MAS Freedom's Miriam Amer: Muslim Woman Helps Spread the Word about Her Religion

AS a Muslim woman proud to wear her religion's traditional headscarf, Miriam Amer of Cedar Rapids, has had to endure taunts and insults from passersby as she goes about her daily business.

Amer, the National Director of Community Services for MAS Freedom (MASF), the civic and human rights advocacy entity of the Muslim American Society (MAS), makes no effort to hide her exasperation.

"I've had people tell me to go back where I came from," she says.

"Where am I going to go? I was born here. My family has been in this country for 150 years."

Amer moved to Iowa from Connecticut seven years ago when her husband was hired as a professor at Mt. Mercy College. They have two children. She did not fully integrate her faith into her life until after high school, when she enrolled at Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1989.

"I decided I wanted to actually practice my faith," she says. "I was kind of caught between being a Muslim and an American but not truly comfortable with either. College really opened up my world because I met other people and people of my faith. Friends taught me to pray, and I began attending regular services."

Amer began wearing her head cover shortly before she was married.

Growing up as one of nine children in northern New Hampshire, Amer says her family and most of the other Muslims they knew were very secular and didn't want others to know of their faith. Her father, who served several years in the Marine Corps, ran restaurants and a construction company.

"The mentality of my parents' generation was blend in, don't make waves," she says. "We celebrated Christmas and Easter the secular way with presents and everything, but we did also fast during Ramadan and we drove two or three times a year to the mosque in Quincy, Massachusetts."

Amer says her Lebanese family history is very much like the long-established Muslim community in Cedar Rapids.

The first Muslims in Eastern Iowa arrived in 1895 from the part of the Middle East now known as Lebanon, according to the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids. A few decades later, following steady growth of the Muslim community, the first Islamic house of worship in the Western Hemisphere was dedicated in June 1934. It would become known as America's "Mother Mosque."

"Some of them were merchants and they came pulling hand carts," Amer says. "They worked hard for what they have, and today they're lawyers, doctors, teachers, and they own businesses. They're well entrenched in the community. They're part of the fabric here."

For Muslims who have recently arrived in the Corridor and for other immigrants, Amer and volunteers within the organization advocate for civil rights, inform politicians on the immigrant and minority viewpoint through policy papers and provide advice on how to obtain legal aid and other services.

"Many of them are refugees," she says. "The first group was the Bosnians, and then it was Somalis and Sudanese, and now Iraqis."

Amer says Iowans for the most part have been welcoming of Muslims, but she conceded the public environment has been difficult since Sept. 11 and problems have occurred around the state.

Immigrants struggle at first to learn English and they don't know the law, which has led some landlords and employers to try to take advantage of them through unfair rental agreements and working conditions, Amer says.

Muslim women have been told they must remove their headscarves for driver's license photos, when, in fact, that is not required by Iowa law, she says.

"For every 100 people who are good, there's one bigoted person, and you're not going to change their mind," she says. "But that's our job at the Muslim American Society — to try to change minds and work within society."

What should the mostly white population of Iowa know about Muslims and what should Iowans do to better welcome them?

"Know that we're here, and we're not going anywhere," Amer says.

"Muslims have been in this state for more than a century. We're part of the society here. We work. We're concerned about our country. If people would just accept us as human beings and partners and as brothers and sisters, things would go a lot smoother.

Islam is not some fifth column. There is nothing to fear."

Jesse Martinez, a Cedar Rapids advocate for Hispanics, credits Amer for seeing the bigger picture beyond issues related solely to Muslims.

"It's sometimes difficult to get past the stereotypes within our own Hispanic community and the stereotypes that exist between communities," he says.

"Catholics and Muslims haven't always come together, but Miriam has helped facilitate that process. We share similar struggles. With Hispanics it's illegal immigration, and Muslims have struggled since 9/11."

Martinez says Amer has worked to bring the challenges faced by local religious, labor and minority groups to the attention of politicians in Des Moines and Washington.

Iowa needs the diversity that Muslims, Hispanics and other groups can provide to keep up with the rest of the nation and the world, Amer says.

"If young people are leaving our state in large numbers, who's going to pick up the slack?" she says. "It's got to be people who want to come here and live and work. We need some flavor in this state. America used to be called the melting pot, now it's more like a big tossed salad. When you have diversity, you have flavor."