Myree Mustafa is an Afro-Latina Muslim woman from Compton, California who converted to Islam when she was twenty years old. She embodies the intersection of what it means to be Muslim, Afro-Latina, and a woman in the United States in a time when there is rare positive media representation of Muslims like Myree in popular culture. Myree is an Afro-Latina Muslim woman who publicly celebrates who she is and rejects all of the discrimination surrounding each aspect of her identity.

    In a autobiographical video, Myree describes how, as a convert, the media has affected her relationships and the negative responses from her loved ones regarding her choice in faith.  Her family criticized her decision to convert, citing negative media portrayals of Islam as a primitive and violent religion.

    Coming from a Afro-Latinx upbringing, Myree notes how her community values a particular kind of physical appearance and views covering oneself up as submissive. However, Myree is incredibly proud of her choice of appearance and celebrates it. She also doesn’t see it as rejecting her Latinx culture; she is instead joining these cultures into one that she is proud of. Often, the plight of Muslim women is dramatized to advance colonial projects and American insertion into Muslim affairs. When the United States can paint Muslims as vicious oppressors of women, they can generate public support and justify actions taken against Muslims. To propagate this message, the media often portrays Muslim women as oppressed by Islam rather than active practitioners of their religion. Myree makes it clear that it was and is her decision to practice her religion as she does.

    There is pressure in a white supremacist American society to assimilate into the dominant culture. In refusing to simply pick one identity and embracing all of hers, Myree rejects this. As a mother of two boys, she shows in her video how she is raising them to also be in touch with all aspects of their identity, speaking to them in both English and Spanish and educating them on their family history. While she is aware of the discrimination and dangers she and her boys must endure, she faces these head on -  never losing her pride, and hoping for a better, inclusive future.

 

Sources:

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Neither oppressed nor trailblazing, Muslim women need to be heard

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Revolutionary Mujer - mitú

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(Muslim) Women’s Bodies, Islamophobia, and American Politics

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Forced Assimilation is White-Washing and I Won’t Be Complicit

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