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i latino and muslim in america ii RELIGION IN TRANSLATION Series Editor John Nemec, University of Virginia A Publication Series of The American Academy of Religion and Oxford University Press Sacred and Profane Beauty The Prison Narratives of Jeanne Guyon The Holy in Art Ronney Mourad and Dianne Guenin- Lelle Garardus van der Leeuw Preface by Mircea Eliade Disorienting Dharma Translated by David E. Green Ethics and the Aesthetics of Suffering in the With a new introduction and bibliography Mahābhārata by Diane Apostolos- Cappadona Emily T. Hudson The History of the Buddha’s Relic Shrine The Transmission of Sin A Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavamsa Augustine and the Pre- Augustinian Sources Stephen C. Berkwitz Pier Franco Beatrice Translated by Adam Kamesar Damascius’ Problems & Solutions Concerning First Principles From Mother to Son Translated with Introduction and Notes by The Selected letter of Marie de l’Incarnation Sara Ahbel- Rappe to Claude Martin Translated and with Introduction and Notes The Secret Garland by Mary Dunn Āṇṭāḷ’s Tiruppāvai and Nācciyār Tirumoḻi Translated with Introduction and Drinking from Love’s Cup Commentary by Archana Venkatesan Surrender and Sacrifice in the āV rs of Bhai Gurdas Prelude to the Modernist Crisis Selections and Translations with The “Firmin” Articles of Alfred Loisy Introduction and Commentary by Edited, with an Introduction by Rahuldeep Singh Gill C. J. T. Talar Translated by Christine Thirlway The America’s First Theologies Early Sources of Post- Contact Indigenous Debating the Dasam Granth Religion Robin Rinehart Edited and translated by Garry Sparks, with Sergio Romero and Frauke Sachse The Fading Light of Advaita crya Three Hagiographies Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors Rebecca J. Manring An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth- Century Veitnam The Ubiquitous iva Anh Q. Tran Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi and His Tantric Interlocutors Latino and Muslim in America John Nemec Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minority Place and Dialectic by Harold D. Morales Two Essays by Nishida Kitarō Translated by John W.M. Krummel and Shigenori Nagatomo iii latino and muslim in america Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minority harold d. morales 1 iv 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Morales, Harold D., 1981– author. Title: Latino and Muslim in America : race, religion, and the making of a new minority / By Harold D. Morales. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017042782 (print) | LCCN 2017043638 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190852610 (updf) | ISBN 9780190852627 (epub) | ISBN 9780190852603 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780190852634 (online content) Subjects: LCSH: Muslims—United States. | Hispanic Americans—Religion. | Muslim converts—United States. | Alianza Islámica. Classification: LCC BP67.A1 (ebook) | LCC BP67.A1 M67 2018 (print) | DDC 305.6/9708968—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042782 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America v contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The Experience and Mediation of Race- Religion 1 1. The First Wave: From Islam in Spain to the Alianza in New York 16 2. The Second Wave: Spanish Dawah for Women, Online, and in Los Angeles 44 3. Reversion Stories: The Form, Content, and Dissemination of a Logic of Return 75 4. 105 The 9/ 11 Factor: Latino Muslims in the News 5. Radicals: Latino Muslim Hip- Hop and the “Clash of Civilizations” Thing 134 6. The Third Wave: Consolidations, Reconfigurations, and the 2016 News Cycle 165 Conclusion: Latino Muslim Identity and Solidarity 199 Notes 213 References 239 Index 257 v vi vii acknowledgments On January 25, 2009, I drove to the Los Angeles Latino Muslim Association for the first time. I was a graduate student seeking in part to better understand the Latino religious communities I had grown up within. My parents were born and raised in Guatemala, la tierra de la eterna primavera. They followed my grandfather to the United States, who, after founding many churches there in the land of eternal spring, accepted an invitation to start a Spanish-speaking religious community in Los Angeles. I was born in L.A., raised bilingual, and the majority of my Spanish and my Latinidad (Latino or Latinx ways of being) were performed at home and in church. By the time I began my graduate education in religious studies at the University of California, Riverside, my own bilingual, religious, and multicultural experiences had become an inseparable aspect of my academic projects. As part of my graduate training, I was assigned a project requiring ethnographic fieldwork. My professors and mentors encouraged me to visit the Latino Muslim community in Los Angeles regularly and to develop meaningful relationships. When I first visited the group, they were meeting at the Omar ibn al Kittab mosque, a white building with a large green dome nestled between the University of Southern California and Exposition Park. Nearby were the various museums and the Colosseum that I visited regularly as a child. There were many other elements during those early trips that seemed very familiar to me like the use of Spanish, the close reading of sacred texts, the promi- nence of matriarchal leaders, and the warm pan dulce before and Pollo Loco after. There were also elements that were not so familiar like the use of Arabic, the tonal quality of communal recitation, the smell of vii viii acknowledgments rugs while prostrating, and the gendered segregation during prayer. As a Latino born to immigrants from Guatemala, I felt welcomed into the community. As a non-Muslim researcher, however, I experienced a distance that I hoped to bridge. To help me navigate a sort of experi- ential vertigo between the familiar and unfamiliar during these times, I could not have asked for a more adept, caring and critical guide than Marta and the LALMA community. They welcomed me and my fam- ily into their sacred spaces and community events, opened themselves up to us as we did to them, and exchanged stories about each other’s experiences. To Marta and LALMA, Juan and LADO and so many others from various Latino Muslim communities across the United States who entrusted me with their stories for this monograph, I am indebted and grateful. To Vero, Jakob, and Max who often joined me and even more often listened to me enthusiastically talk about the work, I owe more than I can ever describe or repay. I also owe a special debt to Jennifer Hughes who helped me engage religious communities as partners and guides and who poured her own time and energy into carefully and criti- cally engaging the work. Her close and careful research, depth of under- standing, and captivating writing continues to be a principle source of inspiration for my own. I am also indebted to several other scholarly mentors who helped encourage, shape, and refine the work, including Jonathan Walton, Muhamad Ali, Gaston Espinosa, June O’Conner, Reza Aslan, Ryan Falcioni, Jeanette Reedy Solano, and Christina Schwenkel. I am grateful for input from Hisham Aidi, Patrick Bowen, Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Julian Hammer, Rosemary Hicks, Terry Smith, Charles Townsend, Leo White, Homayra Ziad, Michael Monahan, and many others. Thank you to Brandon Berrios and Luis Soria for the cover art. I am also grateful for generous research grants from the department of religious studies at University of California, Riverside, the American Academy of Religion, and the department of philosophy and religious studies at Morgan State University. Finally, to my parents, Esther y Rene Morales, por dedicar sus vidas a las de nosotros, gracias. H.D.M. viii ix latino and muslim in america x 1 introduction THE EXPERIENCE AND MEDIATION OF RACE- RELIGION After almost two years of learning about Islam, brother Ismail had finally decided to take hisshahadah , the Islamic proclamation of faith that would initiate him into the Muslim community. Mariela, who had only been introduced to the teachings and practices of Islam three months prior, had also decided to make the proclamation that there is no god but God. Ismail had migrated from Guatemala, was now in his late forties, and had adult children living on the other side of the coun- try. Mariela had been born in the United States to immigrant parents; she was in her early twenties and was single with no children. Ismail spoke only a few words in English; Mariela was fluent in both English and Spanish. Ismail relied almost entirely on face- to- face conversa- tions and printed writings to learn about Islam. Mariela would do the same but would also look up information from websites and ask ques- tions on blogs and social media. The two were joining a community of Muslims that, like them, had diverse backgrounds and experiences and who nevertheless all identified as both Latino and Muslim, or rather, as Latino Muslims.

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