February 11, 2004

Muslim Daisies Grow in Brooklyn: Girl Scout Traditions Mix with Muslim American Identity

 

By Vinnee Tong

Eight teenage girls sat, legs crossed under them, in a circle on a carpeted floor in a quiet room of the Muslim Youth Center in the south of Brooklyn. They talked about school and other things concerning teenaged girls. Almost all of them were old enough to wear a hijab, the traditional headscarf of their religion, and many did. That night, a Friday, they came for a lesson in American patriotism. For more than two hours, they listened, asked questions and read from a handout, titled, “Evolution of the Stars and Stripes.”

Led by their Girl Scout leader Stacey Salimah Bell, the girls learned how to properly handle, fly, fold and dispose of the American flag. The girls floated idle questions throughout the lesson.

“I heard it was against the law to hang a flag at night,” said one.

Another girl doubted that your average American knows the intricate rules of etiquette they were studying.

“Who understands this?” she said. “Tell me the truth, really.”

Yet another scout asked: “So, if Puerto Rico became a state, where would they put the star?”

The lesson gave the girls a chance to talk about the intersection of American values and Islam. As they discussed the pledge of allegiance, one girl said she refused to do it.

“You’re not supposed to pledge allegiance to anything by God and Allah,” she explained later.

To the group, Bell said, “It’s a personal choice you have to decide. Consider how Muslims are looked at after September 11th. We already know what people think of Muslims at this point and the negative stereotypes that are out there.”

On most Friday nights like this one, Bell can be found at the center of chaos, which is to say she is a leader of Girl Scout troop No. 2257 and its sister groups. These nights, Bell acts as a de facto den mother, as the center of craft-making and happy chatter that can be found at nearly any scout meeting in towns and cities across the nation. But, Bell’s troop is different from those. The girls in her troop are Muslim, and many are the daughters of immigrants from the Middle East now living in New York City. Because of this and her own background, Bell has the opportunity to teach the art of navigating cultural differences.

“They need to know they don’t have to wait for a knight in shining armor,” said Bell, a 40-year-old Brooklyn native who became a practicing Muslim at the age of 19. The theme of empowerment runs strong in the troop founded two years ago by Bell and others at the Muslim Youth Center in south Brooklyn.

One of the troop’s first members, 15-year-old Kora-Ann Ali, found a comfort zone in the troop. At school, she said teachers and fellow students asked less-than-knowledgeable questions about her religion. She felt defensive, she said, after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. She said she felt apologetic, even though she had done nothing wrong.

Members of the Muslim community in the U.S. have searched for a way to bridge the cultural gap that exists after their immigration from countries in the Middle East, such as Jordan, Egypt and Syria. After the attacks on the World Trade Center, that need only grew. Many families found the answer in the Girl Scouts of America. The meetings often evolve into an informal education in American culture. This appeals to parents.

“I want my daughter to be a Girl Scout,” said Marilyn Hammouda, a mother and troop leader. Hammouda’s daughter, 6-year-old Dana, has already collected a dizzying array of patches that cover her Girl Scouts sash, a piece of fabric that drapes over one shoulder. In a year’s time, Dana has earned patches for a book drive, a pizza party, community service and many other events. The Girl Scouts, thought of by some as a distinctly American organization, seems a natural fit for immigrant Muslims, many at the Youth Center say. The values of community-building, sisterhood and the system of rewards have attracted hundreds of girls to the troop Bell helps organize.

Hammouda and other leaders look to Bell for guidance in running the troop. Bell ends up also serving as the troop’s driving force in teaching empowerment. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she grew up blocks away from the Muslim Youth Center in Bensonhurst, where as a young African-American, she faced some of the same issues her girls face. She can still remember being called an Oreo as a girl.

Bell, an officer in the city’s Department of Corrections, brings her own experiences from Girl Scouting as a youngster, and maybe more importantly, as a native-born American. She talks to the girls about feminism and female empowerment. She talks about plans for a fashion show to demonstrate different ways of wearing the traditional head scarf, or hijab. And in the troop’s first year, she taught the lesson in patriotism to teach the girls about flag etiquette.

Bell said her lessons are meant to help the girls as they grow up in a culture foreign to their immigrant parents. She brings her own experiences growing up under subtle, and occasionally overt, racism.

“The girls are going to grow up -- their experience will be similar to mine,” she said. “For us, things are a lot different.”

When she asks parents why they left their home countries, they say they were looking for a better life. She said the mothers, many of whom come to the Muslim Youth Center’s other activities, have been eager to bring their daughters to the Girls Scouts.

“They didn’t want to raise their daughters in Middle Eastern countries, where women don’t get their full rights,” she said. “That’s what we’re trying to prepare these girls for, to be the next Muslim leaders in their country.”

Efforts to hasten assimilation by Muslim-Americans does not surprise one expert. Zahid Bukhari, a professor at George Washington University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said the founding of the Girl Scouts troop was consistent with national trends. He said Muslim-Americans have increasingly been eager to start programs like the Girl Scout troop to better integrate into their communities. He said that effort grew after the Sept. 11 attack, as attitudes toward Islam made life more difficult for Muslims.

“Instead of looking from the outside, they look at it from the inside,” Bukhari said. “This is their home, their country, their society.”

He said the efforts to assimilate demonstrate a “mental transition” for immigrants who want to feel that America is their cultural home.

Firdos Abdul-Munim, a native New Yorker, arrived at a meeting in October of last year with her niece, a new member. Abdul-Munim, who is also civil rights coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, praised the group as a way to bridge the cultural gap between Muslims and non-Muslims. She said the troop provided an opportunity for her niece to meet other young Muslim girls, who can share in her experience of growing up in America. Abdul-Munim said that camaraderie had become more important as being Muslim had become more difficult.

“You have the responsibility to defend 1.2 billion people in the world because you’re the only Muslim they know,” said Abdul-Munim, who added that the situation had grown more difficult after the attacks on the World Trade Center. She hoped the troop would help her niece build leadership skills and confidence.

About 50 girls came to be officially inducted as Girl Scouts at the Muslim Youth Center in early November of 2002, the official start of the troop. Leaders burned green and white candles. Girls wore official brown and green Girl Scout sashes, many already covered in patches. Still others wore light blue shirts or green vests with small Girl Scout logos.

The crowd of more than 100 girls, mothers and spectators came together in a room on the third-floor of the Muslim Youth Center, a multi-story building in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood. Located on Bath Avenue not far from the local police precinct, the youth center has become a gathering place for Muslims. Many come to the center for Arabic lessons, religious meetings and play dates. Most of them come from neighborhoods in the area. Some come from Queens and Manhattan, making it a community gathering place that reaches into the rest of New York City.

The evening ceremony started off with a flag ceremony and continued with a speech by one of the center’s leaders, who spoke first in English then a second time in Arabic, solemnly noting the official start of the Girl Scouts at their center. From the youngest to the oldest, the girls came forward. They received two patches: the official Girl Scout patch and another signifying the group’s inclusion in the Girl Scouts of Greater New York. The girls approached the front of the room in groups. First came the Daisies, most of whom stood about waist-high. Then came the Brownies, Cadets, Juniors and Seniors, many old enough to be in high school.

Mothers who bring their daughters to the weekly meetings say they hope the experience will make their girls “strong.”

Forty-year-old Jordanian immigrant Manal Kawas likes the Scouts so much she volunteers as an unofficial leader. Kawas, like many Girl Scout Moms, runs meetings to help keep the troop active. She fills in to alleviate the shortage of leaders and surplus of scouts.

Last fall, Kawas brought out her Twister game mat to amuse the girls on a Friday night in October. Dressed conservatively in a hijab and black pantsuit, Kawas made her 13-year-old daughter giggle as she slipped around in stockinged feet. Her daughter spun a needle and then called out commands such as “left foot blue,” sending her mother into yoga poses like the down dog.

Kawas speaks to the girls in accented English, and occasionally in Arabic. She used to teach science before she emigrated from Jordan more than a decade ago. At the Girl Scout meetings, she takes attendance and encourages the girls to come regularly. She brings her two daughters, both of whom were born after their mother’s immigration to Brooklyn. Keeping the troop going motivates her to help at meetings. She said, “It’s my wish.”

In one of the troop’s first activities, a dozen scouts from the Youth Center marched in New York’s Muslim Day Parade on a sunny Saturday in late September 2002. The small group walked 20 blocks down Madison Avenue, holding high a borrowed Girl Scouts flag, as they passed shiny office buildings and posh East Side boutiques. For blocks in front and behind, countless other Muslim clubs marched. Most of the girls who came wore a hijab. Their outfits also included an ode to Americanism: denim. As they walked, they chanted.

“M-U-S! L-I-M! We’re so blessed to be with them!”

Then, seamlessly, the cheer continued.

“Girrrl Scouts! U-S-A! We’re the hope of to-day!”

Vinnee Tong is a freelance writer living in New York City. She has written for the Associated Press, Red Herring magazine and newspapers in California and New York. She studied journalism at Columbia University and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also edited the student newspaper.

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