In Their Own Words: Islam and America

This person gave perhaps the best interview I have taken so far. He is an Uzbek from the southern city of Osh. He is now a university student at AUCA. He studied for a year in America. The following is about his experience in California—especially his experience regarding people’s attitudes towards Islam.

In the beginning I was in the southern part of California, because my classes were supposed to start September 27 but we got there on August 14^th. I spent a week in Washington, then we went to southern California. It was really hard for me there—culture shock, first time in America. That’s understandable. Well, I was interested in going to a mosque, but my host wouldn’t let me go. As you know, there’s a problem with transportation in America. Especially in California [you need a car to get anywhere]. I didn’t even know that I could…the town I was in isn’t a big town, but because of the lack of transportation, I had a problem. My host parents refused to take me to a mosque. I asked if I could just go once, just to see the architecture, see American Muslims. They said September 11^th was coming up and they didn’t want there to be any conflicts. They said maybe they’d take me later. I was in shock. I said, “This is America—that land of the free. Why would there be a conflict if you take me there? It seems that’s actually a good thing. You’re showing me how Muslims in America live.” They categorically refused. I said, “Welcome to America.”

I thought I wouldn’t be able to go to a mosque for the whole year. I was really disappointed. But then I went to the North. East Bay is in the bay area. I fell in love with it. That place isn’t similar to any other place in America. I told a lot of Americans about that region and they said I was lucky that I lived there, not because there are a lot of Muslims, but because the people there are different. If you compare north and south California, the north has more Democrats. The south has more Republicans. They think differently about a lot of things. In the north, it was still hard for me for about a month after I arrived. There were classes, a new location, the credit system. Some time in October, during the month of Ramadan, I started to keep the fast. I didn’t know that the university had a Muslim Student Association. It turns out there’s one in every university. I didn’t know, I just fasted. I didn’t know anyone else who was. We have a tradition that when you break your fast, you do that with your friends. They [the other Muslim students] did that on campus in the student union building. There was only about a week of Ramadan left when I happened to meet some guys that were also fasting and one of them was the president of MSA. They told me to come to the union building. I came and there were a lot of Muslims there. I hadn’t known.

After that my life started to get totally better. My life was perfect from October to June. I went to a lot of mosques. When I had been in southern California, I thought that after 9/11 there was now a lot of discrimination against Muslims, like after Pearl Harbor with the Japanese in California. I thought it was the same thing with Muslims, not at the same level, but that there was some indirect discrimination going on. When I came to the north I really saw that any religion is welcomed. You have freedom of choice. Life in America changed me, in that I became more aware, and in relation to my religion…the Islam I found in America was more real than the Islam here in Kyrgyzstan.