We are so excited to share our conversation with local AMM shero, Bahia Amawi.

She shares how she suddenly found her job as a speech language pathologist with Pflugerville ISD restricted her freedom of expression and her journey fighting back.

Some say Don't Mess with Texas, we say Don't Mess with Bahia!

In this episode, we discuss what it means to be an American citizen as AMM, how we stay true to our principles, Bahia's relationship with the BDS movement, and Freedom of Expression in Texas.

In this episode, we pick up where we left off in episode 3, diving deeper into what it means to assimilate as an AMM person. Maira and Ramish speak to what assimilation means for the South Asian community by deconstructing billboards in Sugarland, TX. What does it mean to be a model minority among South Asian Americans? Set against this background of a white dominant culture that tries to seduce us with uplift, what does authentic American AMM culture look like anyway?

In this episode, we begin by explaining how those folded under the census category of white too, experience racialization. This racialization, while imposed from the outside, also takes form in how we see ourselves and aspire to whiteness. The more we mimic white norms in behavior, taste, and values, the more we feel and are seen as assimilated and acceptable. We ponder if the effects of being racialized, and internalizing that racialization are turning us (the AMM) into a new racial category.

In this episode, we begin a discussion about how the racialization of AMM folk works. Pivoting in the second part of the conversation we move away from how we are perceived by others into how we perceive ourselves. We touch on anti-Blackness among the non-Black AMM folk. And we zoom in on the “Asian” racial category South Asians identify with and begin the conversation about how some non-Black Arabs and Middle Easterners perceive themselves as white.

Who are the AMM and what are the boundaries of this Identity Bloc?

Some other issues that are touched on are: Why the moniker Muslim by itself is not enough? What might AMM cover that Muslim by itself does not? Why bring Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, etc. into the picture? Why is there a need for a new AMM identity bloc? What are some things that tie the identity bloc together? Are fuzzy identity boundaries inevitable?