Growing up in post 9/11 America, Muslim youth leaders have recalled how Islamophobic climate and political response have shaped their future, forcing many to reconcile a multiplicity of identities on a daily basis.

“I have memories of being awoken by frantic calls from my dad, worried that I would go outside wearing the hijab and be attacked,” Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and civil rights lawyer, told the Guardian on Tuesday, September 29.

The 31-year-old was sharing her memories of 9/11 attacks when her father used to warn her of being targeted for donning hijab.

Witnessing a brewing Islamophobia in the country, Billoo chose to be a civil rights lawyer, after finding out that the training and ability to be outspoken on issues have been worsening in the last decade and a half.

Being the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of CAIR, Billoo tackles issues like employment discrimination and racial profiling cases.

“The FBI routinely visits Muslim families in their homes and questions them without grounds,” she said.

“Our responsibility is that ordinary Americans know what their rights are, and know what they should and shouldn’t do when these visits occur.”

Away from stigmatizing the American Muslim community, other sectors of the religious minority feel “underrepresented” by the main stream that overlooks them.

“We are contributors to Detroit’s survival. We have a long history here,” Mark Crain, 27, strategist and Dream of Detroit volunteer, said.

“Here in particular, Muslims are a known entity. The Nation of Islam [founded in Detroit] did a lot to establish respect in the black community.”

Despite constituting a third of America’s Muslim population overall, Black American Muslims’ contributions are ignored, he added.

“You can’t make us be foreign,” Crain said.

Turning Point

For many Muslim youth, the aftermath of 9/11 was a defining turning point that shaped their future.

According to Fahd Ahmed, the executive director of DRUM, a South-Asian organizing center based outside Queens, New York, the attacks have victimized the American Arab and Asian communities.

“Community members were calling to say their husbands had left for work and had never come back,” Ahmed said.

“Families were reporting men being taken from their homes and no one knew where they went. Workers were saying they were seeing friends being picked up off the street.”

More than 1,200 men of Arab and South Asian origin across New York and New Jersey were picked up by security after 9/11 attacks.

“The men were literally disappeared,” Ahmed says.

Ahmed blamed the reaction to the attacks for radically changing the way Muslim communities are perceived in America.

“What we are seeing is an increasingly racialized Muslim identity,” Ahmed said.

“With every day assaults in the way in which media and presidential candidates can talk about Muslims without any consequence.”

“But the history of racism and bigotry is long in the US,” he continues, “and in that way, we are really only joining other communities in that history.”

Since the 9/11 attacks, US Muslims, estimated between 6-8 million, have complained of discrimination and stereotyping  in their communities due to their Islamic attire or identities.

Additionally, a Pew Research Center study, Public Remains Conflicted Over Islam, has revealed that the majority of Americans know very little about Muslims and their faith.

A Gallup poll also found that the majority of US Muslims are patriotic and loyal to their country and are optimistic about their future.

Another Economist/YouGov poll found that a 73 percent of Americans believe that US Muslims are victims of discrimination amid recent attacks against the community.