The author argues that Westerners tend to look at Muslims as one entity, ignoring the fact that they are diverse and unrelated communities, and to associate Islamic identity with largely negative social stereotypes. The result is that Muslims live in the West under the constant scrutiny of the rest of society and of the government. "They are regularly suspected of sympathising with movements characterised as sociopathic, terrorist and anti-Western," says Rajagopalan.
Her book argues that Muslims are like any other immigrant community, and they migrate to the West for the same reasons. Different Muslim communities' rarely co-mingle, and Muslim identity was considered secondary to ethnic or national identity. For example, Indian Muslims in the United States prefer to emphasiSe their Indian identity as a differentiator.
The problem, Rajagopalan says, is that Western governments regard them as Muslims first, not immigrants. This has created more hurdles at borders, and problems from social service providers and from law enforcement officials.
About 6 million Muslims in the US and 20 million in Europe live under the constant shadow of suspicion, and with decreasing acceptance, she says. "I felt it was time for a book that would address the underlying causes of ignorance and prejudice toward Muslim immigrants by showing the true diversity and complexity of this true Muslim world within the West," Rajagopalan, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York, said.
"This book would show that even as the societies of the West understand the Muslim immigrants as Muslims first of all, most Muslim immigrants still construct their identities on the basis of the experiences of their families, their people, and themselves."
For her book, she selected three Muslim families from different lands, living in different cities in the West: a Palestinian family in London, a Kurdish family in Berlin and a Bangladeshi family in Queens, New York, thus became protagonists of a book that marries the seriousness of the topic with the brilliance and narrative quality of top fiction.
She interacted with these families over a prolonged period of time and to this she added her experiences with Muslims during her tenure in Berlin and London as a Fulbright scholar.
The various life stories are interwoven with the fascinating history and culture of their land, viewed through their own eyes. "The book is not a piece of political advocacy. Some of the stories you will read here deal with politically sensitive or disputed histories. I have decided to let the characters of the book dictate how this material is presented," she said.
The Bangladeshis in the book -- Rafiqul Islam, his daughter Nishat and son-in-law Mohammed -- are illegal immigrants. Mohammed was in immigration custody, and Islam and Nishat could not visit him in jail as they had no valid papers to show.
Theirs is a resigned, stoic existence, as they seek to eke out life on the basis of meagre earnings. Islam, however, fears returning to his country as a failure.
"My primary intention in 'casting' the main characters was to challenge stereotype and fear towards the so-called Muslim world by revealing its complexity and diversity through narrative," said Rajagopalan, while explaining why she chose the families she did, though many Indian Muslim families were available in New York.
"I chose to write about a prosperous Palestinian family from a powerful Jerusalem family migrating as highly educated professionals to the UK; a rural Kurdish family from the impoverished Turkish countryside migrating as low-skilled guest workers to Germany; and a middle-class, educated Bangladeshi family migrating as undocumented, unskilled workers to the US."
The Bangladeshi family valued education and came from the professional class, but contrary to the model minority stereotype assigned to South Asian immigrants in the US, found themselves trapped in the ranks of the undocumented working class.
"The choices Nishat, my main Bangladeshi character, made as a woman were also very unique. Instead of following her deported husband home, as might have been expected, she chose to stay on in the US with her two small children, and became a community organiser with an immigrants rights and social justice organisation. She stayed on as a single working mother a full two-and-a-half years after her husband had been deported."
Rajagopalan said she did not approach the book as an Indian or Hindu, but as an immigrant seeking to illuminate the Muslim experience through stories of immigrants trying to find their place in their new homes. She found that Arab Muslims decide the Muslim agenda in the US, while in Germany it is the Turkish community and in Britain, the Pakistanis.
"I think all Muslim immigrants throughout the West have to live with a similar level of fear, suspicion, stereotype and anger, emotions which have been justified and advanced by lumping all Muslims together as one community, as well as by misinformation and lacking information about Muslims in popular culture, media and entertainment," she noted.
