Critical Thinking Piece/ Timed Write of AmericanEast

In AmericanEast the definition of an outsider in America is a Muslim. Throughout this whole movie it compares how Muslims are seen next to everyone else.  Not only is the generic "American" compared to Muslim but even Jews. After the September 11th attack not only were those specific terrorists lives changed forever but they brought a fear with them of all Muslim people. 

After the attack, American's became afraid of this minority of people living in the United States.  They were looked at, not as Americans, but outsiders.  Everything in their lives was affected from that point on.  From business, when Mustafa pursues a business deal with a Jewish man, and how Omar only being able to book terrorist parts in films.  From marriage, how Leila was being pushed into a marriage with her cousin, not only to uphold the Muslim culture but also the family honor of taking back their family land. Even everyday stops like buying a coffee in a coffee shop became a potential conflict for Muslims.  American children were scared of Muslims just from watching American television.  Being an outsider by definition means "someone who is excluded from or is not a member of a group".  Muslims were picked out of a crowd just by their appearance.  When Mustafa was at the airport and lost sight of his son he began to panic like any parent would.  But because of his culture and son's name (Mohammed) he was automatically seen as a threat.  Now if any other Caucasian person had done the same thing it would have gone unnoticed, and the only concern would have been for the lost child.  Also when the police were in Mustafa's cafe to arrest him and his employee (also Muslim) walked in from the back they automatically verbally attacked him about his citizenship just because of his appearance.  They literally made Muslims afraid of anything and everything they did. 

Although it is very obvious in this film that Muslims were seen as outsiders.  Also confirmed by Murad's vocal opinion of American's look on them in every scene he appeared in.  I also think that Muslims found comfort in being outsiders.  They had the tendency to gravitate to the Habibi's Cafe.  Not only the friends of Mustafa, but also people needing prayer, and Muslim customers.  They found comfort in each other and support being surrounded by people with shared beliefs could bring them. This also helped them not conform to the American way by being around it 100% of the time.  Though it was proven difficult at times.  So even though being an outsider is an awkward uncomfortable place to be, the unity it brought them as American outsiders brought them closer together. 

In many ways this film supported how with each characters life how they were excluded in their own way.  Leila did not want to marry her cousin.  She did not love him and was attracted to a white man but she could not bring herself to go against her religion, in so doing she excluded herself from the average person's enjoyment of finding love.  Omar was excluded from all the film roles he wanted.  He was only offered parts that a Muslim would play well, and at that time Muslims were seen as terrorists in the American eye, so that is what he was offered. After enduring a lot of self hate Omar even lost his rights.  While he was no threat at the time of his murder he was killed because he was automatically seen as a strong threat because he was Muslim, compared to a white male in the same situation.  Mustafa was almost denied the business deal he deserved due to his possibility of bad business because of what the government was wrongly subjecting him to after a false accusal.  Even Murad excluded himself from everything else because he felt so strongly like the Muslim people were being attacked, he made himself as an outsider in America by rebellion.  

The movie AmericanEast showed it wasn't a specific career, appearance or action that made an outsider.  Every Muslim was an outsider in America.  Each person had their own different incident brought on by false accusal, culture/religion, appearances or actions.  The only pattern that was seen was the Muslim people as a whole were excluded from the norm of American life.