This website was inspired by author of A History of Islam in America, Kambiz Ghaneabassiri, who wrote about Muslim immigrants from all walks of life. This was also a personal topic to the creators of the website, since two are immigrants themselves, and two are daughters of immigrants.
Each member has grown to call the Bay Area their home, yet they are dissatisfied with the low and at many times, misguided representation of Muslims (Islamophobia Watch). The members wanted to create a reliable website which gave real accounts of Muslim immigrants who came to the Bay Area, with the hopes of becoming part of its historical legacy of diversity and opportunity.
Our primary method of research was ethnographic interviews. We personally found that there hasn't been much done research on Bay Area Muslims, except an ongoing study being done by professor, Dr. Hatem Bazian, at U.C. Berkeley and assistant professor, Dr. Farid Senzai, at U.C. Santa Clara.
Each member has grown to call the Bay Area their home, yet they are dissatisfied with the low and at many times, misguided representation of Muslims (Islamophobia Watch). The members wanted to create a reliable website which gave real accounts of Muslim immigrants who came to the Bay Area, with the hopes of becoming part of its historical legacy of diversity and opportunity.
Our primary method of research was ethnographic interviews. We personally found that there hasn't been much done research on Bay Area Muslims, except an ongoing study being done by professor, Dr. Hatem Bazian, at U.C. Berkeley and assistant professor, Dr. Farid Senzai, at U.C. Santa Clara.
Mission Statement
Our website hopes to shine some light on Muslims who came to the Bay Area, their motivation, their opinions on certain issues that Muslims are facing (e.g. accommodation), as well their own personal idea of how to keep the Muslim community more diverse . By doing so, we hope to show the symbolic colors of these individuals and what makes each one distinct thus significant in our Bay Area communities.
Nehayah Alnajar |
Nehayah Alnajar is a junior student at U.C. Berkeley with a major in Near Eastern Studies--Emphasis on Languages and Literatures. She was born in the city of Berkeley and raised in Richmond where she attended k-12 as well as the community college for two years. She was the president of the Muslim Student Association at her community college before transferring to U.C. Berkeley. She currently volunteers at her local mosque and teaches young girls the Qur'an as well as basic Arabic. Being of Yemeni heritage, Nehayah hopes to help her Arab, primarily her Yemeni community in order to have a better representation and understanding of those people. |