Reclaiming America’s Promise

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” - Rumi

Many may be wondering if the promise of America still stands as we enter into a new phase of national leadership. There is much to say about the choices we made during this election cycle, one that has emboldened the voices of hate within our midst. However, what remains imperative is how we choose to live in, work on, build on, and keep moving forward in this new reality.

For the last 10 years, I have given my professional life to the work of building interfaith cooperation. I know that our religious theology, practice, rituals, and values may be, and are, vastly different from one another. But our commitment to shared responsibility towards our world brings us together. And together, we can create a space that establishes what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the dream of a beloved community.

My parents immigrated to America in search of that dream. They were both born and raised in India before moving to the Middle East as a young couple. My parents experienced the challenges of relocation and became accustomed to the hard work of building their life in a foreign land. But like many South-Asian expats living in the Middle East, they knew their life there was not permanent. So they built a home in their native city of Chennai where they planned to retire.

All of their romantic dreams of returning and retiring to their homeland changed in December 1992. A large crowd of Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th century mosque in northern India, followed by violent riots between Hindus and Muslims in the city of Bombay. Almost 900 people lost their lives and countless others were injured. It was the first time I heard my parents consider the possibility of finding another homeland, one where their children wouldn’t face violence because of their Muslim identity and where their religious freedom would be protected. When opportunity to migrate came, they made a decision to uproot their life and move again — to the United States.

For the second time in their adult lives, they left everything they knew and started over because they believed in America’s potential and promise. If you asked them why they chose to move here, their answer would unequivocally be, “for the safety and prosperity of our children.”

Now a mother myself, I don’t know if today’s America is safe for my Muslim children who have multiple cultural identities: part Indian, part Palestinian, part Irish, but at the same time, fully American. My fears channel those of my parents. My anxiety asks the same question they may have asked themselves before migrating to America: where do we go from here? We go forward.

The narrative sculpted in this election cycle has given volume to a particular voice: angry, exclusivist, white, unwelcoming. Even if the majority of those who “voted for change” did not intend to give legitimacy to hateful rhetoric against women, religious minorities, and people of color, their choice has done that. Just days after the election, my social media spaces are filled with incidents of hate which include: “Whites Only” graffiti on the doors of high school bathrooms; Muslim women with hijabs (head scarves) being physically and verbally attacked in public spaces; 8th graders chanting “build the wall” in the school cafeteria to alienate students from immigrant families.

But that is not the only story. Those same social media spaces are also filled with messages of solidarity: a group of supporters standing outside a mosque in Texas with signs expressing solidarity; people on social media pledging to register as Muslims should such a requirement become reality; welcoming messages chalked on the sidewalks of college campuses to create safe space for students who may be perceived as the “other.”

This next chapter in our country’s future will likely be difficult for many of us. Many of us are hurting right now. Many of us are angry. In these challenging times, not everyone can carry the heavy mantle of engagement. Those of us who can should step up to accept that responsibility. It will require us — regardless of our political persuasions — to continue to fight back hate and injustice with creative strategies. It will also require us to build strong friendships and alliances across fragile bridges.

We must take back the narrative together: Muslims, Jews, Christians, Atheists, Humanists, Hindus, Buddhists, and others. I am resolved more than ever to continue building interfaith cooperation — for the future of my children and yours. This work requires us to be vulnerable, vigilant, and brave. We will have to sit at the uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, intersection of interfaith work and racial justice, gender equity, LGBTQ rights, and other current movements.

To fully heal, we must address these issues within our own communities while also continuing to build bridges with those different than us. To do that, we must physically show up to spaces that may be unfamiliar to us — like mosques or temples — and be willing to engage. We must share a meal with people who may think differently. And despite our differences, we must work together to create change within our communities. We must bring our whole selves into our relationships, and we must tell the stories of the good we create together.

This is my commitment to our shared project that is America. Will you join me in reclaiming America’s promise?

“O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.”
– Langston Hughes