Second-Generation Yemeni American Women at the Turn of the Century: Between Individual Aspirations and Communal Commitments

Abstract

Despite fascination with Muslim, and especially Arab, women s influence and priorities in the United States, the majority of studies focused on Islam and gender have missed their voices. This study highlights the narratives of 20 Yemeni-American second-generation women who described their unique ways of belonging to two cultures. This study found that religious women who practiced hijab challenged biased gender practices within their communities by bringing to light progressive notions in Islam. Moreover, and through expanding their roles inside and outside their families, they crafted a balance between achieving as individuals and maintaining communal bonds. In doing so, they gained self-confidence and critical family support to go beyond the local community's narrow “boarders” (and low expectations for women) and pursue academic, economic and political empowerment in the mainstream. In short, in the latter part of the 20th century and early 21th century, our Yemeni respondents developed hybridized identities as a result of multiple processes: their understanding of Islam, the isolated history of Yemen, chain migration patterns to the US from Yemen, the dynamics of the Southend enclave in Detroit, MI, as well as multicultural spaces that had previously opened in the mainstream American institutions in Detroit.