The novel The Reluctat Fundamentalist is writen by Mohsin Hamid, which is a Pakistani. The novel is about a Parkistani man telling his story in America to an American. When we are reading the novel, we need to know the history of Parkistani in America and especially what they experienced after 9/11.
In 1947, Pakistan is independent and seperated from British India. But actually there were already Muslim immigrants from the region that of the Parkistan now and India. They used to work in agriculture, logging, and mining in the United States. After that, there are some groups of people came to America in different time and did different work such as building the Western Pacific railway in California. After they earned some money, some of these people came back home, but some stayed in the USA. After 1970, the number of Pakistanis came to the United States sharply increased, and they are usually well-educated. These families still retained many traditional culture customs now. And Just like many Indian American families, though there are some differences of people in the Pakistani American community, Pakistani American families are usually conenected tightly. For the early immigrants, usually just men are educated, which means that they get the only income of their families. But now most Pakstani American families would provide equal education chances and are encouraged to study.
Most of the Pakistani came to America for their American dream, and them followed the mantra that “work hard you will prosper,” and they did earned what they supposed to get. American dream for these Pakistani is to get a stable job, just like James Adams said. “That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” But this is something Pakistani can think about before 9/11. After 9/11, American dream is no longer close to Pakistani Americans. The American dream now gets iced by “democratic capitalism.”
After 9/11, the life for Pakistani in America changed. Because of their names, appearances, and resumes, they are treated unequally and had a lower status. Many Pakistanis were put in the prison because of just minor offences, and some of them got deported. Just like the article said, “Flown back to Pakistan dressed in orange jump suits that prisoners wear with their hands shackled was a humiliating sight for them and their families who came to the airport to get them.” Many Pakistani in America lost their friends, and they were called terrorists. After 9/11, hate crimes to Muslims in the USA dramatically increased. At that time, Pakistani in the United States had a hard time and lost a lot, and many people chose to came back to Pakistan.
Today, many Pakistani Americans still can feel the negative impacts of 9/11, and face many discriminations.
Sources:
“Parkistani Americans”, Countrie and there cultures, https://www.everyculture.com/multi/Le-Pa/Pakistani-Americans.html
“View from US: The desi dream”, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/734429/view-from-us-the-desi-dream
“‘Under the prism’: Muslim Americans reflect on life post-9/11”, ALJAZEERA, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/9/under-the-prism-muslim-americans-reflect-on-life-post-9
I really enjoyed reading your context presentation. I feel this background information concerning Parkstani is very interesting to read before reading the novel this week. This extra background information provides great detail and background knowledge for the story. Great Post!
Your presentation was very informative. It was interesting to learn about some of the history of Pakistan and how Pakistanis assimilate in America. It is also sad to see how stereotyping and prejudice negatively impacted Pakistani Americans.
I found your post very helpful! Thanks for giving more information about Pakistan and the history of immigrants from Pakistan in the US. This is very helpful in examining the novel and our prior views regarding the history of Pakistan.
Great post! You did a very thorough job capturing the history of Parkstani while also incorporating how it has effected the present. I think it helped to really support the relevancy of the story. The end of your presentation made me feel a lot of sympathy for Muslims at this time.
This was a great summarization. I think that it is important to understand how the initial attitudes toward Pakistanis living in America changed post 9/11, because that really informs the reader as to why our main character feels how he does. This is great background information that I will keep in mind while reading this week.
Great job with this context presentation. I feel more prepared for this week, and it shows that you did a lot of research regarding the history of Parkstani in America. Nice work!
Nice job. I found it interesting how one event on one day had so much impact for so many people. It makes me wonder whether the effects on Pakistani Americans can ever be undone, and if so, how we as a society would go about fixing it.
This is a very interesting post. I think it is extremely important to know what exactly happened in America after 9/11 to these Pakistani immigrants. This scenario is extremely relevant to the novel and provides a lot of context for why the characters act the way they do. It is sad to hear that so much discrimination came from the event.
It’s a really nice post. This provides lots of the information and will enable me to learn better through this week. The ending sentence ‘Today, many Pakistani Americans still can feel the negative impacts of 9/11, and face many discriminations’ also makes me feel a sense of unfair for the Pakistani Americans.
Great context. it truly is a matter of pre 9/11 and post 9/11. this day changed Americans tremendously and how they treated other Americans, everyone came together and put everything aside to become one nation again, that is unless you seemed to dress or have skin tone of a certain ethnicity. I can remember this racism all over the news and how discriminations nearly made people stop living there lives going out in fear of being insulted by another American.
Great Presentation. I was blissfully unaware of the full scope of 9/11, especially for minorities. People always talk about the overall repercussions of the event, like increased security for flights. Things that get overlooked, however, are issues of race. Many Pakistani were judged and marginalized because people began to see them as the enemy.
Great job on your presentation! I think this provides a lot of useful information about the history of Americas international affairs which is vital in understanding some of the lessons the past few weeks! This has a lot of connections to events such as 9/11 which left America still devastated to this day.
Thanks for this presentation, you did a nice job. I never really knew anything about Pakistani life in America. I would assume that it became worse after 9/11 due to Americans mistrust in Pakistan after the event. But, it makes me sad that innocent Pakistanis still experience hostile attitude twenty years later in the United States. I’m glad you’ve brought this issue to our attention.
You did a really good job on this context presentation. Bringing awareness to these horrible examples of racism is the first step in combating it. This is an after-effect of 9/11 that isn’t talked about nearly enough.
This is a great presentation on such a bad situation in America. I don’t know much about Pakistanis in America but I’m glad I know more information now. The sad fact is that this still happens today as if nothing has changed here. IM glad you were able to present this and shed some light on the situation for us.
Thought your presentation was enjoyable! It was interesting to see the change of the Pakistani name after 911. Being born after 911 I never thought of before 911 how they may have been treated differently. This was really helpful for the week!
This is a great presentation with such a bad situation going on. I was not well versed with the Pakistanis in America but I feel much more knowledgeable after reading this! I do still believe that the problems should truly not be problems anymore.
Your context presentation was very insightful. Seeing specific quotes on how Pakistani Americans felt after 9/11 was especially disheartening. It baffles me to see how easily people can generalize.
This presentation is great! I learned many things from your post regarding Pakistani life in America. After 9/11 things have gotten worse when it comes to their treatment. Hopefully this situation gets better soon.
This is a good post. You introduced me to the background and history of many Pakistanis, which let me better understand this week’s reading. As a result of 9/11, many innocent Pakistanis were treated unfairly. Especially when I know that their own life circumstances are not so good, this kind of behavior destroys their American dream. It’s really sad. Thank you for giving us the information.
I really appreciate your post, it brought to light a context I had not known about before. I feel like throughout all of my schooling I’ve never learned much about how Pakistan conducts itself as a country nor the history of its nation. Moreover, I see an example of “othering” when you mention how 9/11 impacted Pakistani Americans. They were outcasted because of how they were treated post-9/11.
Thank you for the informational presentation. I was not aware of the Pakastani lifestyle in America. 9/11 is a very patriotic memory, often forgetting about minorities or other people that were affected by it. It is crazy that they are still feeling the effects regarding how people treat them today.
Thank you so much for sharing about the history of Pakistan, the immigration trend, and the effect of 9/11 on the population. As a developing country, many Pakistans have American dreams like any other developing countries. It’s human nature to want to live a better life. However, the loyalty conflicts between home country and the country they immigrated to is always a problem to all immigrants. 9/11 made their life even harder due to increased racism and unfair treatment
This is a quite nice presentation and after reading last week’s presentation, I am able to learn more about the history of Pakistan and India. The injustice on immigrants and the split of India really cause a terrible issue among the people in India and Parkistan. You are good at introducing the history of Parkistan and keep going.
Thanks for sharing this presentation with us. I can see now more about Pakistan history, how they have been treated before 9/11 and after 9/11. It is very sad that history changed that much after this accident.
I really enjoyed your context presentation! It is very important that we learn about Pakistan in America even more after 9/11 occurred. It is a very sad event but learning about the history may be able to help us understand more than we have before. Great post!
Hi! I enjoy your context presentation. I think because of my born year, I never fully understand what is the immigrant history of Pakistan and their American dreams. A lot of single stories I heard was post 911 and I think this post gives me a refresh mind and thoughts to get to know the history of American Pakistan people.
Thank you for sharing the post. I learned a lot about Pakistan’s life in the United States from your post. After 9/11, many innocent Pakistanis were treated unfairly, and I am really sad about that. This is a sad experience for them.
Last week I was glad to gain knowledge on the history of India and this week, you have enlightened me on Pakistani. It is so sad to learn on the effects that immigrants from Pakistan and Indian countries face in America as a result of 9/11 attacks.