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The professor is a really smart woman, 1st generation American (her parents are Indian migrants (dot, not feather)). She is Hindi, but has studied migration patterns of South Asia, primarily Muslims, and this is the first time the class has been offered.
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It is a small group of really diverse people (2 Cultural Anthropologists, 2 Non-Profit Workers, 2 UN workers, 2 retired people, 3 people leaving (or pushed) from the financial sector) - and full of talkers. Which is great and what the Professor wants, and interactive discussion.
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We talked about a lot of things, but one thing I thought was interesting was that the civil rights history in America gives immigrants a legal framework for non-discrimination that is not found in other western countries.
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One other thing, in the 60's - 90's, most migrant communities self-identified as "Lebanese" or "Turkish" or "Arab", not as Muslim. How did this change? How much was "typical" 2nd generation re-discovery and how much was imposed on these communities after 9/11?
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One other useless fact. Did you know the majority of Middle-East migrants to America are NOT Muslim. The biggest majority are Christian (from Lebanon and other places).
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It was an interesting class.
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Sorry I continue to blah blah for a moment....
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We also talked about remittances. Not just monetary, but how culture was also a part of this. After the Oil Boom (we see it as the Oil Crisis :-), lots of Syrians, Lebanese, etc. went to work in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Apparently, before this much of the Eastern Mediterranean (like Lebanon and Damascus) were pretty Western in their attitudes, dress and entertainment. But the people that went to work in the Gulf and SA came back much more conservatively religious because they had spent so much time in that environment.
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It was a great class.