationalism displayed publicly can be seen in Amena’s desire to find ways to be more visible on social media and in her community in order to present a better image of Muslim Palestinians. At a personal level, Amena’s reactive transnationalism can be seen in her and her husband’s commitment to increase their involvement in their mosques as a family by attending Friday prayer and surrounding themselves with Muslim Arabs.

Amena was not the only participant who talked about reactive transnationalism at a personal level. Abraheem’s reactive transnationalism also took place at a personal level after discrimination. Abraheem discussed being a victim of police profiling:

I had a situation one time where I had Allah [Translation: God, a sticker written in Arabic letters] written on the back of my car. (…). And at the time, I had a big truck, and it was a nice ride (…). And I just had a little Allah sitting back there. He [the police officer] pulled me over and was telling me that I was speeding. (…). He had all these issues about; he’s like, ‘you know why you are here, whose car is this?’ I go, ‘It’s my car’. And I tried to tell him, you know, I’ve got the title to it. But he gave me such a big problem, and I said, ‘well, you pulled me over for speeding; why are you giving me this issue, you know? I have no record, I have nothing, and nobody here has a record under their name [referring to passengers in the car). Why are you trying to?’ He wanted to go through my car, they wanted to do all this. So that little traffic stop took nearly an hour and a half because they had to bring the dogs out, made me look bad. When they walked up to the door, it wasn’t because I was speeding. And I didn’t feel I was speeding. In that big truck, half the time, I couldn’t speed. It wasn’t that.

(Abraheem, Palestinian, 32)

When Abraheem went to pay for his ticket, he reencountered the same police officer. He was able to verify that the police officer previously served in Afghanistan, which informed Abraheem that he was familiar with Arabic. Abraheem also shared that he removed the Allah sticker and a few Palestinian pendants he hung on the rearview mirror of his car after the negative encounter. Abraheem hiding parental homeland symbols to shield himself from discrimination is the opposite of reactive transnationalism. Privately, however, Abraheem manifested reactive transnationalism. When I asked Abraheem, “how did discrimination affect your connection to Palestine,” Abraheem responded:

More, more, 100% more [connected]. I would say like I’m not trying, I don’t know how to say, I want my kids to know even though we try to hide it [being Palestinian Muslims] from people, that no matter what, we’re still Muslim, we’re still Palestinian, and I still want to be, I want my kids to be, you know to be raised in that [Palestinian] household. That’s why we make sure we stay active in our mosque, so they know and get to know Palestinian Muslims.

(Abraheem, Palestinian, 32)

Abraheem’s account illustrates that while he chose to hide his racial and ethnic identities in the public domain, he manifested strong reactive transnationalism at a personal level as part of his transnationalism project. Like Amena, Abraheem’s reactive transnationalism can be seen in his increased desire for his family’s attendance at the mosque. For Abraheem, the mosque is an important social field that he believed would help root his children transnationally by facilitating the flow of transnational social capital.

Others increased their attendance at the mosque after experiences of discrimination because they found that the social network at the mosques was an important educational resource. For example, Sarah discussed that after she experienced discrimination, she attended the mosque more often:

I can understand more. I want to understand more. I want to know more about 1948, the whole Nakbeh [1948 Palestinian War]. I want to learn more about it now. I feel so uneducated about it! I feel like I can’t even explain things to people because I’m not educated enough, and I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t feel that I’m educated enough on that topic. So now I ask my Palestinian friends from the masjid [mosque] what they know to help me understand. To educate me. They help me understand so I can explain it later.

For Sarah, the network of Palestinian Arab Americans within her mosque educated her on Palestine’s history to later educate others. In Sarah’s example, we see how the social network of Muslim Palestinian Americans (social capital) is important for the flow of country-specific information. This form of social capital is an important resource after experiencing discrimination because it helps educate the second generation on their parental homeland’s culture and history to educate and respond to future negative encounters. The usefulness of mosques for Muslim Arab Americans in my study is consistent with Elif Hall and Nurdan Sevim’s findings among Muslim Turks in Cologne, Germany (2020). Hall and Sevim also found that mosques are useful transnational social fields that help transmigrants maintain and even strengthen their homeland connections after negative experiences of discrimination by serving as places for “religious, educational, cultural, spiritual, consumption and counseling services” (Hall and Sevim 2020, p. 151).

In sum, for Arab Americans, mosques and their networks are important venues for resources after experiences of discrimination. Experiences of discrimination unintentionally produced reactive transnationalism, which in turn reinforced transnational identities and connections among Muslim Arab Americans in this study. Their reactive transnationalism manifested publicly and personally by increasing their participation in the transnational social fields of their mosques. Muslim Arab Americans increased their participation in mosques for two reasons. First, they believed mosques were places where they could draw on the support of other Arab Americans who experienced discrimination. Second, they believed the social network within the mosque would provide important historical and cultural knowledge about their parental homeland. They would later use this knowledge to advocate and educate others when they encountered discrimination again.

5. Conclusions and Discussion

Arab immigrants and their descendants, like other “contemporary migrants, extend and deepen their cross-border connections by transnationalizing everyday religious practices” (Levitt 2004, p. 2) within the transnational social fields and subfields of their American mosques. As such, religious organizations become social fields that “transcend the territorial and political boundaries” to forge “region-flexible sites for the expression of loyalties and a substantive global network of social and economic support” as well as places in which transmigrants organize transnational ways of belonging to connect members to a specific (parental) homeland or region (Hanoosh 2016, pp. 193–94). These same transnational ways of belonging are used to signal and enforce transnational identities. In the case of second-generation Muslim Arab Americans, the religious organizations they attend forged nationally- and regionally-specific loyalties and connections and are important for the social and human capital building.

This study is especially important for several reasons. First, this study contributes specifically to the second-generation transnationalism literature. Second, this study contributes to our understanding of transnational ties to an understudied region, religion, and population. Most of the transnational research in the United States has focused on economic transnationalism between the U.S. and Mexico, Asia, and the Caribbean, with very few studies that looked at transnationalism between the U.S. and the Middle East. Third, this study contributes to the slim literature on reactive transnationalism and highlights the connection between experiences of discrimination and reactive transnationalism among Arab Americans. Fourth, this study improves our understanding of how events and practices in religious transnational social fields and subfields strengthen the second-generation’s transnational connections and parental homeland ties, especially after experiences of discrimination.

Overall, this study finds that mosques strengthen transnational projects and identities among Muslim Arab Americans. This is because mosques and Sunday schools represent social closures where second-generation Arab American Muslims learned the difference between themselves and other Arabs and enhanced their understanding of religious and cultural norms. As such, this study documents that mosques are important transnational social fields that represent social closures that facilitate the flow of information (language, culture, and norms) and build social capital (social network of Arab transmigrants), which in turn strengthens transnational connections and identities. Moreover, Muslim Arab Americans in this study reported experiences of discrimination at various levels, which led to reactive transnationalism. Participants’ experiences of discrimination provoked “reactive transnationalism” through their increased participation in mosques. Muslims’ reactive transnationalism took place in their mosques for two reasons. First, mosques are places Muslim Arabs draw on the support of other Arab Americans who have experienced discrimination. Second, the social networks of Muslim Arabs provide important historical and cultural knowledge about their parental homeland. Muslim Arab Americans can later use this knowledge to advocate and educate others when they encounter discrimination.

One possible limitation of the current study is its inability to connect the magnitude of transnationalism to participants’ level of involvement in religious organizations. Therefore, the current data impede our ability to argue that the more or less involved a participant is in their religious organization, the stronger or weaker their transnational connections to their parental homeland or transnational identities is. In addition, participants in this study are from Northeast Ohio. This limits my ability to generalize my findings to other second-generation Arab Americans in other states or cities or rural areas. Arab Americans can have different experiences in areas where Arab American communities are smaller or more dispersed, like rural areas or states with smaller Arab populations. Future research should compare second-generation Arab Americans’ transnational engagement and activities in other states to explore the regional variations therein.