RACE
, AND RELIGION IN THE MAKING OF SOMALI YOUTH IDENTITIES
 By Nimo Mohamed 
Abdi        A DISSERTATION
 Submitted to
 Michigan State University
 in partial fulfillment of the requirements
 for the degree of 
 K-12 Education
al 
Administration
Doctor of Philosophy
 2015 !! ABSTRACT
  RACE
, AND RELIGION IN THE MAKING OF SOMALI YOUTH IDENTITIES
  By Nimo Mohamed 
Abdi This phenomenological
 study draws from 
postmodern, and post
-positivist theories to 

explains how the experience of racialization and its impact on embodied perception of self and 
other are key factor
s in how Somali youth experience school. 
Two questions guide this study: 
1) 
How do schooling experiences influence how Somali students are positioned by school staff, 
peers, and how they position themselves? 2) How do Somali students experience and make se
nse 
of racialization. To investigate these questions, I interviewed nine high school Somali immigrant 
and refugee students about their school experiences. I
n addition to phenomenology, I
 also 
employed ethnographic data collection methods, where I carried o
ut school observation and 
informal conversation with teachers and school administrators. C
onnecting narrative accounts of 
lived experience to racialized identities based on visibility of race and religion. My findings 

n and understanding of racial situations depended on the 
degree to which they understood and internalized mainstream American discourse about 
Muslims, and immigrants. This was particularly true for how Somali youth interpreted being 
Muslim and the meanings
 they attached to religious identity markers such as the headscarf. My 
analysis show that the production of racialized identities had more to do with the 
how Somali 
students perceive racial situations in their school communities.
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!  vi  TABLE OF CONTENTS
 !1.!INTRODUCTION
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#!Purpose and Objectives
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""$!Summary of
 Literature and Theoretical Frameworks
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""%!Relevance of race and religion.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#!Summary of Methods
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!##!Positionality
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#&!What this Study Can and Cannot Do
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#'!Significance
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#'!Layout of Dissertation
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#(! 2. REVIEW
 OF LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
!""""""""""""""""""""""!&&!Literature Review
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!&&!Religion: an i
mportant identity marker.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!$$!Role of race.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!$%!Conclusion.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!&'!Theoretical Framewor
ks!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!))!Race and racialized identities.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!&(!The ascription of racialized identities.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!&)!Chiasm.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!*+!Identity as horizon.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!*&!Role of expe
rience.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!*)!Conclusion.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!(+! 3. METHODOLOGY
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!$)!Context of the Study
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!$'!School conte
xt and dynamics.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!(%!Addressing the role of the participant in phenomenological research.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!)+!Data Collection
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!%*!Data Analysis
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!%)! 4. FINDINGS (PART ONE): EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RACIALIZATION AMONG 
SOMALI YOUTH
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!%+!Theme One. Negotiations Between Visible Identities and Lived Experiences
!"""""""""""""""""""!'*!
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#&!
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#)!
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#%!
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!%$!Theme Two. Negotiating Accepta
nce Through Appropriation
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!+$!
-
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!,+!vii  5.  FINDINGS (PART TWO): LIVING AS RACIALIZED BODIES
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!($!
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!($!
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!,#!

!""""""""""""""""""!'+&!
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'+#!Theme Four. Seeking Meaning in Uncertain Terrain
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!###
!
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'''! 6. CONCLUSION
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!##(!Summary and Interpretation of Data
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#&&
!Racialization: a lived experience.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'$*!Racialization: contextual and relational experience.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'$(!Implications of racialization.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'$)!Consequences for theory.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'$%!Somali youth positioning themselves.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'$,!Contesting and re
-negotiating racialized identities.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'&+!Living the hijab.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'&+!Afro 
hairstyle.
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'&'!Implications for self
-positioning
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'&$!Consequences for theory.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'&&!Religion.
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!'&*!Relevance of School Cl
imate
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#)%
!Continuing Questions for Future Research
!"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#,*
! REFERENCES
!""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""!#,#!     !1  1. INTRODUCTION
   The image of Somali people represented in the media as 
the citizens of 
a nation ridden 
with famine, 
civil strife, piracy
, and recently terrorism, influences how most Americans perceive 
refugees and immigrants from Somalia. Within the field of education, the common discourse 
about Somali students is one 
of children who may be
 at risk, 
have 
special needs
, and 
are
 difficult 
to educate (Bigelow
, 2008
, 2010), with parents that do not necessarily care for the education of 

numbers of Somali students continue to receive
 supplemental language services such as 
English 
Language Learners (
ELL
) and special education programs in their schools. 
 However, there is a lack of critical studies investigating how Somali students are actually 
experiencing the structures that are set
 up to help them. In large urban districts that serve Somali 
students, one often hears educators sharing stories about their Somali students. In my own 
experiences as a teacher, I have come across several educators sharing their experiences 
with 
Somali immig
rants and refugee students. The anecdotes typically showed that these teachers 
were either overwhelmed or knew little about their Somali students. For instance, in 
the curriculum and teaching
 of a m
one of my 
classmate
s, a young female teacher
, said that 

teaching my Somali students, especially the boys
. . . . E
verything I teach them gets untaught 
when they go home
. You see their culture teaches them 

.  During my student teaching training in a suburban high school, a lead science teacher 
made some comments
 about Somali students in his school
:  I had a Chinese student in my class, who would use his dictionary to translate every word 
in the entire assignment, until he gets it. But when it comes to the Somali students, I had 
2  
my God, how 
can this kid
 pay attention to anything I have to say
 (Mr. Spenc
er) However, when I observed his AP chemistry class, there was one Somali female student 
who was a high achiever. Yet
, this teacher chose to ignore that fact and chose to categorize all 
Somali students in his school based on the above comment. When I asked
 him about this 
particular student, h

 
 (Mr. Spencer
). Recently, in a pilot study I conducted in an urban 
high 
school, an ELL math teacher who 

antu students] 

. The 

see them after that
 (Mr. Ismail
). Another teacher in the same school talked
 about
 the conversations she ha
d with her class about the Somali immigrant/refugee students and their 

something of themselv

 (Ms. Martinez
). Despite the fact that t
his teacher was one of only two 
teachers in this schoo
l that talked positively about 
Somali students, 
she was also drawing 
from 
the common 
narrative told about immigrants. 
These examples seem to 
simplify and downp
lay 
the challenges of poverty, race
, and being
 a Muslim
 immigrant
 in that complicate many Somali 

The 
everyday 
experiences of Somali immigrants and refugee students 
are 
somewhere in between these 
two binaries.  Most Somali students 
I interviewed
 in my pilot study
 were
 mainly concerned 
with getting 
along with
 and being accepted by
 their peers 
and doing well in school. 
For instance, t
hey 
often 
discussed
 their experiences in 
learning English for the first time in 
elementary
 school and the
 challenges that entailed. 
One student 
explained,
 In elementary school, I used to be 
very quiet. I 
3  did not say much
. But, i
n fourth gra
de, kids used to make fun of me because I started to speak in 
broken English
 (Ali). Despite the fact that 
this student and several of his 
friends
 were 
taking 
mainstream classes by the time
 of this interview, early school experiences still influenced their 
perception of themselves as students and how they related to school staff 
and their American
-born peers. 
Meanwhile, 
in th
e same 
school, 
there w
as another group of Somali students
 who were struggling academically and
, as a result
, were disengaged from school.
 For instance, a 
Somali student who receive
d both ELL and 
special 
education services, said
, 
school;
 
 (Mohamed
). Regardless of academic performance, Somali students in this school were aware of the 
fact tha
t they were racialized. A 
student in the 
11th grade 

ple hide that they are 
Somali, because they think it is a bad thing. When a Somali guy does something bad, they [
the school staff] say
, they [Somali
s
 (Ali). As I will 
show in the second 
chapter of this 
proposal
, discourse
 as a system of representation 
has 
created
 school environments in which 
Somali immigrant and refugee 
students embody 
experiences of 
racialization
 (Hall
, 1997).   In addition
, religion
, as a visible identity marker, 
seemed to be an
other
 important factor 

 and how they experience school
. This is particularly true for 
Somali girls 
who observe the hijab or headscarf. 
For instance, many students recalled 
experiences of violence or marginalization b
ecause of their faith. A 
Somali refugee student 
share
n middle school we used to fight a lot
. They 
[American
-born students] 
did not sit 
with us 
and 
we did not sit with them
. We did not talk to each other. We used
 to fight about our 
religion
 (Ahmed
). More than 
a few 
of the students shared similar stories of experiencing 
violence
. While 
some of these 
stories were quite 
extreme
, other students
 mainly shared 
4  experiences of marginalization because of 
their Islam
ic faith
. Despite their experiences, these 
students found ways to
 exist between the secular ideals of school and 
the religious 
ones at home. 

s as multifaceted
, complex
, and con
trary to th
e ones described
 by 
educators. 
Rather
, Somali 

 intersection 
among 
race, religion
, and immigrant status, and 
Somali 
students try to negotiate with 
the social positions 
these 
constructs
 create
; as a result, t
hey 
become ambivalent about
 the identity markers that 
define who they are. 
    5  Purpose and Objective
s The purpose of this study is to investigate the schooling experience of Somali immigrant and 
refugee high school students
. The particular research 
questions 
are: 
 1. How do schooling experiences influence
 how Somali students 
are positioned by school 
staff and by their peers, as well as how they position themselves
?  2. How do
 Somali students
 experience racialization
 and make sense
 of the racialization 
processes
? As I attempt to answer these questions from the literature, I concentrate on the following 
questions
:  1. 
education take place?  
 2. How do Somali refugees and immigrants negotiate identity and cultural spaces in 
schools?  
 3. What challenges do Somali refugee and immigrants face in 
US schools?
 4. What is the role of race, religion, and 
ethnicity 
in the education of Somali refugees and 
immigr
ants? 
 Note: in this study school experience refers to issues of inclusion, exclusion, success
, and failure.
   6  Summary of Literature and Theoretical Frameworks
 Research about Somali immigrants and refugees is in its developmental stage and lacks 
empirical evidence on many of the issues facing Somali children in public schools, despite the 
fact that large numbers of Somali refugees and immigrants have resettled in
 several cities in the 
US since the mid
-1990s. Due to the dearth of research findings, I draw on the broader literature 
about other refugee and immigrant groups in the 
US. In addition, when literature permits, I 
highlight the unique position of the Somali 
refugee and immigrant experience within the 
framework of immigrant and refugee research context. Framing the larger research about 
immigrant 
education
 as a backdrop is important for two reasons. 
 First, studies about refugee and immigrant groups
, such as g
roups from Southeast Asia, 
Cuba, and Haiti, are significant in providing an understanding of broader issues relevant to 
dislocated people grappling with problems of adapting to new social, cultural
, and language 
environs. In addition, examining these studi
es brings forth similarities and differences among 
and within refugee and immigrant groups.
  Second, the broader immigrant literature highlights important factors that
 describe
 various integration patte
rns that eventually explain the
 success
es and failures
 of refugees and 
immigrants 
youth 
as they interact with 
a 
factors such as social, economic, and cultural issues influence the educational context in which 
immigrant and refugee 
(including Somali
) child
ren takes place. Hence, it is through race, 
religion, and ethnicity that social, cultural
, and structural paradigms are negotiated and contested 
as immigrants and refugees 
engage 
with local institutions. 
   7  Relevance of r
ace
 and r
eligion
. In her study of Somali immigrant and refugee youth in 
Minnesota, Martha Bigelow 
(2010) 
highlight
ed the need to re
-

 about immigrants when seeking to understand Somali youth in the United States
 (p. 2). The experiences of
 Somali youth in 
US schools 
were 
similar to those of other immigrant and 
refugee 
groups, in the sense that most 
immigrant youth report
ed experiences of institutiona
l marginalization due to their 
race, religion
, and/or ethnicity. Bigelow argue
d that even though 

p. 1). For instance, 
in the US context, Somali youth become black because
 Somali immigrants and refugees c
ome 
from 
a society where the concept of race based on
 skin color as a social category d
oes not exist
 (Ibrahim
, 1991; Forman
, 2002). Therefore, 


is constructed through interaction 
with 
rac
ial system. Therefore, as 
Bigelow
 emphasized
, race and r

entity is 
relational (Hall
, 1990).   Race and the processes of racialization not only play an important role in the lives of 
Somali immigrant and refugee youth in
 the US, but also situate them in a somewhat unique 
position. Coming from East A
frica, Somali people are black 
in race and prescribe to Islam as a 
religion (Elmi
, 2010). Hence, in the 
US context, Somalis are not only black, but they are also 
Muslim (Collet
, 2007). Therefore, as black and Muslim immigrant
s, Somali youth find 
themselves in social terrain that has
 a deep and 
contested
 racial history
, as well as a more recent
 experience of
 Islamophobia
 (Abu
-Elhaj, 2007). The terrorist attacks on the 
World Trade Cen
ter 
and the Pentagon 
on September
 11, 2001 have 
led to widely accepted hostile sentiments 
toward 
Muslims
 among 
the larger 
US society (Sirin 
& Fine
, 2008). Since the 
perpetuators
 of the 9/11 attacks are alleged
ly men of 
Middle Eastern
 (and therefore of Muslim) 
origin
, immigrant 
8  Muslims
 of all backgrounds are viewed w
ith suspicion (Sirin 
& Fine, 2008). This is an important 
distinction
 because indigenous American
 Muslims, with African
 Americans constituting the 
largest group, have not 
reported discrimination based on their faith compared to immigrant 
Muslim
s (Jackson
, 2011). These examples 
make several things apparent. First, 
the experiences 
of 
Somali youth 
are unique 
in that they are 
distinctly
 different from 
those of 
indigenous Americ
an 
black Muslim youth due to their immigrat
ion 
are also different from other immigrant youth because of their 
black
 race.
  In this view, the experiences of Somali immigrant and refugee youth pro
vide
 the landscape to explore experiences of race, religion, 
class,
 and
 immigrant status
, as well as 
the multiple ways these factors overlap as Somali youth interact with institutions such as schools.  
Omi and Winant
 (1990)
 remind
ed us that racial dynamics play an impo
rtant role
 not only in 
identity issues
; they also determine
 
 diverse political 

p. 3). According to these authors, this 
can 
be seen in the process in which a 

meaning changes over time, hence
, highlighting differences in 
issues of incorporation and assimilation.  
 Somalis are relative newcomers, making up one of the largest immigrant and refugee 
groups resettling in the US in 
the mid-1990s and early 2000s
 becaus
e of 
civil strife, where 
hundreds of thousands were either killed or displaced (
Abdi, 2007; Elmi, 2010). Hence, the 
Somali presence mirrors recent changes in the demographics of those immigrating to the 
US and 
many other 
Western countries. In this view, un
like immigrants groups from Eastern and 
Southern Europe at the turn of the 
19th and 
20th centuries
, most immigrants 
who have come to 
the US since the 1960s are of non
-European decent. These recent immigrants have been 
observed to show different integration
 patterns compared to earlier European immigrants. 
9  Scholars have often highlighted the absence of a more linear path of integration 
into white, 
middle
-class America among recent immigrants 
in comparison 
to their earlier European 
counterparts (
Haines
, 1996
). As a result,
 researchers studying immigrants often base this 
distinction on 
existing racial and economic conditions. This implies that since European 
immigrants were white, they had easier transition
s in comparison 
to current immigrants. While 
this may 
be true to a degree, 
European immigrants also faced integration challenges 
(Thandeka
, 1999). However, 
the presence of race and religion as visible identity markers complicat
e the 
integration experiences of immigrants
 and refugee
s like the Somalis
.  Meanwhi
le, the integration challenges that Somali immigrants and refugees face are 
manifested in processes where refugee children acquire the English language
 and 
negotiate 
ethnic, religious
, and racial identities
, as well as cultural spaces in their schools. On the one 
hand, Somali refugees and immigrants construct new ways of being in their new environment 
through institutional encounters. 
Nevertheless,
 they
 engage in processes of forming social capital 
distinctive
 to Somali immigrants and ref
ugees in the 
US (Bigelow
, 2010).  On the other hand, 
despite the differences
 and their unique position, it could be argued that, similar to other 
immigrants of color, Somali youth are more likely to follow what scholars refer t
o as segmented 
assimilation 
as an integration pattern (Portes 
& Zhou
, 1993). 
Under segmented assimilation, 
immigrants
 employ a partial and selective pattern of taking on certain aspects of 

culture in order to gain social mobility, while m
aintaining many aspects of their own cultural 
practices. This is 
in direct opposition to a complete assimilation to mainstream culture as had 
been observed among earlier European immigrants. The implication is that immigrants of color 
experience the impact
 of race differently than European immigrants, who were/are able to join 
10  the mainstream social and cultural milieu and have the opportunity to invoke an ethnic identity 
by choice (Waters, 
1994).    
 Despite the demographic change among people immigrating t
o the US since 1960s, it is 
only recently that researchers looking at immigrant and refugee youth began to consider the 
importance of race in the acculturation process (
Bigelow
, 2010; Lee
, 2005; Portes 
& Zhou
, 1993; Rong 
& Brown
, 2002; Rong 
& Fitchett
, 2008; Waters
, 1994). 
Despite this recognition, there is a 
gap in the literature as it pertains to the process of racialization or, in other words, how race is 
experienced by immigrant youth of color. Therefore, this study will contribute to the field by 
utilizing
 race and racialization processes as a way of understanding the schooling experience of 
Somali immigrant and refugee youth. As I will explain in 
Chapter 2
, identity construction among 
immigrant and refugee youth does not happen in a vacuum. 
Raciali
zed
 identities
, or any type of 
identities for that matter, are as relational as they are contextual. Therefore, any study that 
investigates the schooling experience of Somali immigrant and refugee youth has to 
consider 
context
 in which identities are creat
ed (contextual identity)
, but also how socially ascribed 
identities become embodied experiences that are 
acted upon and lived in the day
-to-day lives of 
subjects and their relationships to various others (relational identity). 
 In order to understand proce
sses by 
which racialized identities become embodied, I draw 
from theories of identity construction that are rooted in postmodern and post
-positivist 
paradigms. I specifically borrow from the works of Alcoff (2006), Merleau
-Ponty
 (1968, 1964), 
and Omi and W
inant (1994), among others. However, I understand that the specific theoretical 
and methodological frameworks used in this investigation also influence how this study is read. 
Therefore, before I discuss 
what this study can and cannot achieve, 
I will brief
ly summarize 
methodology.  
 11  Summary of Methods
 I conduct
ed a phenomenological study in 
a K-12 charter 
school in an urban school district 
in the Midwest. 
Ninety percent
 of the student body is Somali and the rest
 comprises 
students from West Africa, Iraq, 
and Southeast Asia, as well as students of 
African
 American
 heritage
. This study intend
ed to investigate the processes of schooling experience of Somali immigrant 
and refugee 
students. The study pa
id particular attention to experiences of racialization amo
ng 
Somali students
. This phenomenolo
gy study 
connect
ed narrative accounts of lived experience to 
the racialized identity negotiations of Somali immigrants and refugee students. Data generated 
from field notes, field text
, and research text (
Clandinin 
& Con
nelly
, 2000) 
was analyzed in 
accordance with hermeneutic phenomenological methods, which takes into account 
the whole
-part
-whole-nature of the phenomenon under study. 
For 
10 weeks, d
uring winter and spring 
quarters
, data w
as 
collected from numerous sources, 
45 times per week: 
(a) classroom 
observations
; (b) school social activities observations, i.e.
, lunch breaks, hallways, extra 
curricula activities, 
sports events
; (c) semi
-structured interviews with 
nine 11th- and 
12th-gra
de 
students, each interview lasting
 an hour to a little over an hour
; and 
(d) informal conversations
 with five 
teachers and 
three 
school administrators
. Even though this study 
was mainly about 
understanding student experiences, 
talking with
 teachers and school administrators help
ed me to 
methodological tool in 
Chapter 3
, there is 
a need to situate the interpretations and presentations 
of the findings in thi
s study as one of several possible ones based on my positionality as a 
researcher. 
 12  Positionality
  In their 2000 text 
Narrative Inquiry

Our research 
interests come out of our own narratives of experience and shape our narra
tive inquiry plotlines
(p. 121). This is relevant because I am also a Somali female who fled the civil war
 in my country 
of birth
. My own experience of displacement as a teenager
, and my work with Somali refugee 
youth
, contribute to my interest in investi
gating the experiences of Somali youth, particularly as 
it is related to schooling.   
 I was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, under the rule of the late dictator Siad Barre. I 
remember the secret service police coming to our house
 while I was growing up
 and arr
esting my 
father for his political views. This happened three times in my early teens. At the time, the 
country was very unstable, and 
everywhere 
people were anxious and worried. Several people 
disappeared, their bodies to be discovered later, after being 
taken by the secret police. Despite 
the chaos in our lives, my mother insisted that 
my siblings and I go
 to school and 
carry 
on with our lives as usual. 
When I was 
14, my father was released for the third time
. My
 family
 and I
 had 
to leave our home, relatives, and friends because of the ensuing civil conflict in Somalia. 
After 
many years of uncertainty, we finally 
migrate
d to the United States, where once again we would 
have to start building our lives. However, this time the d
ifference was that we came with very 
limited material resources and had to support ourselves by taking menial jobs while we 
continued with our studies. Hence, experiences of displacement, uncertainty, poverty, racism, 
and marginalization influence the epis
temic lenses that shape
 how I view the world.  
 Dahlberg, Drew
, and Nystr
ım (2001), sp
oke of the subjectivity of
 the
 researcher in 
phenomenology:  
 13  Researchers are living contextualized people. Researchers have lifeworlds. Accordingly, 
researchers have con
ciousnesses and are intentional, that is, when we approach the world, 

account of any phenomenon. If such intentionality is neglected in the phenomenological 
research, 
then the labors of what we call phenomenological research are nothing more 
than the sorting, classifying, and describing what scientist have done since Aristotle
. (p. 233)  Our research interest spawns from our own lived experiences
; therefore
, the topics we choose to 
investigate are intimately connected to our being in the world. By starting with my own 
experiences of being displaced, I am not only making
 a conn
ection to my research topic;
 I am 
also demonstrating that meanings inherent in the experiences a
nd the lifeworld of the youth in 
my study are possible meanings for my own displacement experiences as a teenager. 
At a personal level, this work is more than descriptions and classifications of the findings. Rather, in 
this study I seek to understand the 
meanings embedded in the lifeworld of immigrants and 
refugee youth by showing my own his
torical connection to the 
experiences
 of the youth
.  For 
10 years, I have worked with the Somali community in Columbus, Ohio, in different 
capacities, 
including as an
 interpreter,
 a volunteer,
 and an
 educator. My first encounter with 
Somali youth came through volunteering as a tutor for immigrant bilingual high school students. 
Twice a week, for two years, I helped Somali and 
Spanish
-speaking students in an urban school 
with their math and science assignments. The tutoring sessions took place during school hours, 
so I was able to observe what school was like for these students. I was struck how school was 
different from my own experien
ce in Somalia and later in Egypt. 
 14    Many of the students I worked with struggled through school
, especially the Somali 
students, who had limited formal educational backgrounds and were grappling with standard 
high school subjects. Almost all of my Somali 
student tutees 
spent their childhoods
 in refugee 
camps. However, in spite of the academic challenges many faced, these students were also 
resilient and did their best using the resources that were available to them. During this time, I 
became aware of the 
privileges inherent in my own social class background despite the economic 
struggles my family had to endure as immigrants in the 
US. Like many of the students I tutored, I 
am also a refugee immigrant
. However
, my schooling was never interrupted; in fact
, my parents 
made 
it a priority 
for us to
 get 
a quality education while we lived in Cairo, Egypt. 
 In 
Narrative 
Inquiry
, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) assert
ed 

p. 43). This view is contrary to the 
conception of people in 
formalist inquiry, in which people are understood to represent a social category
. Meanwhile, in 
narrative inquiry, notions such as race, gender, class, and power do not categorize a person into 
definitive social positions; rather
, they provide realities and tensions that need to be stated and 
recognized by the researcher (
Clandinin 
& Connelly
, 2000). We have to be aware of inherent 
formalistic views and meanings associated with these terms and their impact on our thinking as 
research
ers. 
Social categories never give a complete picture of who 
we 
are as people
; rather
, they 
often cover as much as they reveal about us. In other words, social categories shed light on 
certain aspects of our life but can never fully explain an
 understanding of who we are. 
In this 
light, 
Clandinin and Connelly 
suggest
ed that as we think about our own narrative inquiry, it is 

form the views, attitudes
, and ways of thinking we bring to the research site
 (p. 46). This is 
relevant because initially I was interested in experiences that rested on the intersectionality of 
15  race, class, gender, and religion on 
the schooling experience. However, during the pilo
t study, I 
became aware of the possible tensions such a framework may pose for the phenomenological 
approach I wanted to conduct. Hence, 
the tensions that need to be addressed as I narrate from the 
border may inclu
de, on the one hand, my gender, race, clas
s, and immigrant identity. 
On the other hand, these tensions become even more complicated as one considers the fluid and multiple 
nature of identity within the postmodern paradigm in which this study is situated. In other words, 
reflexivity
 helps us to com
e to terms with the multiple selves we bring to the research setting. 
For instance, Shulamit Reinharz (cited in Denzin 
& Lincoln
, 
y bring the self to the field. . . .[W

p. 278).
 As in any
 social setting, my presence in the field influence
d power dynamics and 
relationships, despite
 my efforts
 to overcome them. However, in phenomenology, the 
res

or to quote Dahlberg
 et al.,
 
lifeworld
made 

p. 95). For instance, being positioned as a first
-generation Somali immigrant who 
observes the 
hijab
 had some advantages and disadvantage. 
The a
dvantages 
were that 
being an 
immigrant 
pro
vided an insight into the lived 
experiences of Somali youth and help
ed me in building rapport with informants. Conversely, the disadvantages 
were that 
my position 
influence
d how some of the participants respond
ed to me personally and to my research 
questions
. This dialectic positioning of the researcher provide
d a platform for temporarily 
suspending (Dahlberg
 et al., 
2001) my own experiences of being displa
ced and an observer of 
the head
scarf, so I 
was
 freshly open to the experience of the participants. Hence, the socio
-historical as well as the epistemological positioning I br
ought
 to my research influence
dif not guide
dnot only the research question
s I s
ought
 to investigate
, but also the relationship
s I buil
t 16  and negotiate
d throughout the inquiry, and
, finally
, the interpretations (Denzin 
& Lincoln
, 2008) and 
presentations of 
the stories of the Somali youth 
that my study engage
d (Clandinin 
& Connelly
, 2000).     17  What 
this 
Study Can and Cannot Do
   This study is phenomenological and it explores the schooling experiences of Somali 
immigrant and refugee youth in 
an 
urban 
charter 
school in a Midwest City. The findings describe 
a detailed account of the lived stories of these students. But
, more importan
tly, the results carr
ied 
(2000, p. 42
) to emphasize the 

s in conveying the stories of 
informants. In addition, the term suggest
ed that it 
was more important for the results to help 
illuminate possible identities and experiences of the participant than to focus on the specifics of 
what they have said or done (Clandinin 
& Connelly
, 2000). 
The
 results from this research 
were 
contextual 
and relay
ed the experiences of a group of Somali students in
 a particular space and 
time. Therefore
, one cannot draw inferential conclusions about all Somali youth based on this 
study. However, because this is
 a phenomenological study, it can provide educa
tors and 
res
earchers a way of understanding
 what it means to be a Somali immigrant/refugee student in an 
urban school context. 
 Significance
   This study is important for the following four reasons. First, this research will add to a 
small but growing body
 of research about Somali immigrant and refugee students. It will fill the 
current gap in the literature by looking at the lived experiences of Somali students in schools. It 
will provide educators and researchers an understanding of how school contexts in
fluence 

In other word
s, the study will highlight not only the lived identities of Somali students but
 also
 discourses 
that impact positively o
r negatively on S
omali students 
being in the world. This is 
important because there is a growing interest in the education of
 the immigrant and refugee 
18  student population here in the 
US and this study can contribute to the larger literature about 
immigrant and refugee educ
ation. 
 Second, this study will provide educators and researchers a general sense of how Somali 
students perceive and position themselves in their school community. It explore
s issues of 
inclusion, exclusion, and marginalization. This is important because
, by focusing on student 
voices, this study give
s an insight to the daily experiences of Somali immigrant and refugee 
youth. While student voice
s are
 an important element in both practice and policy, it is my hope 
that this research will also provide a platform for the Somali youth involved to reflect and 
become aware of their own experiences
 so that the meanings they draw from their experiences 
are di
rected toward more fulfilling way
s of being in the world. 
 Third, by showing the nexus between social identification and school experience, this 
investigation reveal
s how teachers and school administrators understand and position the Somali 
students in the
ir schools. This is important because it can help educators become aware of their 

s. My hope is that the results from this study will help teachers 


legitimate. 
 Finally, the findings from this research
 will provide policy makers, both at the school 
level and at the district level, relevant information 
regarding 
the Somali immigrant and refugee 
students school experiences. This i
s important because often school and district policies, which 
were meant to benefit all students
, become exclusionary once they are implemented. This study 

school
.     19  Layout of Dissertation 
  This dissertation 
is about 

experiences as they navigate the social and cultural contexts of their schools and in the 
communities they
 live in. 
But more importantly stories depicted here tell bigger stories of human 
relationship, and stories of being and becoming in the world that we share with others. The
 nine students in this study shared rich and nuanced stories that depict the comple
xity of being an 
immigrant an
d adolescent. Despite my effort to portray student stories in the most authentic way, 
yet, as a researcher, I had to 
ground the accounts by 
finding
 common themes that spoke to all 

f thematic formulation, some stories demanded to 
be heard 
more 
than others. This, however, does not m
ean that the
 untold narratives were less 
important than 
the stories 
narrated 
here
. For instance, the same student might have shared 
multiple stories
 in which some were narrated, while others were not. One the one hand, all
 stories were relevant in the cont
ext they were told, 
on the other hand, only stories that 
spoke to 
the themes
 presented here became relevant. 
The idea is that I used themes to reveal not o
nly 
common thread among the stories but also to introduce participants. 
 So, under each theme, there are subthemes represented in direct quotes from students. 
This allowed me to engage each story
 thread
 fully. 
Meanwhile, I had to constantly remind myself 
that this reading of the stories and the meani
ngs drawn
 represents one of many views and 
understanding. Hence, by any means the stories and their interpretation
, presented here
, are not 
the only ones possible. 
As I explained above, even though, at the cente
r of this dissertation is the 
lifeworld of Somali youth. This dissertation follows the 
conventions of the discipline, where I 
had to contextualize student narratives.
 Hence
, this document contains six chapters. In chapter 
20  one, I introduce the 
topic of Soma
li youth experiences in school. 
I also provide the purpose and 
objectives of this study. In addition, I present a brief summary of the literature, theoretical 
frameworks, methodology and I finally discuss limitations and significance of this research. 
 In 
the next chapter, 
under review of literature section, 
I provide a layout of the context in 
which the education of Somal
i youth 
takes place, paying specific attention to the role of race and 
religion in educational context. 
In addition, 
I review l
iterature 
about Somalis
 and other 
immigrants including 
Muslim youth
, where
 it is
 relevant. 
After that, I
 explore theories of 
racialization, as well as
 theories of embodiment. I pay particular attention 
to the notion of 
experience borrowing from Gadamer
 (2003). Final
ly, I link notions of experience and 

ing
 
(2006) 
notion of 
identity as Horizons.
 In chapter thr
ee, I explain the rational and process of phenomenology as a 
tool for inquiry. 
I mainly 
focus on phenomenology as a method, 
however, 
I briefly engage the 
philosophical tradition in which phenomenology is rooted. 
Also, I present narrative inquiry as a 
way to 
capture experiences of the Somali youth in this study. 
In the rest of the chapter three, I 
walk the reader through 
how I collected, 
and 
analyzed
 student stories
, as well as
, how I thought 
about
 the context in which student stories were told. 
 Considering the context in which student stories were narrated from,
 it became necessary 
to address
 the role of participant in phenomenological research
 for the following reasons. I
n this 
study I employed ethnographic methods of interviewing and students observation
. Since 
phenomenology is interested in dwelling
 on the exp
erience under study, I chose narrative inquiry 
as a method for collecting student experiences. While this was helpful in providing students the 
space to engage their stories in depth, it also created a context in which the distinction between 
students and their stories became less clear. 
Hence, a section about participants is not presented 
21  in this document. The rationale
 is that 
by 
focus
ing on experience
 leads 
the reader 
to know about 
the narrators of the experience. 
 In chapters four 
and five
, I present 
findings, or Somali youth stories reflected in four 
themes. The first tw
o themes 
explored under chapter four, where I talk about how early 

necessary in how they
 understand and interpret racial situations in their schools and in their 
communities
. The themes in this chapter speak to the multiple ways Somali youth negotiate their 
visible identity markers in school context, where their difference was marked by race 
and 
religion. 
In chapter five, I continue
 presenting student stories. The
 two themes in this chapter 
speak to how visibility 
of religion was contested and sometimes embraced 
by the youth. For 
instance, many of the stories in theme three and four engage how
 Somali youth understood and 
navigate racial situations both in schools and in their communities. 
 Finally in chapter six, I provide an overview of the study. I revisit the research questions 
that guide this study as well as the theoretical lenses that gro
unded the interpretations of the 
findings. Under findings and interpretations, I present my own interpretations of the interview 
analysi
s. B
ased on the interpretations
, I provide implications both for practice and for theory. For 
instance, under each major
 finding,
 I have a subsection for implications and another named 
consequences for theory. Under implications I explain what the data means in school context and 
how this data advances the field of immigrant education. Furthermore, under consequences for 
theory subsections, I present how the findings from this research can help future research in 
extending theories of visibility and embodiment in schoo
ls. And finally, I end chapter six with 
 a 
questions 
for 
st ways in which this study could 
be extended. 
 !22  2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
  This chapter is about foregrounding the literature on Somali immigrant and refugee 
students. I specifically focus on the experiences of Somali immigrants and refugee students in 
high school. This literature review has two sections.
 In section 
2.1, titled 
Literature Review
, I write about how race and religion shape the context in which Somali immigrant and refugee 
education takes place. In section 
2.2, named 

, I explore theories 
pertaining to racialized identities that influence stud

school experiences. 
 Literature 
Review
   
larger literature that examines the education of working class youth and children of
 color, mainly 
African
-American and Hispanics (McBrien
, 2005; Ngo 
& Lee
, 2007). Many of the studies that 
looked at immigrant and refugee children often included students from a wide range of countries 
of origin, racial identities
, and religious backgrounds
. Studies that examined the experience of 
Somali students are nominal in number. For this reason, this review draws mainly from the 
broader literature surrounding the educational experience of other immigrant and refugee groups. 
With the exception of the w
ork done by Martha Bigelow (2008
, 2010) research about immigrants 
and refugee education often lacks critical view on the importance of race, religion, and 
immigrant status 
to the education of immigrant and refugee youth. Hence, I review literature on 
race 
and religion in the education of immigrant and refugee students and think about how they 
apply to Somali students
 educational experiences. 
 Religion: an important i
dentity 
marker
.  Despite the structural barriers in schools, 
research underlines that refugee and immigrant students experience discrimination at the 
23  personal level because of their religious belief and practices (Carter
, 1999). This is particularly 
true for Muslim student
s, who have reported heightened incidents of discrimination in schools 
from their peers and teachers after
 the September
 11, 2001 attacks on the US 
(Abu Al
-hajj
, 2007; Asali
, 2003; Bigelow
, 2008, 2010; Birman
, et al.
, 2001; Collet
, 2007). In her research a
mong 
Somali youth in Minnesota, Bigelow (2008
, 2010) portray
ed challenges faced by these students 

follow an Is
lamic moral code are difficult 
to do in school in
 the West, perhaps the most 
contentious Muslim practice is the veiling, or wearing 
hijab

p. 30). On the one hand, Bigelow 
(2010) 
was forthright in describing how wearing the hijab has become synonymous with Somali 
identity in urban areas in the Midwest. 
On the other hand, she report
ed (2008) 
that Somali 

Bin Ladens
 at school or at their 

p. 31), thus causing the marginalization of So
mali girls who observe the head
scarf 
in schools. Birman, Trickett, and Bacchus (2001) carried out research to assess Somali students
 experience
s in a middle school in a Maryland community. The Somali students in this study 
relayed that 
their peers
 constantly teased them
 because of their religion
. For 
Somali refugee and 
immigrant youth, religious and racial discrimination were intertwined (Bigelow
, 2010). Bigelow 
argued that Somali youth were racialized in ways that relate
, not only to their black skin
, but also because of their religion and nationality
. This is so because Somalis are characterized as visible 
ethnics (Kusow
, 2006); hence
, they are subjected to multiple othering mechanisms. The Somali 
male teens that Bigelow (2010) worked with reported that 
the police constantly profiled 
them because they
 were black and Muslim. Several studies about Muslim youth reported high rate
s of 
24  profiling and scrutiny from the police and national security agencies (Maira
, 2002; Sirin 
& Fine
, 2008). 
 Sirin and Fine (2008) conducted a large scale study using mixed meth
ods that sought to 
understand how the events of September 
11, 2001 and the ensuing national security policies 
affected first
- and second
-generation immigrant Muslim youth. In addition, this study sought to 
understand how these experiences further shaped an
 emerging Muslim identity in United States. 
The autho

ed that the so-called War on Terror and
 the Patriotic Act
 encourages
 an Islamophobic discourse that subjects Muslim youth to discrimination in public spaces, 
including educational instit
utions. For instance, 60% of the Muslim youth in this study reported 
that schools were the places where they felt the most discrimination. Sirin and Fine emphasized 
an increase in anti
-Muslim sentiments following the years after
 September
 11, 2001. For 
instance
, 
9/11, nearly 60 percent now favor racial profiling 
as long as it was directed at Arabs and 

 (Maira
, cited in Sirin 
& Fine
, 2008 p. 2). One implication is the racialization of 
religion, where various ethnic groups from different lands of origin are lumped together so 
that they c
an be monitored. Drawing from Su⁄rez
-
, Sirin and Fine (2008) highlight
ed the various ways these 

moral exclusion
(italics added) 
that caused social and psychological challenges
 (p. 2)
. On the other hand, Muslim youth were 
also subjected to scrutiny by their 
parents and community members (
Sirin 
& Fine
, 2008; Zine,
 2012). De Voe (2002) argued that Somali parents in Britain used Islam to define
, and to some 
extent regulate
, the range of activities 
in which 
(2012)
 ethnographic work among Muslim girls of Somali, Pakis
tani, and Arab descent
 in a 25  gender
-segregated Islamic school in Toronto showed that Muslim girls faced challenges as they 




p. 232). In addition, Sarroub (2005) 
reported similar findings about a group of Yemeni
-American high school girls in an Arab 
enclave community in Dearborn, Mic
higan. Meanwhile, Muslim girls often used this double 
oppression to their advantage by invoking religious values in school to resist teachers and 
invoking secular values at home to resist parents (Keaton
, 2006; Sarroub
, 2001
; 2005).  
However, from Muslim p

s, everyday cultural practices within schools were of 
concern, especially as their children reached high school (Haw
, 1998). These issues manifested 
themselves in physical education, swimming, sex education, and provision
s for halal scho
ol lunches (Azmi, 2001;
 Collet, 2007; Griffith 
& Haw, 1996
; Haw
, 1998).  
s were
 ones that were
 rooted in 
ambivalence. On one hand, they valued the education offered by 
Western institutions and 
perceived it as a 
mecha
nism for social mobility. O
n the other hand, they were vigilant about its 
secular effect on their children (Collet
, 2007). 
The literature about second
-generation Muslim 
youth in the US and Canada highlighted the constant sanctioning gaze from parents 
and other 
community members. For Somali youth, the community gaze not only sanctioned their behaviors 
but also racialized them (Bigelow
, 2010) when youth adopted the local style of dress and speech 
(Forman
, 2001; Ibrahim
, 1999; LeetOtley
, 2012; Shepard
, 2008). This suggests that in urban 
context
s, Somali parents and elders in the community equate black racial identity with 
performative hip
-hop identity, which the youth appropriated in school and in the neighborhood. 
For instance, a common worry among Somali
 parents and elders was Somali boys sagging their 
26  pants (Bigelow
, 2010; LeetOtley
, 2012; Shepard, 2008). The implication here is 
that they align
 black identity with 
the behaviors and attitudes of poor
, working
-class
, African
-American
, youth 
subcult
ure (see
 also Rong 
& Brown
, 2002; Rong 
& Fitchett
, 2008; Waters
, 1994). And
, Somali 
parents and elders, like other immigrants, tend to distance themselves from poor indigenous 
blacks in their neighborhoods. However, 
the 

the racialization of childr
en has
 also 
been observed among European Americans.  
  In 
one
 phenomenological study, Thandeka (1999) demonstrated the role of parents in 
the racialization of children. Sh
e argues
 that European Americans are socialized to become white 
from
 a young age by t
heir parent
s and caregivers.
  She explained:
   [T]he 

core sense of self before and after its identity is defined as white. Before the white 
identity is established, this core sense of self is not white. Its personal racial id
entity is, 
in effect, nonexistent because the socialization process has not yet been undertaken by 
its white community of caretakers, 
legislators, and police officers. . . . 
(p. 85)
. The author explain
ed the historical processes connecting racism to classi
sm at different historical 
eras in America. Through the concept of white shame
, she explain
ed how the 
upper
-class 
manipulated workers of European descent into believing that becoming white led to economic 
gains. Instead of
 offering
 fair wages and improving
 work conditions, the elites assuaged white 

, giving whites 
preferential treatment in public spaces. This, Thandeka
 argue
d, halted any class solidarity among 
workers of different races
 and solidified the role of race as a social construct in America. 
 However, Thandeka
 explain
ed that becoming white required European immigrant
s to let 
go of their peasant ways of life and become highly regulated industrial workers. This meant that 
27  the Eur
opean immigrant
s had to distance themselves from their cultural and language 
backgrounds, which were deemed backward by their employers, often causing them to be 
ashamed of who they were. Yet, the biggest loss that European Americans suffered as a res
ult o
f becoming white, explain
ed 
 suppression of 
the self
 alienated 
these 
individuals from their natural human tendency to relate to others in their 

were
 based on individual expe
riential accounts of childhood 
moments by which individuals became accult
urated as whites. The study dr
ew from interviews 
with ordinary European American
s as well as from the writings of famous ones. A common 
theme 
was childhood 
memories
 in which individuals recalled not being allowed 
by a parent or a 
caregiver 
to invite or play with a
n African
-American
 friend. In these accounts, the individuals 

commu
nities if they continue
d their association with their black friends. In this view, a major 
aspect of white shame was distancing oneself from African
-Americans. A similar phenomenon 
was observed among current immigrants including black immigrants such as We
st Indians 
(Waters
, 1994), Ethiopians (Sorenson
, 1991), and Somali
s (Bigelow
, 2010), despite the fact that 
these immigrant groups are identified as black by the larger society because of their skin color.   
 This suggests that
, once in America
, immigrants 
realize the role of race and the 
importance of racial identity as it pertains to social hierarchy. In this way, association with 
African American
, blackness is 
a function of economic disadvantage
, which the newly 
immigrated avo
id at any cost. This is diffe
rent but similar
 to the white shame invoked by white 
parents and caregivers on their youngsters. 
Devoid of whiteness, the new b
lack immigrants 
instead invoked their ethnicity
 to differentiate
 them
selves
 from African Americans (Rong 
& Fitchett
, 2008; Rong 
& Preissle
, 2009; Waters
, 1994), whereas European Americans had to shun 
28  their ethnicity in order to become whi
te. Since 
the new 
black immigrants cannot
 identify as white 
because of their skin color, ethnicity and ethnic pride 
is heightened 
instead
. Hence, w
hen Somali 
youth demonstrate 
signs 
of associations with 
African American 
youth subculture, their parents 
shame them for identifying with bla
ckness. Also, in the literature
 Somali parents and elders 
associated 
African American 
blackness with not being 
Muslim (Bigelow
, 2010; Shepard
, 2008). 
Because of this, some Somali youth resisted 
African American 
racial identity, despite the fact 
that they 
adopted b
l
dress and speech style
 associated with hip
-hop music
. Regardless
 of whether 
Somali youth embrace or resist 
African American 
identity, they 
are reconfiguring what it means to be black, Muslim
, and immigrant
. They do this by challenging 

, 2010). 
 
a religious minority in schools are further complicated by 
their racial position. While the above
 studies propose
 that Somali youth were racialized by the 
elders in their community as well as 
the institutions of the host country, 
no studies have 
investigat
ed how these two factors interact in racializing Somali youth. This research will 
address that gap. Next, I will explore the role race plays in the context in which ed
ucation of 
Somali students take
 place. 
 Role of race.
  Race is essential in understanding how schools are structured, how they 
are operated, 
and
 how they subsequently impact educational outcomes for children of color 
(Delpit
, 1996; Ladson
-Billings
, 2005; Valenzuela
, 1999). M
ore importantly
, race and race 
relat
ions play an important role in discourse surrounding (national) identity (Lee
, 2005; Valenzuela
, 1999), normativity, and power (Ca
stagno
, 2008). Immigrant youth and their families 
arrive in the 
US with little understanding of how race and racial relations play out. The 
understanding that the 
US is the land of equal opportunity as long as one is willing to work hard 
29  quickly fades as parents learn that race is where ideas of meritocracy and social mo
bility 
confront the realities of poverty and oppression. Somali youth, like other immigrant groups, 

schools and peers (Bigelow, 2010; Forman
, 2001; Ibrahim
, 1999; Shepard
, 2008). Adults in the 
Somali community are reported to resist racialized identities (
Bigelow
, 2010; 
Kusow, 2006). 
According to Bigelow
, adults in the Somali community often define
d their Somali identity based 
on nationality, ethnicity
, and 
religion, rather than race. The tendency to refute conceptualization
s of race as 
a social categorization 
was common among immigrants who did not experience racial 
oppression in their homelands (Kusow
, 2006; Langellier
, 2010). This is because, even though t
he 
concept of race is 
a familiar and salient one in Africa
 due to the trauma
 of colonialism, not 
everyone
 experience
s racial discrimination in post
-colonial Africa to the same degree as in 
the US contex
t. Meanwhile, 
regarding racial identity among immigran
ts, one explanation offered 
in the literature 

nature of identity embraced by immigrants, but also whether or not the immigrant occupied a 
minority or majority status in the
ir homeland and moreover, how such status interact with those 

& Kusow, 2007, p. 91).  Similarly, other black immigrants such as Ethiopians (Sorenson
, 1991) and West Indians 
(Waters
, 1994) 
have shown
 similar tendencies of espousing an ethnic identity while distancing 
themselves from a black racial identity. Aj
rouch and Kusow (2007) explain
ed that an immigrant 

is curbed by encountering the realit
y of 
governmental institutions that do
 not meet the social and economic needs of a singular ethnicity
, but rather categorized all peoples of African heritage together (see also Sorensen
, 1991).  
Meanwhile, Kibria (1993) remind
ed us that what
 is more import
ant 
is how racial and religious 
30  identification tend
ed to change over time and with subsequent generations. In this regard, 
contrary to their parents and other adults in their communi
ty, Somali youth often redefine and 
negotiate what it means
 to be a Muslim
 Somali youth in school by appropriating and identifying 
with the cultural expression of African Americans (Bigelow
, 2010; Forman
, 2001; Ibrahim
, 1999).  
 For Somalis, the choice of whether to assume a ra
cial or ethnic identity depends
 on the length of res
idency in the 
US. For instance, both Langellier 
(2010) and Bigelow (2010) show
ed that first
-generation Somali youth immigrants 
are 
more likely to adopt an ethnic identity rather 
than a racial one, compared to 
second
-generation Somali 
groups. Similar observ
ations have
 been 
made among other immigrant youth groups (
Ngo
, 2010; Lee
, 2007; Rogen 
& Brown
, 2002; Valenzuela
, 1999). Fassin (2011) 
explain
ed that racialization is embodied
. It 
is a process that is 
accumulated through bodily experiences of being discrimi

(see also Alcoff
, 2006). In this view, 
first
-generation immigrant youth have less experience of 
persistent racialization.  Another explanation offered by sociologist
s is that 
first
-generation 
immigrant and refugee youth have often experienced physical and psychological trauma prior to 
arrival in the 
US and have
 a dual frame of reference
 (Suarez
-Orozco & Suarez
-Orozco, 2001, 
p. 87) 
compared to 
second
-generation 
youth 
who lack such f
rame of reference and want to be 
treated similar to other native
-born students (
see also 
Portes 
& Rumbaut
, 2001; Portez 
& Zhou
, 1993).  
 Research shows that 
a high quality teacher
-student relationship promotes student 

& McCartney
, 2007). Yet, Bigelow (2008) relay
ed that the Somali high 
school students she interviewed reported that their teachers portrayed them as trouble
makers
 and 
were often quick in referring them to the principal for disciplinary problems
all because of their 
31  race. T
his further problematized school success among Somali students. The literature reviewed 
here indicates that many first
-generation immigrants may resist racial identity despite the fact 
that they encounter and are subjected to discriminatory racial relation
s. However, Somali, like 
other black immigrants and refugee youth, quickly learn and recognize the reality of race 
relations through daily interactions with racial discourses at school, 
throughout 
their communities, and in the wider society. And
, although 
adopting the local youth subculture of 
indigenous black youth may temporarily temper the impact of marginalization, Somali youth are 
discriminated against not only because of their race but also because of their religion and 
ethnicity. They are often under
 the suspicious gaze of 
a society that sees them as homegrown 
terrorist
s and 
a potential threat
 to national security. Conversely, they are also subjected to the 
sanctioning watch of the elders in their community who see them as confused and over
-Americaniz
ed (Bigelow
, 2010). In this regard, Somali youth embody the experience of multiple 
and intersecting modes of marginalization.  
 Conclusion
.  This review illustrates the complex contexts in which the education of 
Somali immigrant and refugee students takes 
place
, despite
 the fact that many of the earlier 
studies 
that inform this review are drawn from the broader immigrant and refugee literature
. The 
few studies about Somalis demonstrated the ways in which paradigms of class, race, race 
relations, and religio
n play compounded roles in shaping the educational experience of Somali 
immigrant and refugee children. Yet
, the works that are reviewed here, with the exception of 

, 2010) research, ignore
d the intersection of race and religion. Thus, this 
study 
will fill the gap in addressing the need to examine the effect
s of race and religion in the 
education of Somali youth in 
a post 9/11 context. As both the works of Bigelow (2008
, 2010) and Kusow (2006) highlight
ed, Somalis embody the unique experience
 of being black, Muslim, 
32  and immigrant. Hence, research about Somalis demands 
a re-examination of 
the social positions 
created by the juncture of race, race relation
s, religion, gender, and immigrant status
, and the 
impact 
that these element
s have on the e
ducation of Somali immigrant and refugee youth. 
   !33  Theoretical Frameworks
    In this study, I investigate ways in which 
Somali immigrant and refugee high school 
students have experienced 
the racialization process. In the following, I explor
e and review 
theories of identity representation and construction that are used to support current educational 
practices and discourses. I take two steps in achieving this. First, I draw from the works of post
-structural and postmodern theorists to examine 
how subjects are socially positioned. Second, I 
examine the construction and representation of socially ascribed identities
, such as race and 
racialized identities
, as well as frameworks that highlight the processes by which socially 
ascribed identities be
come embodied. 
 As I elaborated 
upon in Chapter 1
, research about Somali youth suggests that they are 
racialized by both school institutions and by the elders in their own communities (Bigelow
, 2010). Similarly, other studies show that Somali youth are mar
ginalized in schools because of 
their race (
Bigelow
, 2008; 
Ibrahim
, 1998; Forman
, 2001) and religion (Bigelow
, 2010). 
Racialized identities are important in understanding Somali youth experiences in school and the 
kinds of identities they negotiate in scho
ol spaces. Hence, the question becomes why socially 
ascribed identities that are based on race and religion become important. In other words, why do 
we need to name and theorize 
what Marleau
-Ponty (1968) called 
the 
flesh of the world

138-139), or 
in other words, 
why do we need to theoriz
e our way of being in the world?
 This is 
relevant because
, as I will elaborate later in this section, social
ly ascribed identities not only 
position us in relation 
to others, but they also constitute our 
existence 
in the world and our 
everyday experience of the world and ourselves. This is important in relation to the Somali 
experience in the 
US because 
US 
a term 
that Somalis might resist. One reason
 for 
this
 coul
d be that Somali social categories are
 34  based on
 a clan system. 
This brings us back
 to Merleau
-
 as an 


(pp. 139140). Hence
, we can understand that the concept of flesh, in this case, is more 
concerned
, not with the facticity or existence of racial categories, but the lived experiences of 
race that is linked to the current social location of Somali experience 
(i.e., in the U.S
) and not to 
that of Somalia. This is an important distinction between the experiences of Somali immigrants 
and refugee youth and that of their parents, a point that will be elaborated later in this section. 
 The ubiquitous nature and impact of race in 
everyday life are manifested in macro
- and 
micro
-interactions between people and institutions as well as among people; they also produce 
domains where race is perceived at the preconscious level (Alcoff
, 2006) and where racial 
knowledge is tacitly accumula
ted within the body (Fassin
, 2011). Based on this understanding of 
race and racial relation, I next explore the process of racialization that results from social 
conditions and experiences (Fassin
, 2011) among Somali youth in 
US public schools. I do this b
y first explicating how racialization works through socially ascribed identities where identities are 
constituted and power relations are taken up. This approach highlights the social conditions in 
which racialization takes place and by which racial identi
ties are assigned. Next, I consider how 
racialization becomes embodied through intersubjective interaction with the world, where 
the experience of being racialized accumulates over time in the bodies of subjects. Finally, I propose 
how these embodied exper
iences impact the ways in which Somali youth interpret and 
understand their schooling experiences.
   35  Race and 
racialize
d identities
.  In the normative mind, the concept of race is closely 
linked with phenotypic differences (Edles,
 cited in Joshi
, 2006), yet race as an idea has no 
biological basis
, according t
o these authors
. Omi and Winant (1994) coined the term 
racial formation
 
-historical process by which racial categories are created, 

(p. 55). These authors emphasize
d 

p. 55).  
They ex
plained 
by refe

p. 55). According to this view, the creation of 
racial categories 
is historically coupled with the development of 
racial
, and cultural and 
hegemony that propagated other forms of differences, inequalities, and opp
ression (Omi 
& Winant
, 1994).  
 Contemporary race theory surpasses the essentialist and nominalist understanding of the 
concept
 of race
. In other words, race is not fixed, concrete, or objective (Omi 
& Winant
, 1994), 
with members of racial groups sharing a
 common interest and historical fate (Alcoff
, 2006). In 
this regard, race is neither an illusion nor a mere ideological construct that could be eradicated by 
anti
-racist social project
s (Alcoff
, 2006; Omi & Winant
, 1994). The concept of race can instead 
best be understood through the notion of 
contextualism
 (Alcoff
, 2006). This view emphasizes the 
decentered nature of the complex social meanings that are continuously altered by political 
struggle. In addition, it also acknowledges the fact that race is not 
only a socially constructed 
phenomenon, it is also cultural representation, or
 as Alcoff explain
ed, 

p. 182). While race 
may have no biological reality, it most definitely has a lived reality with real social 
36  consequences. This conception of race leads us to examine how 
it works both in social and in 
cultural spaces and the implications that follow as it per

   The 
ascription of 
racialized 
identities
.  The process of racialization starts with 
ascription of a social classification based on 
the concept of race, which is rooted in early 
modernism, or what Foucault (as cited in Alcof
f, 2006) referred to as the classical episteme. 
According to Foucault (1995), during the early modern era knowledge was understood mainly 
through classification, 
which is the 
ordering and forming of tables based on essential difference. 
Arguing via Fouc
aul
t, Cornell West (1982) argue
d that the current understanding of race 
was mainly influenced by the utilization of classifications and orderings based on hierarchies that 
were common 
in the study of natural history. This classification depended on comparative 
physical differences that were carried over to differentiate people in terms of identity and 
differences, equality and inequality, 
and 
beauty and ugliness (see also Alcoff
, 2006). H
ence
, these new practices not only produced new forms of knowledge but also new forms of power. 
For instance, modern conception
s 

, p. 180). However, 
it could be argued that social 
identities function only for the purpose of description and recognition and 
are
 divorced from any 
hierarchal imposition (Fassin
, 2011).  Considering the social and historical legacies of how racial 
ascription has been used to
 oppress and colonize certain groups of people, we can see that 
the 
(Fassin
, 2011, p. 423) and far from a mere identification mechanism. 
 Ascription, or the 
assigning of social identities such as race, starts with the act of naming 
or labeling a difference. It develops into a cognitive representation that is coupled with a power 
exertion (Wortham
, 2006). However, the very notion of labeling demonstrates power 
and 
37  
ial sciences, 
in which he show
ed that the practice of classifying people into categories not only created social 
identification that became embedded within bureaucratic 
cognition, but also placed individuals in 
subject positions where power is exercised and behaviors regulated. In this way, people act in 
conformity with the labels put upo
n them. The expectation produces
 
conception of power, one is
 defined through 
a web of influences, where power is produced and 
circulated among subjects. Foucault 
explain
ed this concept
:   The individual is no doubt the fictitious atom of 
an
 representation of society; 
but he is also a reality fabricated
 by this specific technology of power that I have called 

terms: it 


fact, power
 produces, it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of 
truth. The individual and knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production
. (p. 194)  According to Foucault
, any act of classifying involves both knowledge and power at the same 
time. 
The practices of categorizing and naming individuals place
s them in subject positions that 
are laden with new meanings
, which further determine
s how they engage and are engaged wit
hin power relation dynamics. Thus, ascription of social identities places individuals in subject 
positions that influence how they and others attend to the social positions they occupy. 
 Furthermore, ascription is also closely linked with the act of recogn
ition in a dialectic 
manner. In his essay, 
Ideological State Apparatus,
 Louis Althusser (1971) use
d the term 

subject position through ideology. This view of th
e subject, which is contrary to the Cartesian 
38  subject, calls for a subject that is deeply embedded and connected to the discursive and social 
structure. Althusser 
argue
d 
subject into a su
bject position, and
, hence,
 into
 a certain of way of acting and thinking about 

the ideological apparatus 
that is recruiting it that a subject comes into bein
g and takes on
 its 
identity.  
 Stuart Hall (1997) dr
ew from 

 concept of interpellation to explain how 
identities are constructed and implicated by discursive social structures
:  I 
 to refer to the meeting point, the point of 
suture
, between
, on 
the one 
hand
, 

, speak to us or hail us 
into place as the social subjects of particular discourses
 [sic]
, and on the other hand, the 
processes which produce subjectivities, which 
construct us as subjects
, which can be 

. Identities are thus points of temporary attachment to the subject positions
, which discur
sive practices construct for us
. They are the result of succe
ssful 

 of the subject into the 
flow of the discourse
. (p. 19)  The racialized identities of Somali youth speaks to this temporary a
ttachment, or points of suture 
(as Hall put it
)
historical
ly situated ideo
logical process
 in which specific social practices or groups are 
categorized or assigned to racial meanings. Here
, the assigning of racial meanings equates the 

, p. 19) of being black and Muslim in the post
-9/11 context. This chaining has implications for the 
body. This is because r
acialization is constructed through social ascription that imposes 
difference on others (Fassin
, 2011). These differences are not mere dif
ference
s in phenotype 
39  such as
 skin color, but they are differences that integrate phenotyp
ic dissimilarity i
nto social 
characteristics. For instance, being characterized as racially other in the 
US context means that 
one is treated in certain ways, and 
that certain things are expected of them. These outcomes have 
structural i
mplications for the individual. F
or example,
 they have meant and still mean, to a 
degree, inequity in accessing education, jobs, healthcare, 
or 
residential areas (
Alcoff
, 2006; Fassi
n, 2011; Omi 
& Winant, 1994).  Secon
dly, racialization is fluid 
not fixed, such that the 

often demands that black subjects be aware of their own otherness. Thus,
 racialization is an 
unnatural process that only becomes naturalized through experience. Ascription of racial 


, 2011, p. 
422).  
 Moreover, Fanon (1967) remind
ed us that the consciousness of black and other colonized 
people is dominated by awareness of their own bodies being objectified in social settings. Fanon 
explain
ed this
:  I came into the world imbued with the wil
l to find meaning in things, my spirit filled with 
the desire to attain to the source of the world, and then I found that I was an object in the 
midst of other objects
. . . . The real world challenged my claims. In the white world the 
man of color encounte
rs difficulties in the development of his bodily schema. 
Consciousness . . . 
assailed at various points, the corporeal schema crumbled, its place 
taken by a racial epidermal schema (Fanon
, 1967, as cited in Alcoff
, p. 107)
. Due to the visible nature of 
religious and racial identity among Somalis, the body then becomes 
the site of racial experience (Alcoff
, 2006; Fassin
, 2011). Emphasizing the role of the body in the 
racialization process, Fassin
 assert
ed 
perienced, 
40  
p. 428). In a 
race
-conscious society like the 
US, Alcoff
 argue
d that race is embedded in the consciousness of Americans. Therefore, other social identities, such 
as class and nationality, can be eventu
ally elimin
ated. She highlight
ed how, despite the fact that 
both class and national identities are also embodied, their relationship to the body is less salient 
compared to race and gender. Because both class and nationality demonstrate themselves as 
behavioral and c
an 
be changed, the embodiment experience also changes, whereas race and 
gender are more closely related to the body (Alcoff
, 2006). 
 Does this mean, then, that our understanding of the world depends on our race and 
gender? I would argue that it also depend
s on a whole other list of social positions such as class, 
ethnicity, religion, immigrant status, among others. These questions are the driving force behind 
Merleau
-
flections, in which he theorize
d 
thin
k, but 
-Ponty, 
2004
, as cited in Fassin
, 2011, 
p. 28). He further 
add
ed 

-Ponty, 
2004, as cited in Fassin
, 2011, p. 28). In this view, the world not only acquires a meaning, but comes to existence through the 
body; in other words
, 

, 2011, p. 28). This 
indicates that the bodily experience of the world, in this case racialization, is intersubje
ctive
, such that the effect of racialization becomes an embodied one. Hence, race and gender continue 
to be the identities that are most heavily policed and this is due to their embodied and visible 
nature. Next, I draw on Merleau
-Ponty

 to explain this phenomenon.
 Chiasm
. Merleau
-Ponty (1968) used the concept of chiasm to conceptualize the body as 
a crossing over that unites subjective experience and objective existence (Baldwin
, 2004). The 
41  notion of chiasm is relevant in understanding th
e relation between the body and the world. 
The 
subjective
-intersubjective experiencing of the world means that the outside world is united with 
the inside and that the two are
, therefore
, inseparable; one is interwo
ven or enveloped into the 
other and neith
er is reduced to the other. Explicating the role of the body in experience in 
Merleau
-
rist Couze Venn (2009) suggest
ed that the chiasm allows 
for an experience that is not only dynamic and constitutive of the world
-body relat
ion, but is also 

p. 17), such that the world is known through 
a bodily experience of it and not through raw data or given facts. In this view, the world is 
understood through the concepts 
of dwelling and of
 emplacement
 (Merleau
-Ponty
, cited in 
Venn
, p. 18), where experience becomes the lived field that we cannot separate from, thus 
leading to what Merleau
-Ponty 
call
ed the flesh

 of the world, which encapsulates the 
sphere of being. For Merleau
-Pon
ty,
 to be seen by the outside to exist within it, to emigrate into 
it, to be seduced, captivated, alienated by the phantom, so that the seer and the visible reciprocate 
one another and we no longer know which sees and which is seen
 (Merleau
-Ponty
, 1968, p. 139). This suggests that both the body and the world fold up into layers as they encapsulate each 
other. The body is among objects in the world, while at the same time it is the subject that 
recognizes and feels the objects acting on it, hence
, bringing
 the body into being. 
 The concept of the world
-body relation is further elucidated by the example of two hands 
touching, both exerting touch on the other. This, according to Merleau
-Ponty, shows that the 
body has two dimensions; it is both an experience, 
which is felt, and something that can be 
touched. Hence, it is 
touching as well as 
tangible
. However, these two dimensions are also 
reversible: the touched hand can also be the felt hand, and the opposite is also true, but not at the 
42  same time. This view c
onstitutes Merleau
-
flesh
, which is a 
way of being in the world (Baldwin
, 2004).
 Merleau
-


-Ponty
, 1968, p. 139). Here Merleau
-Ponty was extending the idea of flesh to the sphere of the transcendent that is detached from 

Merleau
-Ponty suggests that the flesh is then s

-yet
-immanent, relating to the reflexivity that sentiment beings experience, a reflexivity that, in 

-Ponty cited in 
Venn 18). This sug
gests that the 
flesh
 of the world, in this case experience, is then open to 
consciousness, time and to the ramifications that follow. In other words, we carry the world in 
our bodies in the form of experience as we move through time. For the black body, fl
esh is 
racialized, which then impacts our fundamental being
-in- the-world. This is so because; race is 
not an add
-on but is integral to the body and therefore being. 
 However, an important aspect of the notion of chiasm (or the interior
-exterior nature of 
the world
-body relationship)
, which was not developed in Merleau
-
, 1968) work is 
how it can be used to construct specific identities. 
The concept of 
a subjective
-intersubjective 
experiencing of the world influences identity both at the individ
ual and the group level. What is 
pertinent here is the question raised in terms of the relation 
among 
perception
, the social, the 

identity as an interpretive ho
rizon in order to explore other aspects of identity such as that of 
embodiment and the relation to the other. Because A

t with racialized and gendered identities, there is a need to extend this to subjectivities emerging from 
43  other forms of racialized identities, where issues of race and gender are further complicated by 
the experience of religious discrimination or the racialization of religion. 
 Identity as 
horizon
. The 
horizon

, is 
open and 
changing, unbounded and influenced by traditions (Gadamer
, 2003; see also Alcoff
, 2006). An 
important 
concept of horizon as an interpretive tool for identity work is to be found in the 
theorization of identity by Alcoff (2006). 
She 
derived the con

work, linking the notion of vision to that of cultural tradition and 
historical change. She 
explain
ed the concept
:  the horizon is a substantive perspective location from which the interpreter looks out at 
the world, a perspe
ctive that is always present but that is open and dynamic, with a 
temporal as well as physical dimension, moving into the future and into new spaces as the 
subject moves.
 . . . [T]
he concept of horizon helps to capture the background, framing 
assumptions w
e bring with us to perception and understanding, the congealed experiences 
that become premises by which we strive to make sense of the world, the range of 
concepts and categories of description that we have at our disposal. It is thus useful in 
elucidatin
g cultural, or group related, and personal differences that affect interpretation
. (Alcoff
, pp. 9596)
 Hence, according to Alcoff, the concept of horizon is not only a mechanism for seeing but also 
the conditions in which vision takes place. These conditio
ns are situational
 as well as temporal 
because of the unbounded nature of human history.  
 Gadamer explain
ed 
(p. 304). Yet, the process in which we access our vision is far from objective b
ecause it is 
influenced by our relationship with the past or traditions (Gadamer
, 2003, a
s cited in Alcoff
, 44  2006). Gadamer further 
elucidated
 the horizon of the past, out of which all human life lives and 
which exists in the form of tradition, is always 
in motion. The surrounding horizon is not set in 
motion by historical consciousness. But in it this motion becomes aware of itself (Gadamer
, 2003, p. 304). Despite the fact that our interpretive horizons are impacted by traditions which we 
share with other
s, they are subjective and limited, which makes their epistemic benefit 
contingent on the questions under investigation (Alcoff
, 2006). 
 For instance, if we consider the experiences of Somali immigrants and refugees in 
various public spheres
, such as in ed
ucational institutions and in the labor market
 in the post
-9/11 era
, it 
seems
 that interpretive horizons are at play, which also highlights the openness of horizons 
to social and historical elements. For instance, as anti
-immigrant and anti
-Muslim sentimen
ts intensify 
in the 
US and other Western societies, new interest in public discourse about Islam is 
taking place in the media in states like Minnesota, Ohio, and
, more recently
, Nebraska, among 
others
, that continue to receive many S
omali refugees and immi
grants. In these cases, t
he media 
has focused on high
-publicity cases such as labor rights disputes 
involving airport and meat 
packaging plant workers wishing for breaks that align with prayer times during the work day 
(Woldemikeal
, as cited in Bigelow
, 2010).  Instead of the commonly accepted discourse that highlights different cultures clashing, 
which is the focus of 
many of these media stories, 
this issue requires 
an approach with higher 
explanatory power that considers the open nature of horizon, where tradition not only moves 
through horizon but also becomes aware of itself as it is challenged and dislocated. This is so 
because no horizon is completely closed or 
incapable 
of movement (Alcoff
, 2006). Gadamer
 explain
ed 
with both the present and the past. This is evident in the constant motion of human life, which is 
45  
 
, 2003, p. 304). In certain cases, changing social location or having a new set of experiences, 
either through physical dislocation or practice, enables us to gain respect and un
derstand 
different ways of life (Alcoff
, 2006). In this view, Somali experience is one of gradual 
awakening to the horizon
, 
work that will likely follow 
suit.
   Hence, the emergence of Somali group identity speaks to 
more than an understanding or 
a respect for a different way of life
. It
 draws on the idea of acquiring new experiences through 
dislocation as a way of stressing the unbounded nature of horizon and the impact that openness 
has on traditions. How do visible 
identities, flesh
, and horizon come together to help us 
understand the collective Somali 
experiences?
 The body is the site
 where visible identities, flesh
, and the horizon merge to make meaning. In other words, identity markers such as race, gender
, and re
ligion mea
n something when they impact 
our being in the world, where we turn to our 
previous experiences and tradition to understand meanings associated with social categories. For 
Somali immigrant and refugee experiences, sometimes the horizon is incomple
te in providing 
understanding of newly imposed identities. This is particularly true with race and religion in 
the US context. This is why the role of experience is crucial, because it is through experiences of 
racialization that the horizon needed not onl
y for interpreting experiences of racialization is 
acquired, but 
where it 
also becomes an embodied one. 
This would result in a situation where
 Somalis
, like African
-Americans
, can
 use race as an empowerment.  
 Before I proceed to expand the notion of horiz
on as a lens for identity interpretation and 
formation, I briefly explore the role of experience (embodiment) in the concept of horizon as an 
interpretive lens for racialize
d identities. This is pertinent
 because it is through experience that 
46  the horizon i
s materialized. In other words, the very idea of horizon is an accumulation of our 
understanding of being in the world, i.e. experience.    
 Role of experience
. 
, 1969) historical and dialectical notion 
of experience emphasize
d 

Palmer
, pp.
 19495). In this 

 (p. 195); rather
, it is less technical and reflects more of the common usage of everyday meaning, 
that is,
 it is a 

Experience
 is cumulative understanding that one gains through i
nteracting with the world and 
with others, resulting in a non
-objectifiable knowledge through interaction with the world. These 
examples highlight that racial (Fassin
, 2011) and religious embodiment go beyond skin color or 
religious garments, but
, rather
, speak to the thickness of the body. 
 For instance, as was mentioned earlier, it is not the mere identification of difference 
(in this case based on race and the headscarf
), but rather it is the discursive social meanings and the 
locations these differences
 occupy that generate experience, whose accumulation overtime 
constitutes the thick
ness of what Fanon (1967) call
ed bodily schema. For instance, this could be 
elucidated further by examining the relationship between first
- and 
second
-generation Somali 
immigrant and refugee experience
s with racialization and the kinds of identity work 
in which they 
engage. An example is the difference between 
first
-generation and 
second
-generation 
Somalis in regard to racial identities. 
 
tudy show
ed that first
-generation Somali immigrants and 
refugees in Canada often choose an ethnic and national identity over a racial one, whereas 
Big

d that second
-generation Somali immigrant youth appropriate 
47  African
-American youth identity. Bigelow 
also point
ed out that Somali 
second
-generation youth 
are more open in reporting and recognizing experiences of discrimination, such as police racial 
profiling and other institutional discrimination
s, than 
first
-gene
ration youth. This suggests that 
the social conditions that these youth experience often influence the horizons from which they 
interpret their identities. As one study participant explained
, 

 (ci
tation). Thus, one can argue that
, unlike their parents and recently 
arrived 
first
-generation youth, 
second
-generation Somali youth have had accumulated bodily 
experiences of racialization because of their race and religion (Bigelow
, 2010).  
 Alcoff (2006)
, arguing through Fanon, emphasize
d that the position or the horizon from 

and self
-
assert
ed 
nd body 

(p. 108). Hence, every image and action, whether positive or negative, 
is passed on and used to 
represent everyone in the community. The implication here 
is that the heightened awareness will 
lead to all kinds of policing activities, both by the self and by the other, where embodiment is 
experienced differently and becomes doubly self
-conscious. The everyday experiences of Somali 
immigrants reflect such hei
ghtened awareness of their own presence in social space. An example 
of this is the discursive public responses surrounding the observing of the hijab, or the Muslim 
headscarf (Semple
, 2008).  However, this heightened awareness contributes to the process 
that 
creates
 social domains in which 
a racialized Somali identity emerges. This is pertinent to Omi 

of social and historical contexts that are bound by politica
l and economic macrostructures as well 
as by micro
-interactions resulting from everyday experiences. On the one hand, social domains 
48  
yet still operates on that d
omain(Alcoff
, p. 108).
 On the other hand, it is through the daily 
interactions that emerge from these domains, where race is perceived (Omi 
& Winant
, 1994) at 
the preconscious level (Alcoff
, 2006), and tacit knowledge of race is accumulated within the 
body (Fassin
, 2011), that leads to the emerging of racialized identities.  
 To emphasize further the importance of condition and experience in 
racialized 
identities, 
the different positions people ascribe to social identity depends on the emphasis they 
attach to 


, p. 
relation to consciousness or the core of the s
elf is seen as oppressive, then identity is perceived as 
oppressive. The opposite view is one that considers the relation between the self and socially 
ascribed identities, such as race and religion in the case of the Somalis, despite the fact that they 
were created in oppressive discourses, are not necessarily
 pathological (Alcoff
, 2006). It follows 
then that in certain contexts racialized
 identities can function as spaces where agency is created 
and exercised. In these situations, social identities can th
en be understood as mere ascription, 
without becoming crippling to the self (Alcoff
, 2006). So
, the question becomes: 
What 
causes
 social identities to become pathological or just mere ascriptions? 
 According to Alcoff, horizons are not created in a vacuum;
 rather, when individuals 
interpret their experience 
in the world, they engage in a meditative process, which is shaped by 
foreknowledge that is also historically, culturally
, and politically situated. Summarizing
 
conceptuali
zation of horizons, we
 can 
conclude that horizons are comprised of the self, the social 
position, and the object
 from a particular view that is interpreted from cultural, historical, and 
political stands. However, this understanding of horizon can be extended to a notion of hor
izon 
49  in which visible markers such as race and religious attire 
enter through the horizon of the other
, leading to 
an amalgamation of horizons. In this study
, a relevant question is what happens to 

together? The point is that our 
sense of self is mediated by the other. This really matters in a racist society that makes much of 
visible markers of identity. It matters because our lived experiences can teach us to h
ate 
ourselves.  
   !50  Conclusion
.  In summary, being identified as Somali 
does 
not merely 
mean that one 
carries 
visible identity markers such as race and religion, but also constitutes a social identity that 

stance, in the 
US context
 a visible and acknowledged Somali identity determines 

 everyday life, both 
outside and inside 
their ethnic communities. In the mainstream social context, being Somali 
carries certain discursive disadvantages. For example, 
school personnel and students impose 
racial
ized identities on Somali youth
 by labeling them as terrorist
s. While imposed racial and 
religious identities may have social consequences for Somali youth in public institutions, 
religious identity practices like
 observing the headscarf can lead to a more positive status within 
the Somali community (Bigelow
, 2010; Zine
, 2001
). However, whether social identities are 

experience
 in the world. As the working notes I presented above indicate, it is through the lived 
experience of everyday life that the effect of social identification is felt and lived upon. As these 
experiences accumulate over
 time, they become fundamental to the i
dentification and dis
-identification (Venn
, 2009) of Somali youth.  
 Now that I have examined postmodern and post
-structural frameworks of identification, 
experience, and embodiment as they pertain to racialized identities, in the following I refer to 
how these theoretical constructs support this study. But first 
allow 
me to revisit the assumptions 
made in this study 
so that I may
 investigate how Somali students experience racialization 
processes. 
First, 

school staff and their peers as well as how they position themselves.  
This positioning of Somali 
students from others and the self 
further impact
s their learning. In other words,
 
experiences in regard to their social positioning pertaining to race, 
as well as 
racial and religious 
51  relations in their schools
, provide the interpretive horizon (Alcoff
, 2006; Gadamer
, 2003) from 
which they not only interpret their ident
ities but also make sense and understand their s
chooling 
experiences. Hence, 
examining the processes involved in the embodiment of experiencing 
racialization based on race and religion
using post
-structuralist and postmodern lenses
will 
allow me to underst
and how Somali youth experience racialization. 
 Finally, given the importance of race, 
racial project, 
racism, and racialization in this 
investigation, 
next, I will
 briefly define
 these terms
. The notion of racialization is partially based 
on Omi and Winan


(1994) conceptualization because it acknowledges the fluid manner in which racial categories ar
e 

Winant, 1994, p. 55). While this 
definition 
emphasizes the role o
f phenotype in race as a 
necessary category for difference, what is more important here is the fact that the work of race is 
done through essentialism. Since the context of race in the United States constitutes both 
structural and cultural representation, 
the experience of race takes place through racial projects 

an interpretation, 
a representation of racial dynamics, an effort to reorganize and redistribute 
resour

71). The authors also argue that not all racial 

creates or reproduces structures of 
domination based on essentialist categories of race

nant, 1994, p. 71). This 
distinction is important because it helps differentiate between race and racism. Hence, a racial 
52  situation does not always equate with racial aggression, and the notions of race and racism are 
not interchangeable.
  !53  3. METHODOLOGY
   The methodologies that inform this study are rooted in the assumption that the processes 

-cultural context of 
their schools. 
If we want to understand how Somali student
s make sense 
of 
and interpret their 
position as students, we should pay attention to the power dynamics and relationships that shape 

influence
 Somali students
, I 
conducted
 a phenomenological study that employ
ed some 
ethnographic methods. The need to consider phenomenology as a methodological framework 
resulted from a pilot study I ha
d carried out
 in a public school in large urban district
. In the
 pilot 
study, ethno
graphic methodology was employed in order to understand how school culture 
shaped the experience of Somali youth. Howeve
r, during the 
data 
collection and interviewing 
process of the
 pilot study, it became clear to me that
, while structural elements 
were 
important in 
shaping environments in which experiences t
ook place, any attempt to understand the schooling 
experience ha
d to consider the lived experience of students. I became interested in how events as 
well as structures influence
d how social conditions
 were experienced at the individual level. In 

be varied 
and multiple. 
Hence, 
for this 
dissertation study, 
a phenomenological perspective became necessary in order to 
appreciate the percep
tion and the experiences of Somali youth in particular incidents, i.e. 
experience
s of racialization. 
 This dissertation 
study employ
ed a
 phenomenolo
gical approach
 as a primary method of 
inquiry in order to understand the individual experience of Somali stu
dents. A particular interest 
in this study 
was the experience of racialization among Somali high school students. Hence, 
phenomenology allow
ed 
were actually lived 
54  rather than as they 
were conceptualized (van 
Manen
, 2007). Furthermore, phenomenology as a 
method is committed to a deep understanding of certain aspect of existence in the context of 
particular social and historical life events (
p. 31). Van Manen 
explains
 phenomenology
 as 
the study of lived existen
tial meanings; it attempts to describe and interpret these meanings to a 
degree of depth and richness. . . 
.[P
henome
nology] attempts to explicate the meanings as we live 
them in our everyday existence, our lifeworld (
p. 11). Hence, phenomenology as a 
methodological lens 
was better suited to this study, as it s
ought 
to understand how racialization, 
as a process of othering, 
was lived, experienced, and embodied by Somali youth. 
 In this 
particular 
research context
, it 
was the lived existential meanings (
van 
Manen
, 2007) that these students g
ave voice to and dr
ew meaning from in understanding their world. 
While the existence of social structure
s augment
ed our understanding of the context in which the 
phenomenon of racialization of Somali youth 
occurred,
 the phenomenological aspect of this 
research 
was mainly
 

(Greenwalt 
& Holohan
, 2011, p.
 64) as it 
was lived by Somali high school students. For instance, 
Donald Polkinghorne (1989) argue
d that the distinction between phenomenology and other 
qualitative research 
could
 

p. 44).  This 
was an important 
point that I realized in the initial pilot study stage and which prompted me to consider 
phenomenology as a method of inquiry. 
 Phenomenology provid
es the platform in which experiences can be studied as a way of 
being 
(interpreting and existing) 
in the world.
 Meanwhile, one of the critiques of phenomenology 

study (Polkinghorne
, 1989). However
, phenomenology as a method canno
t be discounted 
55  
 
, as 
cited in Polkinghorne
, 1989, p. 45). In other words, it is through experience that we can learn all that is known about 

 conception of experience, van Manen asserted that the 

p. 36). It is through lived experience 
that the stream of life is connected to the consciousness, which weaves meaning between the 
inner (i
ndividual) and the outer (the world
) (van Manen
, 2007). In this view, through 
phenomenological research we s
eek
 to appreciate not only the experience under study, but its 
connection to the flow of life 
(i.e., living life and experiencing it in a stratified
 and racist 
society
). 
the world as we 
immediately experience it pre
-reflectively rather than as we conceptualize, categorize, or reflect 

, p. 9), then phenomenology attempts to re
port the experience as it actually 
happened to the person living it (Polkinghorne
, 1989; van Manen
, 2007). Thus, phenomenology 
as a research method aims to bring experience into 
the textual representation of its core, where 
experience is not only reflexive
 but is also brought to memory and re
-lived by the participant 
(van Manen
, p. 36). According to Polkinghorne
, this could be achieved through designing of the 

The 
interview protocol brings the participants to recall or to get as close as possible to the 
experience under investigation, even though as van Manen remind
ed us, all experiential accounts 
become transformed as they are recalled, reflected upon, or described
 during interview
s. This is because an experience is never captured at the moment it is happening
; it is always an act that is 
reflected upon. Therefore, we attempt to bring forth the meanings attached to the experience 
through phenomenological themes, whe
re experience is structured through language (van 
56  Manen
, 2007). Before exploring how phenomenological data is analyzed through themes, let me 
briefly describe the context in which this study t
ook
 place and how data w
as generated. 
   57  Context of the Study 
  The study t
ook place in 
Summit Academy (
pseudonym
), a K12 charter school in 
a large, 
Mid-western 
city of 823,000 residents. 
Somali students made up 90% of 
the 
student population. 
Most s
tudents came to 
Summit academy 
on a voluntar
y basis
; however, there we
re a number of 
students, who had been 
expelled from traditional public schools. 
School staff consisted of 
90% Caucasian
 individuals
 (mostly teaching staff
), and 
10% Arab
, Southeast Asian, and 
Somali 
individuals
. The school 
is located in an area of town 
inhabited by 
mostly Somali immigrants and 
refugees. This area also ha
d several small Somali businesses, such as restaurants, coffee shops, 
and small retail and 
convenience 
shops. In addition, 
there 
were two medical facilities
 which
 mainly 
served 
the Somali
 community, and
 were
 run
 mostly
 by Somali medical staff
, child
 care 
and 
adult daycare center
s, 
as well as several community centers and mosques. The rational
e for 
choosing this school 
is that I want
ed to understand how schooling experiences 
are 
linked with
 their community contexts. 
What 
were the experiences of Somali students in contexts where there 
was a Somali presence in and out of school? Also, if context influence
d whether Somali students 
were racialized in their schools and community, what d
id these processes look like
?  In order to, fully understand the phenomenon of racialization among Somali youth it was 
important to consider contexts both school and community. This resonates with Dahlberg and 

 
ritten descriptions might not be adequate to 
capture the phenomenon fully. Instead the search for the phenomenon may extend to a larger 
area, and, for example, a ward or classroom must be included in the study. This approach is 
commonly referred to as a pa
rticipant observation and fieldwork, a research method originally 

does not take away from the importance of the role of the participant in phenomenology.
 58  School context and dynamics.
  Summit Academy is one of two charter schools that 
serve a large Muslim refugee and immigrant community residing in this particular part of town. 

ral values. 
For this reason, the school functions and runs like an Islamic one, even though no classes are 
dedicated to religious studies as they commonly are in Islamic schools. Yet Summit Academy 
offers Arabic as a foreign language class for both middle 
and high school students. The school 
used to offer Spanish classes, but for budgetary reasons it could afford only one foreign 
language

Arabic important for accessing Isla
mic texts, that language was selected over Spanish as the 

instruction does not mean this school functions as an Islamic one. Rather, the everyday cultural 
and re

than a traditional, public school. For example, the school staff enforces the hijab, or headscarf, 

pamphlet. In addition, genders 
are segregated during school lunch. Students told me that they were not allowed to sit or 
socialize with the opposite sex during lunchtime, which was confirmed by my observations of 
lunch breaks.
 Summit Academy provides three
 lunch breaks, one for each grade level (i.e., elementary, 
middle, and high school). My observations of lunchtime proved valuable. During these lunch 
breaks, I connected and built a rapport with students. Over 9 weeks, I often sat and ate lunch 
with them. 
In my observations, I noticed that students sat and socialized according to grade level. 
Initially, the female students were welcoming and sometimes invited me to sit with them. This 
was especially true of the 11th
- and 12th
-grade students. Some days, howe
ver, these same female 
59  students ignored my presence and I had to ask for permission to sit with them. Nevertheless, they 
were often curious about my presence in their school, asking questions about topics ranging from 
my marital status to my research and w

experiences. These conversations proved invaluable and helped me gain the trust of these young 
women.
   I did not have similar success with the male students. Although these male students 
granted me p
ermission to sit at their table whenever I asked, I felt that my presence was not 
welcome
d. For example, if the male students were having an engaging conversation and 
laughing, as soon as I joined them all conversation ceased and complete silence ensued. U
nlike 
with most of the female students, very few of the male students showed much interest in either 
my work or my presence in their school. This was particularly true for the older male students in 
the 11th and 12th grades whom I attempted to recruit for 
my study. Many of these students 
seemed shy around me. Initially, this dynamic surprised me, since I had not had any trouble 
building rapport with Somali boys of similar demographics in previous research experiences. As 
I spent more time in the school and 


my actions, such as eating lunch with the students and interacting with them as equals, 
contradicted t
he practices and actions of adults and other authority figures in the school. 
Teachers and other adults in the school did not socialize or interact with students during lunch 
time. 
While gender relat
ions as well as teacher
-student relations provide glimpse
s of the contexts 
in which students narrated their stories
, which aided me in better understanding student accounts. 
However, i

social context, phenomenological research 
is more concerned with the phenomenon under study. 
60  And since, this dissertation draws from post
-modern understanding of the subject
, hence 
one can 
argue that both the subject and their social context can be known through their experiences. 
I elaborate on this point next. 
 Addressing the role of the participant in phenomenological research.
 Phenomenology 
emphasizes lived experience. This experience not only provides an opportunity to understand the 
studied phenomenon, it also offers a glimpse 
of the identity of the participant narrating the 
experience. In addition, because phenomenology is concerned mainly with capturing the 
experience, arguably the narrator becomes the experience at the moment of narration, as it is 
narrated. In other words, t
he reader comes to know the narrator through the narrative of his or 
her experiences. Thus, in phenomenology the participant has the opportunity to convey what is 
important to him or her, rather than having labels assigned to him or her. For this reason, i
nstead 
of describing the student participants according to 
norms of social sciences
, I allowed the 

both the postmodern and post
-positivist understandings of the s
ubject in motion. In this 
phenomenological research, I am therefore more interested in the lived experiences of the 
subjects than in a formalistic view of the participants that labels them as an immigrant, a refugee, 
Black, 
Muslim, 
etc. As I explained earl
ier in 
summary of methods section (Chapter 1)
, social 
categories never fully depict people; They often cover as much as they reveal. 
 Data Collection 
 Dahlberg, 
et al.,
 (2001) assert
ed 
research methods o

p. 149). They wr
o
is based on a lifeworld perspective, the researcher can make use of all the data gathering 

p. 149). 
 61  As I stated before, the purpose of this study 
was to investigate the lifeworld perspective 
of Somali immigrant and refugee students in regard to their schooling experience. I carr
ied out observations of students in
 the winter and spring quarters for the school 
year 2014
2015. Data 
was collected in multiple ways. These include
d field notes (based on observations) and 
interviews covering the life stories regarding 
the schooling experience of Somali immigrant and 
refugee students. Participant
-observation during cla
ss instruction, in hallways, and lunch breaks 
was 
also conducted. 
After three weeks of observations, I chose study participants, 
including both males and females, based on field notes. This purposive sampling (Lincoln 
& Guba, 1985) 
was best suited to the p
henomenological nature of the study, where being a Somali immigrant or 
refugee who ha
d been in the 
US educational system since elementary school, 
was a criterion for 
selection basis. Here
, the assumption 
was that these students 
had
 experienced or 
were 
expe
riencing the phenomenon of racialization in school. 
Nine students, six females and three 
males, assented 

All but one of the 
students was 
recruited based on conversations I had
 with them during 
lunchtime
 and
/or study 
hall periods
, where I helped students with assignments
. The English teacher recommended one 
of the students. 
Once students agree
d to take part in the study, assent and consent forms w
ere
 provided both in English and Somali for parents and students to sign. 
In addition, I also provided 
consent forms for teachers that allowed me to use the informal conversations I had with them
 as source of data.
 And as I explained above, school dynamics an
d context, particularly as it relates 

 In this study, the main method for accessing student experience with racialization 
was
 using unstructured (Glesne
, 2006; van Manen
, 2001), open
-ended questions for 
phenomenological interviewing (van Manen
, 2007). Hence, the key prompt that 
was 
used to 
62  initiate participants to tell their experience 
was as follows: 
Tell me the first time or a time in 
your schooling that you felt th
at you were different from your classmates and what that
 was
 like 
for you.
 Whenever necessary, I ask
ed propping questions or provide
d clarification of the 
prompt. As Greenwalt and Holohan (2011) highlight
ed, good phenomenological prompts are not 
only easi
ly understood by study participants
, but also invite them to share a concrete experience 
with detailed narration.  
 It 
was my hope that the primary prompt w
ould avoid research procedures that easily 
connect
ed an experience of difference to that of being ra
cialized (Greenwalt 
& Holohan, 2011).  
Instead
 of asking students to relay an experience of being racialized, the interview questions 
ask
ed for an experience of difference and allow
ed students to determine what that mean
t for 

 (2001) phenomenological interview procedures, study participants 
were 
asked to describe in detail their lived experiences with as much detail as possible, including 
bodily experiences and context. In this aspect of the interview, it 
was more important to 
invite 
the participants to relive the concretely and embodied experience (van Manen
, 2001; see also 
Greenwalt 
& Holohan
, 2011). All interviews w
ere
 audio taped and transcribed verbatim. 
These 
phenomenological interviews last
ed an hour or 
a bit 
more.
   63  Data
 Analysis 
 In this study data analysis 
occurred in
 two folds. Primary data, which 
was data collected 
from interviewing Somali 
immigrant 
and refugee youth, w
as analyzed using phenomenology. 
Secondary data, which 
was data collected from informal 
conversation
s with 
teachers, school 
administrators, 
and 
non-Somali students, as well as field notes generated from observations, 
were
 utilized
 to augment understanding of primary data. 
Essentially
, data from observation
s was used to better understand the context in which the study 
was taking place. For instance, field text 
data w
as brought up during interview
s with students to seek clarity
 (Clandinin & Connelly 
2000).   In phenomenological research, the purpose of data analys
is is to find the shared meaning 
of the experiential descriptions (Barrit, Beekman, Bleeker, 
& Mulderij
, 1984; van Manen
, 2007). 
However, unlike other methods of qualitative inquiry, where themes are coded due to the 
frequency 
in which they occur in the da
ta (Barrit et al.
, 1984; Greenwalt 
& Holohan
, 2011), in 
phenomenology themes are meanings recovered from a close reading of the experience (van 
Manen
, 2007). According to
 van Manen
, 

p. 87). Themes t
emporarily fixate the experience, allowing for language to structure it 
and bring forth its most important aspects. 
 Hence, theme analysis start
ed with selecting important moments in the experience under 
study
 (Barrit et al., 1984)
. This was done by workin
g across all interview transcripts, reading 
each one 
carefully several times (Barrit et al.
, 1984), and by paying particular attention to the 
whole-part
-whole-nature of the data (Dahlberg et al.
, 2001; Greenwalt 
& Holohan
, 2011, van 
Manen
, 2007). The 

hermeneutic circle
. Heidegger sa
id of the circle:
 64  It is not to be reduced to a v
iscous circle, or even a circle, 
which is merely tolerated. In 
the circle is hidden a positive possibi
lity of the most primordial knowing, and we 
genuinely grasp this possibility only when we have understood that our first, last and 
constant task in interpreting is never to allow our fore
-having, fore
-sight, and fore
-conception to be presented to us by fan
cies and popular conception, but rather to make 
the scientific theme secure by working out these fore
-structures in terms of the things 
themselves
. (Heidegger, 
as cited in Gadamer
, 1988
, p. 265)      
(1988) assert
ed 


pp. 266
267). 
 This suggests that the interpretive work is one that oscillates between an awareness of the 
fore
-meaning projected to the text by the researcher and the openness to the uniqueness of the 
text by the same researcher. However, as Gadamer reminded us, fore
-structures are crucial to the 
very process of understanding, since they provide the framework in which understanding takes 
place
there is no question that is not motivated by a fore
-understanding of some sort. This does 
not mean that one has to do away with 
their fore
-meaning. On the contrary, Gadamer pointed out 
that the interpreter moves between understanding and interpreting by projecting for the text a 
certain fore
-meaning until new meanings emerge that enrich the fore
-projections. Hence, this 
constant wo
rking back and forth between fore
-meaning is 
the first, last and constant 

(p. 267) of the researcher, since the one attempting to understand the text is always working against 
distractions from the fore
-meanings. Hence, the constant preoccupation wi
th fore
-projections that 
are waiting to be confirmed by the text is what Gadamer referred to
 as understanding. 
  65  Participants are considered to be the experts of the phenomena under investigation in 
phenomenological research. Therefore, when choosing the e
ssential elements in the experience, 
Barrit (1984) and colleagues suggested to use as much as possible the same words used by the 


t al., p. 4). 
The suggestion 
here is 
that while researcher
s choose what 
the important elements are, 
they should be
 guided by the words of the participants. However, this 
does not mean that there is no place for disciplinary language; at some point, the eve
ryday 
language used by the participants need
s to be transformed into discipline
-oriented language 
(Giorgi, 
as c
ited in Giorgi
, 1997).  
 Furthermore, because 
when
 
, p. 87) there 
is a need to 
fixate it momentarily so it c
ould give an insight to the experience. This fixing 
is done by seeking 
(and structuring) the essential moments in the experience. Dividing of the data into themes is not 
arbitrary, and according to Giorgi (1997)
, 
 with the 

(1997) 
explain
ed, this should not be mistaken with
 a logical
-empirical approach, where one looks for presences or absences of the criterion. Rather 


p. 247), which
 means that the inquirer 
needs an open attitude that allows for unpredicted meanings to surface. Phenomenology assumes 
that the meaning
s of our experiences are often hidden by their taken
-for-granted 
and 
everyday 
nature
; hence, the researcher 

   In concluding the process, I ma
de a preliminary list of all the important moments in 
the 
d them with one another in order to come up with common 
themes (Barrit et al.
, 1984).  Meanwhile, it 
is important to note that
, despite the fact that I 
was
 
were
 variation
s that were 
66  specific to certain 
experiential 
incidents
. These 
variations were acknowledge
d (Barrit e
t al.
, 1984; Giorgi
, 1997). Hence, variations mean several things for theme analysis. F
irst, variations 
from the data enrich
ed the experience under study, such that what was thought to be one 
experience may mean that of several experiences. For instance
, the observing or not observing of 
the headscarf as a religious identity mean
t different things for different female students as they 
negotiate
d an in
-between existence between secular and religious values at home and at school. 
Meanwhile, the four themes 
reco
gnized in this study provided 
the whole
-part-whole
 nature of 
theme analysis
, and
 was demonstrated in the relationship between themes and subthemes, as we
ll as variations within the sub
themes
. Instead of mentioning several experiences within the 
subthem


   A draft of an early theme analysis
 and
 transcripts of the interviews 
were
 shared with 
participants for them to comme
nt and reflect upon. 
Here
, participants were encouraged to make 
any corrections, clear any misunderstandings, 
and
 provide any further thoughts. This was true for 
all participants, except one female student who changed schools in the middle of the school ye
ar. 
I tried to reach 
this one student
 through her cousin who also was a participant
, but I never heard
 back
 from that particular student. 
While this process (Moustakis
, 1994) 
was important, especially 
in the early stages of the analysis, 
I had to be careful that 

 comments did not 
drastically change the direction of my analysis. 
Barrit et al.
, (1984) work resonate
s my concern
s about this issue
. These authors 
recognize
d 
precedence ove
r that of the researcher. However, 
for the most part 

 comments lead 
to better clarity.
 One of the students
 provided 
neither 
comments 
nor feedback
 despite several 
attempts on my part
. 67  Analysis of interview transcripts, a
nd field 
observations sp
eak to the multiple ways that 
Somali students positioned themselves and how school staff, and their peers positioned them. In 
student interviews social positioning had to do with being visible as a Black 
and 
Muslim, and 
sometimes immigrant. Hence, the them
es elaborated in the next two chapters indicate Somali 

the experiences of un
-belonging among Somali youth spanned over many years in their 
schooling experiences.
 Even though, the students in this study often share
d experiential accounts 
that capture moments of their lives, yet all of the
m recollected earlier memories of being 
excluded because of their being Muslim, Black and immigrant. 
Hence, the themes in the nex
t two chapters 
are arranged such that in Chapter 4, theme one and two narrate stories in early 
childhood, where participants did not quite understand their social positioning or the 
ramifications
 that followed it. While, theme three and four
, in Chapter fi
ve, 
reflect on latter 
stages
 of experiences, where youth understood their difference and told stories of coming to 
terms with their being Black, Muslim, and immigrant. 
Next, I ground the visibility of their lived 
difference on the notion of identity. 
  !68  4. FINDINGS (PART ONE): EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RACIALIZATION AMONG 
SOMALI YOUTH
  When we speak of identity, we are not speaking of human identity (Gilroy
, 2000), where 
we draw upon our most important shared entity 
(being human
). Rather, when
 we speak on 
identity, we are always referring to what sets us apart, our difference, whether
 that be our skin 
color, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, class, nationality
, and the list goes on. For 
Somali immigrant and refugee youth, this diffe
rence is due to the visible nature of their black 
race and
 their religion.
 Somali youth could also claim an array of identities
 that tells something 
about them as people
; however, in this study I intend 
to explore 
how Somali youth experience 
racial and rel
igious identities in their everyday lives. 
Prior research indicated that Somali youth 
are racialized by school officials (Bigelow
, 2010; Foreman
, 2001) and by the elders in their 
own community (Bigelow
, 2010; see 
Chapter 
2).  As I explained in 
Chapter 
2, the focus of this dissertation is to explore the everyday 
nature of 
the racialization process as a phenomenon and how 
Somali 
youth make sense of 
being racialized in their schools and communit
ies. In the following, I share the stories of the 
students as they
 responded to the primary prompt of this study or variations of it: 
Can you tell 
me a time when you felt that you were different from your classmates?
 As students shared 
their storied lives with me, several themes emerged from the interview text. A prima
ry theme 
that was essential to all the experiences was that of difference. 
Students
 shared rich stories 
replete with the complexity and nuance of everyday living, often depicting vivid picture
s of 
incidents that spoke to what it meant to be different based
 on their racial and religious 
difference
.  69  Therefore, as the themes and subthemes indicate a primary threat among all themes is one 
based on religious and racial differences. For brevity purposes, the four themes will be 
presented in two separate chapters
. For instance, this chapter will explore the first two themes. 
These include: 1) N
egotiat
ions between visible identity markers and lived experiences and 2) 
Negotiating acceptance through appropriation. While the next chapter will cover themes: 3) 
Living w

 However, all four themes speak to how racial and religious differences are lived out in 

ence is not an 
abstract phenomenon but as I will elaborate through out the sections in this chapter, and the next 
one. Difference based on race and religion become identification and positioning tools that at 
times are used to include and exclude Somali yo
uth in class activities and school community. 
However, these same racial and religious positioning also present opportunities for these students 
to reflect and also engage the power structures within school and family institutions in creative 
ways, often c

texts depicted a much darker narrative, of what it meant to be a Somali immigrant and refugee in 
U.S. public school, than anticipated. Yet, I have to re
-emphasize that the
 stories of these students 
are contextual, as well as temporal, such that they do not represent all Somali immigrant and 

  !70  Theme
 One
. Negotiations Between Visible Identities and Lived Experiences
 The stories of Somali youth reported here depict experiences of marginalization, based on 
being different. Many of the students experienced marginalization in the form of loneliness 
during elementary school. The youth
, in this study, did not understand that t
hey were different, at 
the time these experiences took place. However, they lived their difference in their everyday 
interaction or lack thereof with other students and/or teachers in their elementary schools. As 
they recalled these feelings during our int
erviews, they understood that they were different 


experiences wer
e lived out in the bodies of these participants from an early age. Hence, shaping 
their understanding and perception of themselves. This is important especially as we consider the 
role of the gaze in materializing visible identities, as the participants un
derstood their difference 
as enduring. 
 While some of the lived experiences of difference are based on visibility of race and 
religion, other differences such as accent, immigrant status, and academic ability also showed to 

 Yet, as we will see in the stories of the students, difference based 
on race, accent, immigrant status, and academic ability, are grounded by the visibility of race. 
This is what constitutes the context in which these experiences take place, as well as ho
w Somali 
youth understand and interpret such experiences. Hence, what we see here is the constant 
negotiation between identity, whether be visible or otherwise, and the lived experience of 
difference perpetuated by visibility. 
 
tive, we come to appreciate the unclear boundaries, 
between the subject positions in which Somali youth are hailed to, based on visible identity 
71  markers and the lived experiences these identity position produce. For instance many of the 
stories, in this th
eme, allude to subjective perception of difference that is clearly based on 
visibility of race and religion. It is interesting to note that the Somali youth often equated 
experiences of loneliness to being marginalized by others in school community. Despit
e the fact 
that many of the stories under this theme lacked specific actions that could be related to racist 
racial projects as defined by Omi and Winant (1994, see chapter two). Hence, in the following, 
Somali youth narrate school experiences that take pa
rt in a landscape of ambiguity, doubt and 
suspicion of the other. And because race is structural, as much as it is contextual and relational, 
hence, our experiences of race become embodiment that often influences our interaction with and 
interpretation of 
the other. Van der Berg (as cited in Dahlberg et al., 2001) explains this further:
 
relationship closer. On the other hand he may also make it more remote, he may increa
se 


one
roletheory 
recognizes this; the phenomenologist takes 
it quite
 literally. When excluded we see 
ourselves and our bodies as undesirable, unwanted and we can not inhabit our bodies 
easily and freely as we would when we feel acce
pted and confirmed by the other
. There 
grows a split between mind and body, we become embarra
ssed and ashamed. (van der 
Berg 
as c
ited in Dahlberg et al., 
2001, p. 65) Is difference a bodily experience? How do our bodies respond to being different, especially when 
difference has social ramifications? 
Experiencing difference could be understood as
 a common 

 lives as they transition from the familiar world of home to the 
unfamiliar world of school. 
This is more pertinent for immigrant children like the Somalis, who 
72  are both black and Muslim. And despite the fact that studies show that many immigrant/refugee 
children experience loneliness when they start school in their new country. In research among 
immigrant children, loneliness is often attributed to language barriers (McBrien, 2005). While 
this maybe true for the experiences relayed by some of the Somali yo
uth in this study, others 
attributed past experiences of being excluded to their bodies being different. Hence, in this study, 
there is emphasis on the intersection of race and religion in school experience. Recalling 
experiences of being different, Yahya 
a 12
th grade Somali student, who 
came to the 
US at the age 
of five, said the following about his experiences in elementary school: 
No one would interact 

like a school with a whole, a lot of white, population. I think, I was maybe the fourth or the third 
black boy in the whole entire scho
ol
Yahya
). For Yahya, being one of few black boys in the 
school shaped his school experiences early on. Also, in his stories, race and gender came up 
several times, and hence were important factors in making sense of his experiences. 
 For Yahya,
 reason
, for being lonely
, was because of his being black, while for Asli, it 
was due to her wearing the hijab. Asli was born in the 
US and went to a neighborhood school 
with a relatively large African American student population. Her perception of being 
marginaliz
ed is mainly based on her religious garb. Regardless, of the reasons for exclusion, 
students like Asli and Yahya relayed prolonged experiences of marginalization during 
elementary school that became normalized. Asli explained: 
  It [being by yourself] beco
mes normal. It becomes a second nature. Like oh, when I come 
to school, put my bag down, do my schoolwork, then just quietly wait. Recess, I would 
just walk around. Maybe I find new mulch to kick and then go to lunc
h. . . . So you 
73  accept it, even though yo
u question it a lot, you will, you just say uh, fine, because then 
you will go home and your mother will be there.
 (Asli) Experiencing loneliness became a daily encounter for Asli, whose entire story revolved around 
feeling out of place during elementary s
chool. Throughout her story, Asli often related her 
feelings of marginalization to observing the headscarf. As we will see in later sections, more than 

 Difference bec
omes a bodily experience when it has social ramifications. As van der 
Berg (cited in Dahlberg et al.
, 2001) explained
, our relationship with others influences how we 
perceive our bodies. According to him, social exclusion leads us to perceive our bodies as
 unacceptable and we find it difficult to inhabit our bodies naturally. As children, we are not 
aware of our difference
; rather
, we depend on the adults in our lives for developing relationship
s with our bodies and with the world. And
, we constantly seek a
ffirmation from those around us. 
Hence, we have less understanding of our difference
 and 
we may not understand why we are 
different from others that we come in contact with. We may not understand that our difference 
may not be easily accepted in certain so
cial spaces. Nevertheless, w
e feel it
 when we are not 
accepted by others. Conversely, we also feel it when our presence is welcomed by
 other
s.   
  
perception of themselves is often related to the violence of the gaze. Here what matters more is 
how the colonized body feels and interprets the gaze, rather than the intention of the gaze 

of the look: 

first thought 


faces
(Asli)
.  74  
exclusion become everyday encounters. In the above statement, Asli relayed a fractured self that 
regained its wholeness by the loving presence of her mother. Home was wh
ere she found 
wholeness and comfort after a long day of being surrounded by people who would not 
acknowledge her presence. In this sense, the sanctity of the home was linked with motherly love. 
Asli relayed that her elementary school was only few feet away
 from her home. Yet, the contrast 
between the two spaces in regard to the lived experiences was stark. This speaks to the various 
ways in which our lived space comes to life through the other. 
 
ou know. You know when 

experienced through her relationality with others that she shared space with. While several of the 
participants shared experiences of 
being 
excluded during elementary school, in passing, or with 
as a matter of fact tone, as they talked about other experiential incidents. For Asli being 
marginalized during elementary school has had social consequences. She related her early school 
experiences t
o the current challenges she, as teenager, was facing
: Even though I was a bright 
student, I would pay attention, I would do well in the class but socially, I was, I was lacking and 

ecisions because of 
that
).  When the body is casted under the critical gaze of others, according to van Manen (2007) 

p. 104). In other words, when our bodi
es assume an objective status, as is often the case for 
colonized subjects (Fannon
, 1994; Alcoff
, 2006), then we develop a split between our 
bodies and 
minds (van der Berg
, as 
cited in Dahlberg et al.
, 2001), where we become embarrassed or 
75  ashamed of our b
odies. Because of their racialized status, these students developed a perception 
of their bodies that caused them to have a sense of uneasiness being around others. Asli went 
further to say that the split from her body and mind
 was so great that it made he
r second
-guess 
her decisions 
(i.e., the harmony between body and mind is disrupted
). Farah shared this feeling 

experiences in being new to the city and to a school system 
that was predominantly 
populated by 
white students
 weird for me because you feel like a sore thumb 

 
environment, where she felt unwelcome
d. It is interesting that she related her feelings of being 

conveyed in another incident that she also had some challenges in her previous, and more 
diverse, school 
because of her religion and immigrant status. Yet, it seems that in this particular 
(white) school, Farah interpreted her difficulties in fitting in, to her race. By referring to what she 

ng herself and her white 
classmates within the larger race and racial relation discourse. Where the binary between the 
oppressed and oppressor categories are clear and expected. In addition, she interprets her mere 
presence and visibility as racial violent
. However, as we will see shortly, as Farah talked about 

binary became obvious as she struggles to position fellow Somali students. 
 Next, I will pick up the thre
ad 

used to going to schools with large number of students of color, including many relatives of hers.
 76  He 
.  For Farah, being African and Muslim took 
precedence over a Somali identity. Farah often distanced herself from other Somali students in 
the school. During our conversations
, she resisted being called Somali, despite
 the fact that she 
would occasionally use Somali phrases in her speech. Instead, she invoked an ethnic identity 
based on tribal lineage, and often insisted that her parents were Somali
-Ethiopian and Somali
-Kenyan, which would make her not Somali. It seemed
 that for Farah being Somali is linked to a 
national identity more than an ethnic identity. This was important to 
her
, and even though this 
research seeks to investigate youth who identify as Somali or at least acknowledge their Somali 
heritage, I chose to
 interview her. 
Because, 
I found her to be eloquent and reflective, and 
also 
one of the teachers recommended her as a potential participant. However, in our conversation, I 
told her that I respect and accept her choice of ethnic identity, but still would 
like to interview 
her,
 to which she 
agreed to. 
These are important points to note about Farah so 
that her story 
can 
of being different, she explained: 
 [A]nd I
 remember going into that class and I was the darkest person in that 

[Northville, a pseudonym] district for like all, cuz they all know each other from 



but the only Muslim girl, I guess. . . . There was two, there was two boys. There 
was a Somali boy but I did not know he was So
mali though. He was very, he 

 Nimo:                
What do you think he was?
 77  Farah:
    Nimo: Farah:
 I thought he was African but the way he talked, I was just like, you know 
how I said, I  was thrown off by like the amount of white people here and 

African
 Did he sound white?
 


 [know]
, you 
know.   Farah conveyed that she
 was the darkest person and the only Muslim in her class, yet she quickly 
corrected herself and remembered that there were two other African boys also in her classes. 
Here, Farah converged her race and religious identities into one, since these two element
s made 
up the basis of her experience. And so, for her, they were inseparable
, a 
point I will elaborate on 
below

it easier for them to not stand out as much as she do
es. 
This facilitated
 an easier path for these 

These boys did not 
hide their identity, 
which 
could 
be 
because
 they
 grew up in the neighborhood 
and 
went to that 
school system, where
 they acquired the linguistic style of 
the majority (white) culture. Or it 
could be that the school culture only accepts those that assimilate 
into white culture. In 
either 
case

 For that rea
son, according to Farah, it was difficult to imagine an African sounding white. 
Hence, for Farah,
 
78  
 (Farah
). Moreover, he sounded white, therefore
, according to 
Farah
, he 

 (Citation)
. This means that 
in her view one could
 no
identified as a Somali, bec
ause other Africans coul
d speak
 English
 with an American accent,
 but when Somalis did
, 
people engage in as they attempt to read others
 identities as text. It also speaks to the prevalent 
discourse about 
Somalis here in the 
US as people who are uneducated and unwilling to integrate. 
 
act of ascribing social identities happens in a discursive field. Hence, the ascribed so
cial 
identities become embodied 
(i.e., being Somali
). This mean
s 
being Somali were mediated
, first
, by the visibility of her raced self 
(i.e., African
), and
, second
, by common discourses of what it mean
t to be
 Somali. Her
e, once 
Farah 
found out that the boy 
was Somali, she was surprised that he did not fit in her understanding of what it meant to be 
Somali. In other words, she could not hail his subjectivity to a commonly understood narrative of 
Somaliness. While this allu
des to the complexity of the subject in the postmodern paradigm in 
which this data is analyzed
, it also shows the act of hailing
 (Althusser
, 1971)
 is not restricted by 
the power of structures on individuals
; rather, subjects interact with the world and som
etimes 
embody their own subjugated social positions as normal. This could be one reason that Farah, 
despite 
the fact that 
her ethnic and linguistic heritage 
is Somali, resisted be
ing
 identified as a 
Somali.   
 
 
. Despite the fact that 


 
79  
 (Farah
). Here
, she related her difference not only to her visible racial 
identity, but also by invoking her religion and gender identities, highlighting the multiple ways 
she was different. This is so because being the darkest and only Muslim girl in her 
classes meant 
social exclusion by her peers
, including the two African
-Muslim male students. Here, Farah 
converged her racial, religious
, and gendered identities into one. This multilayered particular 
identity site, where Farah relayed her stories from, is
 one that positioned her at the margin as she 
struggled to gain access to the center. Farah mentioned later in her story that there were other 
Somali female students who also observed the hijab, but they were not in the International 
Baccalaureate (IB) pro
gram, therefore, neither she nor the two boys in her class associated with 
these female Somali students.   
 Even though Farah was comfortable sharing her experiences of being marginalized 
because of her visible identity as a black and Muslim female, she, l
ike the other Somali male 
student in her class, also chose not to associate with the rest of Somali students, who looked like 
them. Instead, as she narrated
, Like well, I remember we had like a lunch table and it was just 
for like the IB kids and like we 



Farah
). 
first
-generation Somali immigrant students is consistent with 
the findings
 from research among other immigrant and refugee youth of color. These studies 
reported that second
-generation immigrant and refugee youth often distanced themselves from 
newly arrived immigrants and refugee youth in their school (Lee
, 2005; Ngo
, 2010; Val
enzuela
, 1999; Waters
, 1994). Conversely, Farah wanted to be accepted by her peers and teachers, both 
black and white, in the IB program
, and she was frustrated when they did
 not accept her
. The 
assumption here is that, since she was in the IB program, Far
ah thought that she was more 
80  American than the 
first
-generation immigrant Somali students at her school. When I asked if she 
was the only girl with
 the hijab on, she said
, 
higher level classes and so I wa

 (Farah
). Here
, she was telling us that it was 
not common for other hijabi
 (a girl, who wears hijab, this mainly used by Muslim youth
) girls 
to be in higher tracks. She referred to Somali girls as 
other hijabi girls.
 And when I asked her 
who these students were, she said
, 
 (Farah
). To her surprise, she was othered 
despite her academic ranking. One such example of othering is in Farah talking about an incident 
in a class, where she asked the teacher to
 give her
 an extension on an assignment: 
  Farah
: But I just love the fact that everybody in that room made me feel like I was 


 doing here. You 

But I, like you know, well, instead of like, okay, well, these people are 

lot of the 
kids in that class were rude or they would just stare at me and 
stuff. Nimo: Really?
 Farah
: Yeah, they would just stare
 Nimo: Did any one of them say anything to you?
 Farah
: 


81  me when I talked but like other than 
that, like they would ignore me. I was 



 how I felt. There would be times where like they would, the one time they 
would look at me, they would look at me with like a stink look and, for lack 
of better words, they would look at me and just look and go back to what 
they were doing. 
  In F

is difficult to know how much of the othering is self
-imposed, here as she looks at herself 
through the eyes of society. It is more accurate to say that her 
story reflects on her perception of 
social norms that minoritized black Muslims. 
  Here, Farah felt marginalized. According to Farah, her body was not only 
objectified by 
the presence of an ever
-
ced to 
nothing. Because of the visible nature of racialized body, the societal gaze presents a dialectic 
experience of marginalization. 
On the one hand, the critical gaze fixates the body into an 
objectified status. On the other hand, the gaze ignores the 


-existent
.
Yahya. Considering the fact that these experiences occurred both in elementary and high school 
settings
, leads us to consid
er the wide array of social contexts in which students experience 
school as a lived space. This is telling since many of the students relayed experiences of 
loneliness, often stating that no one wanted to talk or interact with them. 
Hence, we can infer tha
t 82  in those school contexts, it was not just desire that no one was interested in engaging these 
Somali students. Rather, it could also be argued that there might have been a lack of certain 
knowledge on how to interact with Somali children, who were visibl
y different. However, as we 
will see next, not all teachers were uncaring, or indifferent to Somali youth as was indicated thus 

ranged from compassionate to unres
ponsive.  
 
 Somali 
immigrant students look to teachers as a source of compassion and care, because in Somali 
tradition the teacher is revered and raised to the status of a parent. As the saying goes 
your 
teacher is your second parent.
 Therefore, Suad shared a story 
about her high school English 
teacher that exemplified 
the notion of teacher as a compassionate and relatable person. To briefly 
introduce
, Suad is a 
12th-grade student who also went to a predominantly white school in which 
she and her sister were the only
 Somali students. Suad explained
, in an example
, one teacher 
that went beyond the call of duty: 
 [O]ne 

meet. She will help you with everything. She will talk to you. She wi
ll do anything to 

 I had her freshman and sophomore year, She was my English teacher and she was one of 

 Greenwalt and Holohan
 (2011) called this the teacher
-figure and argued that students often look 
up to their teachers and other school authorities for issues of belonging in class and in 
the school 
community. In this view, 
it is the actions and the attitudes of the
 teacher
-figu
re 
that determines 

83  towards them by the ways teachers interact and relate with students. An example of this could be 
seen in the above narration, where Suad e



.
student 

.
also shared her experience with her other teachers. She elaborated: 
 Suad:
 My earth science teacher was a great teacher, too. But like my biology teacher, 


much. And some 
teachers, I kinda had like impersonal relationship with some 

them. Nimo: 
 Why did you feel that way?
 Suad: 
 Why I felt that way? Because when you see people that I was really
 different 
and so it was gonna be weird for a different person to have like a weird 
relationship with a teacher because you would expect it to be the normal white 
kid, with the, you know, nice family, not African kid, with you know, who 
come from Africa a 

with teacher because the teacher gets more with the white kid than he gets with 
me.  84  S
could 
not have a

 
account about her teachers is telling of how her own experiences shaped her understanding of 
herself as a person and her background as the child of an Afric
an immigrant. Here, instea
d of 
Black she used African to emphasize not only her black skin 
but also her immigrant s
tatus. Even 
though African and B
lack are not 
interchangeable
, Suad is drawing from
 the
 Western 
imagination of Africa and Africans. Instead of referring to her origins as Somali, she used 
African, echoing the essentialization of all Africans as a monolithic group. Hence, she is 
unconsciously essentializing her own identity. This is an ample il
lustration of 
Merleau
-Ponty


.So, it was natural that the teacher re

sense, she described her relationship with the teacher, who was also considered normal, as 
unusual. 
  Another point to speculate on is the role of gender relations in this story. Not to 
undermine
 
ideal student, whom the male teacher relates comfortably with. This speaks to
 the white male 
fear to interact with the Muslim female. Again, in this example, Suad is inte
rnalizing social 
positioning based on grand narratives about the Black, Muslim female immigrant subject 
position. 

, we see the intersubjective nature of experience 
unfolding in her story line, which I will continue to weave 
throughout in later sections. 
 Thus far, we 
have seen 
that the storied lives of these youth revealed that their blackness 
and being a Muslim immigrant were not 
the only identity markers that were limited to the 
85  abstract sphere. But their difference was an 
experience that was lived corporally, spatially, and 
relationally (van Manen
, 2007). 
Identity also contains a cognitive element in which individuals 
reconfigure and renegotiate how they understand their world and themselves. This is particularly 
true as in
dividual
s come across new experiences that influence their worldview and their position 
in it. For
 instance, being identified as B
lack could be beneficial in certain context
s. In order to 
explore how identity production is not only relational
, but also con
textual
, I introduce the 
stories of two students
, Hibo and Omar.
   In both stories, we witness how rac
ialized identities are lived out in various power 
relation networks (Foucault
, 1977), as youth engage social institutions of school and family. But
, more importantly, in Hibo
 
racialized identities. This is so because their stories exemplify how the youth in this study find 
creative ways to seek acceptance and perhaps escape the marginali
zing effect of essentialized
,  racialized identities.
 Theme 
Two
. Negotiating 
Acceptance 
Through 
Appropriation
 At first glance
, in Summit Academy
, one immediately recognizes student dress code
s consisting of khaki or black pants, white shirts and navy blue 
sweaters for boys
, and long dark 
dresses, skirts, or 
abayas
 (long and loose over
 garment
s) for girls. While this may seem like any 
other charter school, one main difference is that almost all female students wore the hijab, with 
the exception of elementary
 students. One could see few unveiled students, particularly among 
the younger students, first
- and 
second
-graders, but the rest of the female student body, 
especially middle and high school students, all wore head
 scarves
. However, after paying closer 
att
ention and talking with students about their attire, I came to learn how students
 dress were 
also narratives that further enriched the stories they were sharing with me about their lived 
86  experiences in and out of school. For many, especially among the fem
ale students, the hijab was 
an essential part that constructed their schooling experiences and a topic that we talked about in 
length during the interviews I conducted with them. Yet
, there was another side to the story of 
how students complied with school

, including the hijab. I decided to include this 
section, for the following reasons. 
  First, clothes showed how students, both male and female, negotiated certain cultural and 
religious spaces. Second, through dress style they often challenge
d authoritative discourses of 
what it meant to be a proper and good Somali/Muslim kid. 
Through dress, these students strove 
for a personal style while still adhering to certain aspect
s of what is accepted of and expected 
from them religiously and communall
y. Third, if dress style is considered as a speech act 
(Mahmoud
, 2004) from a particular identity site, then
, as I will show
, what type of clothes 
Somali youth wear and how they wear 
them could be linked to horizons as window
s for 
interpreting identit
ies. The first point speaks to the in
-between world immigrant youth often 
occupy (Valenzuela
, 1999; Sarroub
, 2005). The second highlights the identity works that are 
produced as a result of existing in
 between spaces. Here
, is where interesting things happen as
 far 
as 
the phenomenology of racialization is concerned. These issues come to life as we engage with 

 To wear the hijab in 
Summit Academy 
was very different than the picture students 
presented 
about wearing the hijab in 
their previous public schools. This is so because Z
-school
, as a charter school that 
caters 
to the Muslim community, mainly Somalis, mandated the hijab as 
a part of the school uniform despite the fact that the hijab did not appear on the school dress code 
manual; the hijab was part of the unspoken uniform code. When I asked Hibo, an 
11th-grade 
87  student and a second
-generation immigrant, if there w
as pressure to wear the hijab at 
Summit 
Academy
, she 
explained
, in the affirmative:
  Hibo: Yes, actually, the fir
st week I came here, I actually showed up wearing jeans and 
had my hair out and then I came to the cafeteria, like the cafeteria, like all the 

wearing it and everyone stopped, 
like all together, stopped. Even the principal 
was like giving a speech, stopped. And turned and they all looked at me. I was 
just like, oh, my god. I sat down. Even Miss [Samira] looked at me like I was 
weird. 
 Yeah, and I was just like, I wanta fit in, I
 have to wear a hijab and 
goono [skirt in 
Somali] so of course, the next day I came to school wearing a hijab and 
goono.  
 Nimo: 
 Yeah, do you wear it [the hijab] outside of school?
 Hibo:  

 I think the principal had like the most concern [about students not] wearing the 
hijab.
 No, it was like we butted heads
 Beginning of the year, I hated her because I came to school like not wearing a 
hijab and none of like her peers 
had a problem with it. My Muslim teacher, 


came up to me and was like you should be wearing i
t and I was like, you had me 
88  as a student in second grade. Did I ever wear it? My parents ever send me to 
school wearing it? (Hibo)  
  Among the participants of this study, Hibo was the only one who did not wear the hijab 
outside of school. Through her 
experience
, we come to find out another story about the hijab as a 
dress code for Muslim girls. In Z
-school, all female students were required to wear the headscarf. 
Hence, in this context, the hijab served as a patriarchal mode of regulating Muslim female
 bodies (see 
Chapter 
2). But
, more importantly, this speaks to how the hijab as a religious identity 
marker is an excellent example that shows how identities are contextual and relational. In this 
sense, then, the hijab as a cultural text is read and perce
ived differently depending on the context, 
namely charter versus public school. Moreover, the meanings drawn from the expression of the 
hijab as cultural text (Zine
, 2012) impacts how we relate to others and eventually our perception 
of ourselves. 
 In 
Summ
it Academy
, in response to the visible Muslim identity imposed on her, Hibo 


 (Hibo). In this school 
context, her hijab was read as a visible testimony of observing the faith. Conversely, in 
public 
school, as shared by other students in this study, the hijab as a cultural text was often perceived 
and approached with suspicion and fear.
 In the public school context, the hijab often led to 
alienation of 
those who 
 story, the imposition of the hijab as an 
identity became problematic 
on those days Hibo did not want to cover her hair
 because her not 
wearing the hijab challenged the school authori

 understanding of what it meant to be Muslim 
female. Here, it is app

identity and thus bound her subjectivity into a hijabi position.  
 89  
headscarf. For instance, at one point s
he told me that she did wear the hijab except when she was 
playing sports
. At another time she shared the story of how she was 
got into
 trouble when she did 
not wear her hijab to school. Her hijab identity was a source of
 ambivalence for her because it 
only seemed the right thing to do in order to fit in
to the school culture. But
, more importantly, 
without the hijab she was mistaken for 
gaalo (non-believer in Somali
) by an elder Somali 
woman. This implies that her Somali identity was also in question, as 
gaalo also refers to non
-Somali in the Somali imagination. So
, wearing the hijab was synonymous with being Somali 
(Bigelow
, 2010). It was apparent that being called 
gaalo disturbed Hibo. Yet, she resisted the 
hijab when imposed by school authority. It seem
ed 
as 
though Hibo did not mind wearing the 
headscarf
; at the same time
, it was important for her to be able to play sports without covering 
her body and her hair. 
 Meanwhile, Hibo was not alone when it came to pushing the boundaries set by the hijab 
as a d
ress code, often blurring the distinction between hijabi and non
-hijabi. For example, many 
of the female students in this school resisted the essentializing nature of their hijabi uniform. 
They constantly got in trouble by challenging
, not only the uniform
 code, but also the hijab as 
understood by the school authorit
ies, their parents
, and the elders in community. For instance, 
many of the high school girls often came to school wearing colorful scarves in big hijabi up
-dos accompanied by bright lipstick, a 
clear violation of the school uniform code. In addition, some 
wore their long dresses and 
abayas
 in a form
-fitting style that 
was
 contrary to 
the traditional
, loose abayas
. This practice was more common among the 
American
-born students or
, as they 
called t
hemselves
, the 
 a bourgeoning 
Internet community of hijabi bloggers that share ideas on how to wear their 
90  headscarves while still following the latest fashion style. These bloggers often 
push the 
boundaries of what is considered hijab
-appropriate attire. Among these bloggers, there is
 a growing trend that shows tight clothing paired with headscarves or hijabs. Even though this topic 
is beyond the scope of this study, this trend speaks to t
he ambivalent spaces that Muslim youth, 
including Somalis
, occupy as they negotiate religious and gender identities in secular Western 
societies. 
 In the US context, 
in many metropolitan areas with large Somali population
s, the act of 
wearing the hijab is 
synonymous with being Somali (Bigelow
, 2010). Hence, in 
the particular
 Mid-western city where this study took place
, the hijab became not only a visible identity marker 
but also a racializing tool for Somalis that often led to gendered Islamophobia (Z
ine, 2012). And
, while the hijab placed Somali young women in discursive fields where they were marked as 
foreign, young Somali males had wider cultural terrains to choose from. This was evident in the 
appropriation of black youth culture, especially as it per

story, we witnessed the fluid nature of identity that permeates cultural boundaries, hence creating 
hybrid subjectivities. 
 
-
.  Several of the Somali 
male stu
dents in this study and their peers wore their hair in Afro
-style in varying lengths. Some 
sagged their pants, 
though 
most did not because sagging was against school protocol. However, 
many of them wore their hair in curled Afros. And
, one could often see 
high school boys twisting 
their hair into curly locks while in class. This particular type of Afro was considered desirable
, or 
as Yahya explained it
, 
to 
 seemed to condemn this practice of 
young Somali males wearing their 
hair in Afros. Even 
so, he also had wavy Afro
 hair 
that he 
wore in curls.  
But 
among these boys
, hairstyle functioned more than to impress girls. As we will 
91  
the Afro was
 in a way a
 coping mechanism to overcome his 
immigrant sta
tus and access African
-American youth identity. 
Omar is an 11th
-grade student, 

where he went to an elementary school with very few Somalis. However, in middle sch
ool Omar 
was the only Somali and Muslim student in his grade. Outside of school, Omar wears hip
-hop style clothing and identifies himself as both African
-American and Somali. 
An example of what 
the Afro represented for Omar is 
a
nds found out that he was Somali
:  Omar: 
 They say that [Omar] really cool. Like when I had, sometimes, there was like 
people that never knew I was Somali. Like since they first see me, cuz
 they said 
my haircut and like there was one time that like I never used to cut my hair. I 
used to have an afro all the time
 And then because, and then I used to just trim it down, like [he pointed to his 
hair], trim it down. And then there was this one da
y, I just cut all my hair off and 
then they were like, oh, as soon as I cut my hair off, I looked like a Somali they 
said. 
 Nimo: 
 Oh, really? 
 Omar: 
 They said, cuz they said, oh, we never, they said we never knew you were 
Somali cuz most Somalians, 
like they got low cuts and stuff. And then I was 

Okay, yeah
  92  By growing an Afro, Omar was able to become cool and blend with other black kids in
 his school and neighborhood. 
However, when he cut his Afro, his unknown Somali identity was 
revealed
, even though
 his Afro was a visible marker of racial identity, which 
is a racializing 
element both in the larger society as well as within the Somali community (Omar interview). In 
his neighborhood, wearing 
an 
Afro hairstyle was considered a legitimate African American 
identity marker. 
It was 
one that could assuage alienation and provide protection from the drug 

orhood: 
  Omar: 
 
black area. There was this one Somali dude that moved in and then like they, 
these black gang, they beat him up and took his money. But like me. 
 Nimo: 
 Did he move out then? Out of the neighborhood? 
 Omar: 
 He called the police and then the police was like this is not your, the police told 
him straight up, he said this is not your society. Why would you move here? You 

Citation).
  In addition, 
the Afro 
hairstyle
 also speaks to the notion that not all socially ascribed (racialized) 
identities are pathological (Alcoff
, 2006). 
The Afro as a hair
style
 resulted from oppressive 
colonial discourses in which African hair was no
t considered desirable. 
As a hairstyle, t
he Afro 
is rooted in the 1960s Black 
Power movement. And
, wearing an Afro is considered an act of 
liberation and a direct oppositional stand to white beauty standards. So
, for Omar
, wearing an 
Afro hairstyle was a w
ay to relate
 to and acknowledge African Americans
 struggles and a wider 
93  black conscious movement. This is a good example of utilizing horizons as an interpreting tool 
for identity work (Alcoff
, 2006). 
 
ming together (Somali/African 
American) to provide the interpretive tool for identity work. It is here where horizons are 
engaged in re
-imagining what it means for visible identities like race and religion. In this 

an 
Afro merged
 with his visible Somali identity, and thus provided 
the framework for him and his peers in interpreting what it meant to be Somali. And
, because he 

okay

cut his Afro and
 
himself as Somali was mediated through his relation with the 
otherhis African
-American 

-American youth dress did not mean that Omar did not 

ican
-American, it just 

. 
is in agreement with the postmodern understandings of subjectivities i
n motion, where identity is 
always in production (Hall
, 
, are constantly changing as traditions are challenged with new experiences (Alcoff
, 2006). As I 
will elaborate in the next chapt
er, Somali immigrant and refugee youth continue to become 
aware of their racial and religious difference as enduring
. We 
will see novice ways of engaging 
with horizons for identity projects that go beyond appropriations of locally produced youth 
identities
. This is particularly true for religion, because unlike race, religion as a visible identity 
marker is unique to the Somali immigrant experience. This is pertinent since, in the post
-9/11 context
, Muslims continue to be at the receiving end of social and 
psychological discrimination 
94  and isolation. Thus, it is important to explore how Somali youth find ways to engage with such 
social context, and what responses they produce as a result of heightened Islamophobia and 
racializing 
discourses continue to persis
t.  !95  5.  FINDINGS (PART TWO): LIVING AS RACIALIZED BODIES
   In this chapter, I continue to engage issues pertaining to racialization based on visibility 
of race and religion. Themes 
three
 and 
four 
visible identity markers as processes of subjectivities in the making. In 
Chapter 4
, interview texts 
revealed to us how early experiences of being racialized were lived out as bodily encounters. 
However
, we have also encountered narratives of being racialized that challenged the notion of 
visibility. This was particularly true for the hijab, as well as hairstyle
, as various identity markers 
became visible at certain times, and 
became 
invisible at other t
imes. In this chapter, we learn 
how experiences of racializatio
n continue to influence how 
Somali youth interpret their lives
, particularly as it 
relates
 to the day
-to-day nature of being racialized and the multiple ways 
that they draw meaning from these w
orldly encounters. 
 Theme
 Three
. Living with 
Difference: As 
Living with 
O
Self
  In the following, we 
encounter
 the stories of three students
: Sahra, Suad
, and Hibo. Their 
storied lives depict accounts of everyday encounters with the worlds as black and Muslim 
immigrant youth in public schools. Their narratives tell a tale of challenges as well as 
opportunities that often question their identities and religi
ous belief system
s. In 
post-9/11 terrain 
of heightened Islamophobia, these three girls contest and sometimes co
-construct the racialized 
identities that are imposed 
upon them. However,
 most importantly
, their stories provide a 
framework to look at the ever
yday encounters that shape their subjectivities.
  One important finding, across stories in this theme, is one that emphasizes the embedded 
nature of race and religion as structures of hierarchy. In other word, the subject internalizes the 
very social norms
 and discourses that marginalize them. For instance, this phenomenon was 
often revealed in student stories, where they often looked at themselves through the eyes of 
96  society, and often interpreted situations based on that, instead of the actual incident. A
 second 

Muslim was revealed. Here, Somali youth were made to confront their religious beliefs system in 
a way that mainstream Christian students are not made to. 
   97  
  The narratives in 

of those in the school as well as in the community.  Sahra shares: 
 Sahra: 
 My god, I remember that day so clearly, too. I remember we saw a dead person. It 
was my first time, that Sunday [before she started wearing the 
abaya
] was the 
first time seeing a dead person.  Like as in like washing it [the body]? 
 Nimo: 
 You went with your mother to the mosque? 
 Sahra: 
 Yeah.  To the mosque and I was the
re, they were like, oh, you wann
a see a dead 
person and I said, I was curious, where does it happen? So we went to the back 
where they wash [the body] and everything, we s
aw the face and everyone just 
started crying. And everyone, and everyone that day cuz right after that, during 
halaqa time, everyone sat down and I told them about my struggles. I was like, 

s to the, to the 
masjid, but I would never wear this to school. I was telling them all
 Everyone sat down, had a little halaqa thing where. Yeah, they talked about their 
struggles. 
 That very Monday, I started wearing the abaya.  And I remember that day so 
clearly because I was wearing a pink, my abaya was like pink. And I had like a 
pink abaya. I tried to make it nice or whatever and it was so weird, wearing it. I 
was like, I wanted to take it off when I came there [school]. So bad. I felt like 
everyone was
 staring at me.
  98  Sahra is a second
-generation Somali immigrant, who grew up in a predominantly white suburb.
 Hence, 
she
 was the only Somali/Muslim student in her grade.
 
seeking between the conflicting secular and religi
ous spaces
 in which she lived, namely
, school 
and home.
 

many of the parti

consciousness as articulated by Dubois (1999). The notion that you look at yourself through the 
eyes of the other and start to internalize some of the hatred embodied in that gaz
e or horizon. 

  Experiencing the rituals of preparing a dead body for burial helped Sahra to connect with 
her religious traditions. Strangely enough
, though, Sahra
, for the first time in her stories, relayed 
a real connection with others. In the halaqa
 (a discussion circle at the mosque), she opened up to 
the other women about her struggles with
 wearing the
 hijab. At that moment, her being an 
Americanized youth, her 
age, or her not being able to speak Somali, did not matter. These are 
important factors because the mosque is a place where these categories create a social hierarchy. 
However, all that mattered at that particular moment was that she felt welcomed and acce
pted by 
other women of her community. At that moment
, 

memories revealed. Yet, Sahra kept her composure as she narrate
d the events of that day with 
such clarity
:  Nimo: 
 Okay, can you walk me through that day? What happened?
 Sahra: 
 That day, I prayed so much. I remember I was like, just let it be easy for me. Just 

Like I was like just let it be 
99  


inda [of reaction] 
 Nimo: Yeah, it was surprising 
 Sahra:
 It was very surprising from a lot of people that were like, oh, I like the pink. It 
matches your thing. And I was just like, I came home and I was like, oh, my god, 
that was good. And it was, it w
as a relief, honestly, like everything. Cuz having 
such, like no one understands the struggle until you go there because when 

like practically naked, wearing shorts and cro

an abaya, the looks you get, like no one could ever describe it
 So it was difficult and I remember that time. It was around the fall time so people 
were still wearing shorts and
 Yeah, it is, it is very difficult telling my
 parents, like difficult for me to wear an 




each other.
 No. It was difficult, really difficult. 
 Nimo: 
 Yeah.  Then you just, the second day, you wore abaya again? What happened? 
 100  Sahra:
 I wore it the [
abaya
] the
 whole week and I remember someone was like is it, are 
you wearing it for a holiday? I was like, she was like, oh, is that for like your 



religion tells me to wear this stuff. No, because they would never understand that. 

black one? 
 Nimo: 
 
 Sahra: 
 
wear abaya
]. 
  As the story unfold
s, we come to discover the role of religion in 
these 
s lives
. Instead of 

different aspect of religion that is often not explored in the education literature. 
That
 is how Somali youth utilize religion or spirituality as funds
 of knowledge (Gonzales
, 2005) to be drawn 


self
 that was not understood or ea
sily accepted by her peers. 
It is interesting that Sahra did not even try to 
explain her religious predilections to her peers. 
Instead, she invoked the secular ideals common 
among her peers in regard to why she 
wore the hijab
 in order to relate to them. Fo
r instance, she 
emphasized the individual choice to wear the hijab over the divine. To highlight the importance 
of this point, 
I point
ed out that 
she used the phrase gaalo,
 which
, as explained,
 means
 non-Muslim. By claiming that 
gaalo people would not understand her choice to cover as 
an 
obedience to 
a divine command
, Sahra relied on common secular ideals
. Even though, for many 
101  Muslim women, observing the hijab could be a visible act of practicing the faith (Mahmood
, 2004), but Sahra
 explains her choice to veil as one that is divorced from any divine relations
. It 
could also be argued that by explaining her observing the hijab for religious purposes, Sahra may 
have been accepted by some of her peers. 
  In her mind, b
y merging the secula
r and the divine spheres, 
Sahra 
attempted to escape 
from the ever
-present critical gaze that essentializes Muslim women and girls who wear the 
scarf. Instead, she reserved this aspect of her faith 
(wearing the hijab
) for the private sphere. 
She 
decided not
 to reveal her reasons for wearing the hijab. In addition, she also opted for a pink 
abaya
 instead of the standard black. The pink 
abaya
 signified a more modern and less 
threatening
 image
, in the 
Western imagination
, compared to the black 
abaya
. These choi
ces 
seemed to work with her peers, because as long as Sahra invoked the individual choice over the 
divine, her choice to cover was not questioned
. Instead
, she got compliments on her pink 
abaya
. She feared that if she had mentioned God or Islam, then her h
ijab would not have been accepted. 
Furthermore, her 
decision in 
wear
ing
 the hijab was an individual choice
, which is
 in direct 
opposition to the common narrative about Muslim women being forced into wearing the veil by 
patriarchal norms (Zin
e, 2012). 
 Conversely, it could also be argued that by explaining her reasons to cover for religious 
purposes, Sahra may have been accepted by some of her peers who can relate to being religious. 
Thus, her choice to draw from common, standard American discourses coul
d cause further 
alienation. With religion, many of the Somali youth participants rely on mainstream secular 
discourses to justify their decisions, causing self
-imposed distance in their stories. They often 
interpret everything as a judgment, when at times 
there may be mere curiosity. For instance, one 

abaya
] for a
 
for Somali 
102  youth to differentiate between an innocent question and a demeaning one, especially because 
Somali youth may in
ternalize the essentialization of Muslims in mainstream discourse. In 
addition, within the school community there is no belief in the possibility of honest dialogue 

ult. 
 
 Once she 

before she started observing the headscarf. This could also be
 seen as tension between Somali 
parents and their 
American
-born children. Sahra explained that neither her parents, nor the 
women at the mosque
, understood the difficulty of being the only Muslim student in her 
predominantly white school. This implies that
 these elders at the mosque sometimes use young 


to that of 
Suad to give us an insight on
 the complexity of being 
different and t

   103  
  Suad 
is a second
-generation Somali female student, who also went to suburban schools with very few 
Somalis/Muslims, prior to co

of being forced to reveal her Muslim identity:
  Suad: 
 Okay, 7
th grade.  I remember my teacher comes up to me and he says, __ 


after that, I remember the day or the day of, t
he day after or the day of, 
my friends come up to me, oh, you know, Mr. Yada Yada told everyone 

exactly, we were going to music class and this kid comes up to me and he 
says are you Islam? W
hich is so wrong on so many levels.  And I 
remember that day so clearly because I was at the brinks of saying no.  I 
like in my heart, I was about to say no but I said yes.  
 
of my li

what was going through me. Like I was to the point I was embarrassed of 
my religion. Embarrassed of who I am. 
 Nimo: 
 So the teacher specifically told on your class?
  Suad: 
 He told the other classes, not only my class. 
 Nimo: 
 You were the only Muslim kid in the entire grade? 
 Suad:
 I, I think so, maybe during that time I was. 
 Nimo: 
 Okay. What made you say yes? 
 104  Suad: 
 At the point, I think what made me say yes because I knew, in my heart I 
wanted to say no but I knew at the end, I was Muslim. Even as much stuff 

 Suad: 
 And there were some people th

did nothing to them and they would just give me the stinky eye. But after 

  In S

 story, we 
learn about a
 significant moment that would alter her 
experiences
, not only in 
that school, but 
that would continue to play an important role in her life in high school. Such 
moment was the moment the teacher revealed her as a Muslim. 
 One interpretation is that while 

and his actions so far narrated could be attributed to a simple interest in these issues. And he may 
not have realized the child would struggle with a public identification. This interpretation begs 
t
specific act of hostility directed against her? While this is not meant to down play the 
discrimination and violence, these youth experience as a result of their soci
al positioning, but 
rather, to show how complicated schooling becomes in such a context. 
 
experience. According to Suad, prior to the incident, she had an easy time i
n school that was not 


she experienced after she was iden
tified, and identified herself, as a Muslim. This struggle 
occurred because the school forced Suad into a confrontation with her own faith, which it never 
105  
stories, it does weigh on these children. This is evident particularly with regard to the wearing of 

that teachers play in positioning students as subjects (and
 the social ramifications of that 
positioning).
 

many at the time, her
 teacher knowing that she was Muslim brought the issue of the hijab ban, 

she did not consider herself as a practicing Muslim since she neither observed the scarf, n
or 
prayed regularly. Yet, she was identified as a Muslim. As a seventh grade student, Suad was 
more worried about her friends finding out about her Islamic roots, than the hijab ban in France. 
Meanwhile we can speculate on how much of the pain that the tea
cher caused is due to the fact 
that the child does not strongly identify as Muslim? In calling her a Muslim, he did certain 
violence to her self
-concept. There is a tension here between cultural identification as Muslim 
and religious commitment as Muslim? 
 As I explained in chapter two a primary element in the construction of a racialized 
Somali identity is the act of naming, which hails the subject into specific ideology of what it 
means to be Somali i.e. a Muslim and black.  In this incident, the teacher 
did more than just 

Other because she was Muslim. While on the other hand, he may as well make something 
unfamiliar, Muslims, into something familiar, Suad her


106  
be associated with such religion. Or, 
it could be that she was just embarrassed that she was not 
following the rules of her faith in the way
 she knew her elders would want.
 Or perhaps, she 
feared unfavorable treatment from her peers and teachers; both things are at play here. 
Regardless, her f


difference based on religion was an important part of who she was and she could not escape
. Hence, this realization froze her into a racial project. 
 
we see the relationship between essentialist representation of Muslims, and social structure of 
schools. By 
linking Suad to Muslims in France, the teacher was drawing from an essentialist 
discourse that denied any differences among Muslims. This is a key element in the concept of 
racial formation and one that I base my argument of racialization of religion on, a
 concept, which 
I would build on in subsequent sections as I examine the stories of the students in this study. In 
this view, when a racial project draws a link between essentializing a particular group and social 
structures that dominate, then according t
o these authors, this constitutes formation of racist 
racial project. To highlight the importance of racial projects, Omi and Winant (1994) 
differentiate between the macro and microstructures, where macro refers to the institutional and 
policy level. Where
as, the micro refer to our everyday interactions and experiences of racial 
projects, further emphasis on this point is elaborated in chapter two. In this study, I am more 
concerned about how Somali youth experience micro racial projects in their schools an
d community. 
 107  I end this section (in theme three) 
with a story from a female student, Hibo, whom we 
met earlier as she shared her experiences of not wearing the hijab in 
Summit Academy
. Here, 

participants, interviewed for this 
study. In the following, Hibo narrated an account that happened during a class discussion about 

ambivalence that continue to 
unfold and
 inform the following sections.
 
 Unlike many of the stories thus far, the next account reveals 
clear acts of racist racial projects (Omi & Winant, 1994). However, this does not mean that the 
above, narrated encounters 
are less significant than the next one.
  All the stories in this study, 
whether they can be 
interpreted
 based on the frameworks in our disposal or otherwise, are 
relevant. This is so because these stories produce something as we navigate the in
-between 
spaces immigrant youth live. 
 Hibo:  
when they were talking about like 9/11 and how like that and like the teacher 

 student was like, do we 
for sure know, it was, I think she asked was it for sure a Muslim did it and he 

 
m
 Nimo: How did that make you feel? 
 Hibo: It made, like I felt like everyone stopped and looked at me, like all attention was 
on me.   Nimo: 
 Were you the only Muslim in the class? 
 108  Hibo: Yes, at the time, yes, I was so it was like awkward.  
 


t gonna deny that.  But I was like, 
Americans and every race and ethnicity does things as well. Does that make 
them your people or what? 
 Nimo: 
 What did he say to that? 
 Hibo: He was like, I understand and I apologize. I was like, okay. Yeah, he apologi
zed 
right away. 
 Nimo: 
 What about the rest of the students? 
 Hibo:  They were just like shocked.  Caught them off guard, too. 
Yeah Nimo: 
 Okay. Did that change your, your relationship with the teacher after that? 
 Hibo:  Yeah, I was like, I was like, 
I kept my distance from him in a way.
  Continuing with the notion of racialization of religion or the converging of racial and religious 

are 
constructed. Thus, 
it did not matter 
that the alleged 9/11 terrorist
s were of Middle Eastern origin
 and Hibo was 
Somali. They were referred to
 as 
.
teacher about his stereotyping of all Muslims, she did not draw a clear line between her 
ethnic 
identity and that of the carriers of 9/11. Instead
, Hibo acknowledged the fact
 

 Yet
, she questioned the dehumanizing narrative about Muslims and called
 upon the teacher to examine his own role in inequality i
n representation pertaining to Muslims. 
Here, we learn that the teacher apologized
. So on the one hand, there is a need to preserve room 
109  for people
 to act violently but also to amend and learn. Thus
, it would be interesting to interview 
this teacher, to se
e if he learned from his mistake, to see what degree this encounter did or did 
not change his life in positive ways. On the other hand,
 what was more important was the 
unconscious act of essentializing all Muslims as terrorist
s. As is common in everyday ra
cial 
projects (Omi 
& Winant 1994), individuals are not even aware of the multiple ways they enact 
attitudes and practices that discriminate those belonging to communities of color (Feagin
, 2010). 
While this conception of essentializing certain groups is mo
stly based on race, I argue that this 
notion could be extended to religion as a racial project, considering the state of Islam and 
Muslims in 
post-9/11 America, where it had become the norm to call for the policing of 
Muslims.  
 To further elaborate on the essentialization of Muslims by this teacher, it is important to 
note and further show the link between Islam as religion and how it was racialized. Hibo was the 
only female student 
interviewed 
in this study that was not observin
g the hijab
, at least outside of 
school
, at the time of the interview. In addition, she was also the only one among the female 
participants who in her previous school participated in sports and other school activities. This is 
pertinent, because unlike man

participate 
in these activities freely. Her parents, contrary to the findings 
of some 
research (see 
Haw
, 1998), did not use Islam to monitor the type of extracurricular activities she could 
par
ticipate
 in. If these were factors that determine
d if students could
 be integrated into the 

M
Islamic identity was not visible as she neither observed the headscar
f nor showed any reluctance 
in participating
 in athletic activities. These points are relevant because often teachers and other 
110  
students (Forman
, 2001; Haw
, 1998; Sarroub
, 2005). 
 
 that her identity as a Muslim was problematized and 
essentialized. By calling
 the terrorists one of her people, the teacher engaged in an open act of 
essentializing, thus casting Muslims 
(Islam
) as a
 racist racial project. According to Omi and 
Winant
 (1994)
, 
racist if and only if it creates or reproduces 

 (p. 71). Hence
, 
the grouping o
f all Muslims based on their faith was essentializating and
, therefore
, propagate
d all sorts of structural and social marginalization
. Lastly, 

provides a continuum of actions from those that are interpreted as racist bu
t may be neutral to 
those that are clearly racist. This juxtaposition partly demonstrates the subjective experience of 
race, racialization, and symbolic racial violence among Somali immigrant and refugee youths. 
Race is a structural as well as cultural rep
resentation (Omi & Winant, 1994). Therefore, the 
hierarchy inherent in these structures provides an understanding and interpretation of the racial 
projects encountered in daily life. This is evident in the racialization of religion, as illustrated 
next in 

     111  Theme Four. 
Seeking 
Meaning in 
Uncertain 
Terrain
 The meanings and stories behind Muslim women and girls wearing the hijab are myriad. 
All six female participants, in this study, shared different stories about their hijab. And many of 
these stories, we have already encountered in previous themes. However, in previous stories, the 
hijab stories were side stories, often supplementing other aspects of experiencing (perceived) 
racialization. In this section, the hijab is more than an identi
ty marker. According to Farah, 
whom we met earlier, the hijab is a way of being in the world.
 
 In this section,
 I interrogate the hijab not 
only as a visible identity marker, but also as a way of being in the world
. In this view, the hijab 
produces certain subjective experiences. 
Next, Farah explains what the hijab means to hers: 
 Farah: 
 




actually put on a piece, put on clothes and stuff and
 

 Nimo: 
 Meaning what? What is the difference? like putting on clothes, you can just put 

 Farah: 
 You can 

purpose. You just put it on.
  Nimo: 
 Including the hijab, you mean?
 Farah:
 
anything. 
 112  Nimo: What, does
 it mean, wearing the hijab?
  Farah:
 Wearing the hijab is like pretty much. Wearing your identity is like when, for 


stand out but yo


because like, you know, part of it, I guess, part of identity, or part of my identity 
is being a Muslim and a lot of th
e time, you know, because of things that have 
happened in the past and, you know, the things that are being, you know, 
perpetrated in the media about Muslims and stuff like that, like they want you to 

they want you to feel sorry. 



 Nimo: 
 
there? 
 Farah: 
 

 Yeah, yeah. Because i


attitudes that they give off. Like you know, just the little things, the way that they 
look sometimes. When they talk t
o you, sometimes the words that they use, the 
113  

for who you are. They want you to, or they give o
ff the feeling that you s
hould 


 I would say, like I would say sophomore year of high school. Well, I mean, even 

 the hijab 

 Nimo: 
 Did that happen with you? 
 Farah:
 Yeah, and in middle school, I remember what happened was, and see, this is kind 
of individual because I remember in middle school, like from 4
th grade to 7
th 
they teach you Is
lamic things and stuff and then.
 Nimo: Did they make you wear the hijab in that school? 
 Farah:
 

in 4th grade so it was not something that was like, I was not like super against it 
or rebellious or whatever. 
 As Farah explained in her story, wearing the hijab was more than putting on a piece of garment
; 
r identity
. Thus, it is political, according to Farah, 
because 
wearing the hijab 

 In many Western societies, including the 
US, the hijab is a much-contested piece of cloth that brings forth discussions surrounding 
women
 rights issues 
(Ahmed
, 2000), the separation of religion and state, 
and
 an array of topics that are related to who 
belongs and who does no
t belong to the nation (
Zine
, 2006; 2012). More importantly, as the 
114  storied experiences of these students speak
 to, the hijab is an identity site where Muslim girls not 
only construct meanings for their lives, but also negotiate an identity between the secular and 
religious boundaries they cross every
 
they 

s of their children losing 
traditions
 (Sarroub, 2005)
. Therefore, the hijab allows them to pursue education and careers for 
themselves in the secular world (Sarroub
, 2005), as long as they are v
isible as Muslim woman 
(Zine
, 2012). 
 
,
 is a political stand, because
, 
,even though the hijab is a visible 
identity marker
. But, as 
she stated,
 
, 
.
. And, 

being Muslim. Yet, this very Muslim identity is fragmented because it 

and not the whole person
 (Farah)
.  However, the media and other discursive tools tend to fixate and mold what it means to 
be a Muslim into a simple g
ood versus evil binary. The underlying assumption here is that all 
Muslims share an essence to commit evil, unless 
proven 
otherwise. Hence, 
as Farah explained, 

 of things that have 
happene

 
 . . . 

 (Farah
). In order to be accepted as a Muslim, one is required to accept 
and actively participate not only 
in the policing of Muslims but also to constantly apologize for 

115  
a
 When covering a story about terrorist acts by Muslims, it has become a common practice 
by media outlets to always include a representative from the Muslim community that condemns 
these terrorist acts. While this may seem a way to cover all sides of the story and a channel to 
give voice to Muslims living in the West, it has also become a phenomenon that contributes to 
the marginalization of Muslims in general. In this view, then the m
edia as a discursive field not 
only influences in shaping the ideology that Muslims are dangerous people and need to be 
policed, but also hails Muslim subjectivities into self
-hate. Thus, the media as an element of 
a discursive field creates a construct of
 Muslim that is apologetic of themselves as people and 

(Farah
), especially when others carry out 
acts of violence forcing Muslims to develop an ambivalent relationship with their faith. 
 My intent here
 is by no means to criticize the efforts of Muslim individuals and organizations, 
both in the 
US and other Western countries, which work to build bridges between Muslims and 
the larger communities
 in which they live
. Their work is important and needed, par
ticularly as 
Islamophobia sentiments in the West continue to grow. Instead, my primary concern here is to 
elaborate on how the hijab as an emerging identity with political stand
ing can be better 

ender. Arguing against an 
esse
n
there is no
 gender essence all women 
share. But gender is, among other things, a position one occupies and from which one can act 

pp. 147148). This conception o
f gender combines identity politics and 
understanding of the subject as a positionality
. In this view, the subject is 
then understood 
as 
non-essentialized and emergent from historical experience and yet objectively located in 
116  describable
 social structures
 and relations. Gender identity is not exhaustively determined by 
biology; it is not ahistorical or universally the same
 (Alcoff
, 2006, p. 147).
 This is relevant because the hijab is a gender issue that further marginalizes Muslim 
women who observe the he
adscarf. In other words, in 
Western context, the practice of the veil 
produced what Zine (2012) called gendered Islamophobia. In this view, Muslim women who 
wear the hijab become the subjects of all sorts of scrutiny and harassment, especially in public 
spaces. 
 I understand the conception of the hijab as a political stand could be problematic for all 
who observe it
. B
ecause this view ignores other 
standpoints
 on why Muslim women choose to 
observe this aspect of their faith. These 
views 
include practicing 
piety (Mahmood
, 2004) and 
spirituality (
see also Zine
, 2012), as well as cultural norms that dictate 
that many women wear 
the hijab in their societies (Abu
-Elhaj, 2006). The former is a point I personally draw from in my 
own journey of wearing the hijab as
 a teenager to the present as an adult. At the individual level, 
the observation 
of the hijab may as well be a process of meanings that continuously evolves as 

Som
ali youth and their experiences with race and religion within the institutions of school and in 
the communities 
in which they live. Therefore, this investigation is committed to represent them 
in the most authentic ways that language and the theoretical le
ns I draw from allow me to. For 
this reason, the wearing of the hijab is interpreted contextually
; that is, the hijab is 
conceptualized and understood as these young women who struggle to honor its tradition 
perceive it to be. 
The hijab is understood throu
gh their eyes and
, hence
, is a politically charged 

117  story
, the hijab represents 
an inner struggle and ambivalence towards modesty. To highlight the 
various me

 
began her journey to wear
ing the hijab. The veil, as layers of cloth, revealed layers of mea
ning. 
While the hijab 
consistently manifested to 
be a racializing garment for Sahra and other youth in 
this study, it also represented a way of practicing the faith. Sahra described herself to be a 
non-practicing Muslim prior to wearing the hijab. Accordin
g to her, the headscarf marked her identity 
as a Muslim. Yet
, it was important for Sahra to be accepted by her peers, who found her pink 
abaya 
to be a pretty and fun 
costume
. On the one hand, the practice of the hijab was challenged. 
On the other hand, the
 hijab also challenged and entered the horizon of the other. And for these 

, more 
importantly
, the hopes she carried beneath her veil
. These same experiences also speak t
o the horizons of Somali youth in the making. 
 Regardless of the personal story behind observing the veil, the hijab remains 
as the controversial and often racializing dress code for Muslim women and girls. 
The hijab is 
also
 a visible identity marker that 
situates Muslim women in certain discursive field
s. The storied lives 
of the youth in this study indicate the complex and the nuanced experiences young Somali girls 
have with their hijabs. In these stories, the hijab is a source of marginalization, ambival
ence
, and 
comfort. While the hijab isolates them from mainstream society, it also links them to their 

throughout the narratives of this study, the practice of observing 
the veil became embodied 
experiences that produced lifeworlds of the girls in this study. The act of wearing the hijab, or 
lack thereof (Hibo, interview) lead to certain way
s of engaging with the world. 
 118  
 hijab as a political endeavor could be 
considered as an attempt to make sense of the ambiguity and doubt that is revealed in many of 

markers were a source o
f racialization, where they were subjected to clear acts of racial 
aggression, or what Omi and Winant (1994) called racist racial projects. While at other times 
actions that the youth interpreted as racist were in fact unclear. Hence, these same visible si
tes for identity work raised all sorts of curiosity, as well as all sorts of uninformed questions by the 

they encounter in their daily lives, whether thos
e could be referred to racist racial projects or not. 
Nevertheless, these racial experiences produce certain meanings and conditions that become 
important as the Somali immigrant narrative takes root in U.S. soil.  
  119  6. CONCLUSION
  The relevance o
f this study is 
based on the need to look at the experiences of racialization 
and its impact on embodied perception of self and other as 
a key factor in how Somali students 
experience school. Hence, the conceptualization of this study was 
rooted in four pr
emises
. First, 
Somali immigrant and refugee youth
 schooling experiences are shaped by socially ascribed 

experiences are influenced by how they are positioned by school officials
 and 
peers, and how 
they position themse
lves based on racialized identities. Thus, I reviewed literature that elaborates 
on how subjects are hailed into subject positions (Foucault
, 1977) in a dialectic process 
(Althusser
, 1971), as 
well as literature that examines the construction of socially a
scribed 
identities in discursive fields (Foucault
, 1977; Hall
, 1997). Research among Somalis indicated 
that Somali youth are racialized both by school staff (Forman
, 2001) and the elders in their 
community (Bigelow
, 2010). Since research among Somalis is i
n its embryonic stage, most 
studies explore
d issues pertaining to integration (Forman
, 2001; Ibrahim
, 1999; Langellier
, 2010) and language acquisition (Bigelow
, 2008, 2010) as Somali children c
ame into contact with 
educational and other social institutions
.  However, there is a void in the literature pertaining to 
how Somali youth experience and make sense of racialization. By looking at the everyday 
experience of racialization, this study fills this gap. 
 The second 
assumption is that students
 everyday ex
periences with racialization provide 
interpretive horizon
s (Alcoff
, 2006; Gadamer
, 2003) from which they make sense of their world. 
Here, I borrowed from post
-positivist theorist
s (Alcoff
, 2006; Merleau
-Ponty
, 1968). Th
e th
ird assumption is that racialization as a process happens in two steps: 
(a) 
ascription of social 
identities and
, (b)
 the actual experience of being 
racialized
. In addition to the subject positioning 
120  literature, I also drew from theories of experience (Gada
mer
, 2003; Merleau
-Ponty
, 1968).  I 

And, finally, the fourth assumption is one that considers the body as a site where racialization 
happens. In this view, racial
ization becomes an embodiment where the actual everyday 
experience of being racialized accumulates in the body. Here, I mainly drew from Merleau
-
 (1968)
 notion of chiasm, which explain
ed the subjective
-intersubjective experiencing of 
the world. Thes
e frameworks were instrumental in providing me with the lens and language 
needed to understand the everyday nature of racialization as a bodily experience. 
 Educators, in large urban districts with high Somali immigrant and refugee population
s, often tend 
to describe the challenges with their Somali students as one
s rooted in 
a cultural misfit 
among 
Somali families, schools
, and mainstream
 society
. This implies that as 
a Somali presence 
takes root in the 
US, many of the cultural challenges Somalis face will
 dissipate with time. As I 
illustrated in the reviewed literature, this is not true. The reason 
is that
 Somalis are visible ethnics
 due to
 the visible nature of race and religion among Somalis
, which
 complicate
s linear notion
s of 
integration. 
 The majority of Somali students in public schools 
are 
either 1.5
, or second
-generation 
immigrants, yet Somali students as a group continue to underperform academically (Bigelow
, 2010). 
There is a need to address the lack of success among Somali students th
at go
es beyond 
cultural explanations. The few studies about Somalis focus on issues related to language 
acquisition (Bigelow
, 2008
, 2010) and integration. However, no studies
 have
 examined the 
everyday experiences of Somali students in school, especially a
s they
 pertain to racialized 
identities based on race and religion. This study addresses the gap in the literature. Since the
 
cialization, I engage phenomeno
ogy 
121  as a method of inquiry. I chose t
o do so because phenomenology is interested in capturing the 
everyday nature of experiences. In this view, experience is understood as an encounter with the 
world and not a perception of incidents (Gadamer, 2003). This is pertinent since experiencing 
racia
lization is considered a bodily process that accumulates over time. I am interested in how 
racialization as a process is encountered by Somali youth in their schools and in their 
communities. 
  122  Summary and Interpretation of Data
 The storied lives 
of Somali students narrated in this study, as well as the discussion and 
interpretations of the various themes
, speak to the multiplicity and complex
ity 
of racialization as 
an everyday experience.  Hence, in order to understand how Somali youth experience 
and make 
sense of racialization as a process
, this 
question was divided 
further 
into: 
(a) what is the 
everyday nature of 
the experiences of being racialized
? and 
(b) what is the relationship between 
socially ascribed identities and identity development of 
Somali youth
? To answer the first 

perception and interpretations (Alcoff
, 2006; Fassin
, 2011; Venn
, 2009) of their schooling 
experiences. And
, for the second que
stion, I investigated the phenomenology of racialized 
identities. Here, I reviewed theories of embodiment that speak to the subjective
-intersubjective 
nature of experience (Alcoff
, 2006; Gadamer
, 2003; 
Merleau
-Ponty
, 1968; 2013). These 
frameworks allowed m
e to explore the lived experiences of Somali youth in their schools and the 
communities 
in which they live
. These notions helped me explore racialization as a phenomenon, 
but first let me briefly restate my conceptualization of racialization as a concept. 
 The notion 
of 

racial formation theory, where experiences of race 
are
 understood in terms of racial projects. 
Since race in the 
US context has both cultural and structural dimension, it makes sense to 

Omi and Winant (1994) not all racial projects are racist. Hence, racial project
s are
 racis


(Omi 
& Winant
, 1994, p.  71). With this understanding of racialization, 
next I summarize 
essential findings that address the above two question
s. 123  The findings in this study indicate that not all stories reveal actions of racialization as 
understood above. The stories narrated by the Somali youths in this study contain a spectrum of 
actions that range from those that can be characterized as obviously ra
cist and discriminatory, to 
those whose motivation is unclear, to those that are clearly nonracist (even if they are interpreted 
by students as racist). Importantly, many of the stories fell within a gray area on this spectrum in 
which it was not clear whe

(1994) definition. With this in mind, the question becomes whether it is possible to tell whether 
actions are reflected as racist racial projects. If the youth in this study interpret a gaze 
of curiosity 
as one of othering, is the racial project racist? It reproduces something, but perhaps not as 
intended. Hence, there is a way the system can be shown to be reproducing itself despite the 

study calling for centrality of the 


frameworks.
   124  Racialization
: a lived 
experience
.  
experiences of racialization started at a young age, often in elementary school. Students narrated 
that they often felt physically marginalized both by their teachers and peers because of being 
black an
d/or Muslim. 
And in fact, they could never tell which was the problem. Hence, this 

school experiences often meant prolonged 
feelings of social exclusion from classroom activities and the larger schoo
l community. As one 
student relayed
, these feelings of isolation became normalized everyday encounters (Asli 
interview). 
Early experiences of loneliness are consistent with literature findings of 
first
-
eriences (McBrien
, 2005). The 
explanation in the literature is one based on language acquisition. In this view, once immigrant 
students acquire English
 they become integrated into the school community. Conversely, the 
findings in this study suggest that So

dissipate with the ability to speak English. Most of the participants in this study were 
US-born 
and did not necessarily have language challenge
s upon starting school. Rather
, these early 
experiences of
 marginalization explain social exclusion as an aspect of racialization that often 
started in elementary school and accumulated throughout the years. This is significant because 
racialization as a bodily encounter supports the framework needed to understan
d the 
identities
, and worldviews. 
      125  Racialization: contextual and relational experience
.  Every student in this study shared 
compelling stories about their experiences of being 
a Somali immigrant and refugee in schools. 
In these stories
, being Somali was inseparable from being Muslim. 
The nexus between race and 
religion lay the groundwork for u
nderstanding racialization due to visible identity markers 
(Bigelow
, 2010). However, my findings suggest that besides race and religion, there were 

perception of 
racialization. These elements 
included gender, l
anguage, accent
, immigrant status, 
and academic track or ability, 
all of which 
became 
visible at some point and not visible at other times in
 the student stories. This speaks to 
the contextual nature of identity; it also has consequences for the frameworks this study draws 
from. 
 Contrary to the findings in the literature (Bigelow
, 2010; Zine
, 2012), student experiences 
demonstrated female Somali youth wer
e racialized because they were Muslim/Somali and not 
whether they observed the hijab or not. In fact, three of the female students shared stories in 
which their Muslim identity was essentialized and racialized by teachers, even though they did 
not wear the
 hijab at that time. Meanwhile, Somali elders used the absence of the hijab as a 
means to racialize Somali girls. For instance, these elders equated lack of hijab with being 
gaalo. Hence, racialization of religion was an element that was prevalent both in 
schools and in the 
community, despite the fact that it meant different things in different contexts. 
 And lastly, racialization was a relational experience that was only possible through the 
other. As I
 explained in 
Chapter 2
, the process of racialization 
consists of a dialectic process in 
which the ascription of black racial identity is only possible by the presence of whiteness (Fassin
, 2011). This is significant because the same notion could be extended to racialization of religion, 
126  a point I will discus
s shortly. Meanwhile, 
the presence of the other is crucial because it speaks to 
the role of school staff as well as community members in the racialization process.
 Implications
 of racialization
. While race and religion are two important factors that 

the notion of visibility is a relative one. This means that other bodily expressions such as 
language,
 accent, or immigrant status can also be used to essentialize identity positions of black 
and Muslim immigrant youth like the Somalis. Hence, these findings prompt us to think about 
the various ways in which identities of Somali youth were essentialized by
 not only school 
officials, but also 
by 
Somali elders and 
by 
Somali students themselves. 
The essentializing of 
their identity happened at various degrees in the storied lives of 
the Somali youth
 of this study
, whether this meant the essentializing of Musli
ms as violent people
, or how 
being Somali meant 
that one can
not be a 
high
-achieving
 student, or how
 
among others
. One 
common phenomenon about essentialization was its 
persistent 
denial of differences among those 
belonging to a partic
ular group, 
(i.e., Muslims and Somalis
). This is true even
 when this 
difference meant vast differences in cultural, geographical, and linguistic backgrounds. 
Conversely, the aim of essentialization is to position certain groups at the margin. In student 
experiences, this was evident 
in the way Islam was used by many of the teachers to position 
Somali youth within the school social climate. 
 This positioning not only alienated Somali youth, but it also created a school environment 
that was hostile to Islam a
nd Muslims. This was evident on how other students were often 
shocked or confused to find out that their Somali friends were indeed Muslim. Somali 
youths
 worry about being revealed as a Muslim indicated that there was a fear of social exclusion from 
schoo
l community
. And from their own religious communities for not being Muslim enough
. 127  These results are 
consistent 
with literature that shows schools to be the place Muslim students 
experience
 the most discriminat
ion (Sirin & Fine
, 2008). 
 In addition, as an 
important step for constructing a racialized identity, essentialization 
speaks to how Islam is made alien to the American narrative. Somali youth are made to feel that 
they do
 not belong and are 
a threat to society. For
 the
 essentialization of Islam to be effective, 
there is a need to create a narrative of us versus them, where Muslims are depicted as persons 
with violent tendencies (Said
, 1979). The dehumanizing of Muslims is linked to the colonial 
project and has deep root
s in Western imagination. These are important factors that teachers and 
school leaders need to be cognizant about in their quest for anticolonial and antiracist educational 
project
s.  Meanwhile, racialization of religion provides a new set of opportunities
 that can 
contribute to the field, specifically in relation to pre
-service teacher training programs and school 
administrators. Currently, there is an urgent push for educational policies that support antiracist 
education based on race. The findings in thi
s study suggest that racial projects need to be 
expanded to religion as a category for guidelines against institutional oppression (Gilbert
, 2004). 
As the findings in this study show that racialization of religion is a complex phenomenon, 
especially when r
eligion intersects with race, as is the case with Somali youth experience. While, 
the frameworks help us in defining or differentiating racist racial project from nonracist ones. 
There is a need to consider narrative based research as the one this study dr
aws from. It is 
through stories that we come to understand, and relate to the human experiences of schooling. 
For this reason, some of the stories depicted in this study can be shared with pre
-service teachers 
and school administrators in training. In orde
r to create a school environment that not only 
respects difference but also promotes pluralism. 
 128  The relevance of this may be seen in how the notion of difference was perceived and 
interpreted by the teachers and Somali youths. For instance, in the stories
 about experiences in 

other school staff, a school environment existed in which the Somali students felt marginalized 
and ignored. Also, in the stories where the tea
chers in middle and high school brought up the 

essentializing and racist. Thus, creating an overall school culture that respects plurality with 
regard to religion
 and religious practice requires dialogue among educators and researchers to 
find appropriate ways to address difference among all students, including students of minoritized 
groups.
 Consequences for theory
.  In 
Western societies, race is the prototype tha
t lays the 
foundation for identification and representation (Alcoff
, 2006; Gilroy
, 2001; Hall
, 1990; West
, 1982) 
despite 
the fact that race has no fixed meaning and is often changing with socio
-historical 
processes (Omi 
& Winant, 1994). Yet
, race is real and influences our daily lives in multiple ways 
(Alcoff). The reason 
is that
 race is scripted to the body and
, hence
, visible. However, the findings 
in this study prompt us to think
 about
 ways to extend these frameworks to the realm of religi
on as a factor for racialization. The findings also urge us to question the notion of visibility as it 
relates 
to race and religion as necessary factors for racialization as a project. While I agree with 
the concept of visibility pertaining to race and rel
igion among Somali immigrants, the results of 
this study shed light on the limitations of such conception
s. This is particularly true in situations 

It is during
 these incidents that other elements such as gender, accent, and immigrant status 
became visible, while race and/or religion became invisible. 
 129  In this view, we can then conclude that it is the visibility of race that grounds the system 
and allows for othe
r things to come forward during certain contexts. But the hierarchy is found 
on visibility and the lived embodiments of the meanings of such visible markers. 
 Somali youth positioning themselves
.  Racialization of Somali immigrants and refugees 
happen
s in a discursive field that shape
s and construct
s what it means to be Somali. This 
discourse often places Somalis on the margin, where the emphasis is on being black, Muslim
, and undereducated newcomers. Somali youth in this study often accessed these same dis
courses 
as they define
d and relate
d to one another. This was particularly true pertaining to the 
relationship between the 1.5 and second
-generation Somali immigrants and their first
-generation 
counterparts. Here, factors such as accent and immigrant status
 were used by 1.5 and 
second
-generation Somali youth to essentialize the identities of 
first
-generation Somali immigrant youth. 
For instance, Somali youth used accent as a determining factor for whom to socialize with in 
school. 
 On the one hand, Somali yo

white students and teachers. On the other hand, these students interacted neither with other 
second
-generation Somali students, who used vernacular English, nor 
first
-generation Somali 
immigrants. 
This implies that accent
, 
,
Somali. The interpretations of these findings are consistent with studies of other immigrant youth 
of color (Lee
, 2007; Ngo
, 2007; 2010; Valenzuela
, 1999). 
Accent
, like r
ace
, was not only a 
racializing factor but also represented the ambivalent identity positions that Somali youth 
occupy, which could be directly related to their ambivalent relationship with whiteness. 
 As many colonized people of color, Somali youth in thi
s study were aware that their 
identities were racialized in relation to whiteness. For instance, they considered whiteness 
to be 130  
.
hand, they desire
d to get close
r to whiteness through accent
 changes
, as well as
 academic and 
economic success. These attributes were considered white characteristics and a measure of 
success, and
, hence
, a way to minimize immigrant status. Meanwhile, these interpretations 
exemplify the
 concept of chiasm or 
an 
intersubjective
 (Merleau
-Ponty
, 1968) 
experience 
of the 
world, where bodily experiences of being racialized leads 
people 
to hate themselves and their 
background.     
 Contesting and re
-negotiating racialized identities
.  Student narratives highlight the 
significance of the body as a site for racialization. 
This is consistent with the frameworks that 
this study draws from (Alcoff
, 2006; Fassin
, 2011). However, my findings also suggest that the 
body, as it relates to dress a
nd hairstyle, becomes a site for contesting 
and/or
 renegotiating 
racialized identities. This is particularly important as Somali youth navigate cultural and 

showed two main findings. First, the way in which Somali youth negotiate identity is 
gender
-specific. Second, the meanings student
s attach to wearing the hijab or Afro as tools for identity 

en racialization and the 
self.
   Living the hijab.
  In mainstream culture, the hijab positions Somali female students at the 
margin, while the hijab enjoys a central status within the Somali community. Either way, the 
hijab imposes a racialized identity on
 Somali girls. This is consistent with findings in the 
literature (Bigelow
, 2008, 2010; Sarroub
, 2005; Zine
, 2001; 2012). However, what is missing 
from the literature is that the hijab also speaks to the anxieties, ambivalence, and complexities of 
living i
n between spaces of secular and religious values that many Muslin youth in the West 
131  experience. First, the hijab provides a platform for Muslim parents to transmit an aspect of 
Islamic tradition to their daughters (Haw
, 1998). In mainstream culture where f
emale bodies are 
highly sexualized (Halstead
 cited in Zine, 2006
) many parents of teenager daughters struggle to 
teach their daughters to be selective consumers of the fashion industry. This is also true for 
Muslim families
, whether their daughters observe
 the hijab or not. As the findings in this study 
indicated
, hijabi Somali teenagers
, like their non
-hijabi counterparts
, also push boundaries 
pertaining to modesty. They match their hijabs with 
form
-fitting clothes and bright lipsticks. 
These young Somali hijabis are part of a growing number of young Muslim 
female 
bloggers who 
share ideas on how to be a fashionable hijabis. This is a new phenomenon, and one that deserves 
more research. And
, finally, d
espite its marginalizing effect in mainstream culture, the hijab is 
also a good example of how a racialized identity marker is not always pathological. This is 
evident not only
 in the status of the headscarf within the Somali and Muslim communities, but 
also in the role of the hijab in producing Muslim identity in 
Western countries. Hence, observing 
the hijab is more than a piece of cloth; it is a way to engage with the world that produces ways of 
being. 
 Afro Hairstyle.
 While racialized identities were imp
osed on Somali female students, the 
males in this study chose to access racializing trends by adopting African American dress and 
hairstyle. It was common among the male students in 
the school 
that I observed 
to wear baggy 
clothes and Afro hairstyle. These
 observations are consistent with research findings among 
Somali youth (Bigelow
, 2008, 2010; Forman
, 2001; Ibrahim
, 1999). These studies suggested that 
Somali youth identify with urban African American youth. While this may
 be the case, the male 
students in this study seemed to have a much deeper understanding of performing the youth 
subculture in their neighborhoods and schools. And
, despite the fact that Somali parents frown 
132  
Academy
 had 
a completely different perspective than their parents and
 the elders in their community. 
 For instance, performing urban youth identity through dress and hairstyle allowed Somali 
young men to relate to their African American peers. In addition, as one
 of the participants 
relayed
, wearing baggy clothes and 
an 
Afro made Somali boys less visible and often protected 
them in their neighborhoods where Somali immigrants are often attacked. 
Also, one can argue 
that Somali boys were allowed to adopt African
-Ame
rican youth culture. Their visibility was tied 
to cultural rather than religious practices. Whereas, Somali girls, in this study, were hurt not only 
by the hijab as terrorist trope, but also by being made to 
feel by teachers and other students as not 
good 
enough Muslims for not wearing it. Meanwhile, t
he youth in this study seemed to adopt a 
more complex understanding of identity. As Omar explained, whether they 
identified 
as African 
American or Somali depended on the context. Hence,
 they were
 constructing a much more fluid 
and hybrid conception of their identities.  
 Implications
 for self
-positioning
. Forman (2001) showed that when Somali boys perform 
black youth culture, they often face stricter disciplinary measures from school officials. 
According to Forman
, this often worries Somali parents who think that they are losing their 
children (
Bigelow
, 2010; 
Forman
, 2001). Somali boys become subject to the same 
discriminatory practices that 
African
-American 
and
 Latino 
boys often face in schools (F
erguson
, 2001; Noguera
, 2009). This was also evident in 
the Summit 
Academy,
 where Somali boys were 
suspended at 
a higher rate than any other group in the school. 
 Many of the 
male student
s I talked to during my fieldwork complained that their teachers 

us to the 
Principal
 
les 133  who I interviewed for this study had several in
-school suspensions during the 
10 weeks I spent at 
the school. However, the same students never got suspended from English class, which was 
taught by a Somali female teacher. The boys said they never get s
uspended from English class 
because the teacher understands them. 

been investigated, and hence, needs more research. 
 Consequences for theor
y.  
Amer
ican peers speaks to the notion of merging horizons. As 
the stories indicated, in 
order for horizons to merge, it was necessary that Somali youth were open in relating to their 
African American peers. According to Thandeka (1999)
, the desire to r
elate to our fellow 
humans is a basic human nature that transcends racialized existence. It is this openness to the 
other that eased Somali youth 
into 
being accepted by their African American friends. This aspect 
of the horizon highlights the importance of
 experience as we encounter new experiences. 

that goes beyond 
(reactionary identities such as) racialized identities. Thus
, horizons as interpretive tool
s for 
identity work capture
s the multiplicity of experiences that leads to nuanced and often contested 
identity positions. Hence, my findings support this reading of the horizon.
  Meanwhile
, 
d identities 
speak to the need for theory to look beyond reactionary identities. What I mean here is that while 
it is important to investigate the intricacies and subtleties of racist systems and societies, there is 
a need to acknowledge that there is more
 to identity than social positioning or reactionary 
endeavors. Since these reveal as much as they hide about who we are as people. The findings 
also problematize the notion of visibility in both male and female student experiences. 
 134  Race becomes invisible 
while immigrant status becomes visible. This was exemplified in 
shaving off the Afro, which revealed Somaliness, or immigrant status. Conversely, 
when that 
same youth 
is wearing the Afro race becomes visible.  Perhaps
, there is a need to extend the 
notion 
of visibility to invisibility. 
The notion of race as a visible identity marker has an 
explanatory power in relation to the presence of whiteness. In situations where the white gaze is 
temporally suspended, there is a need to take other elements of visibili
ty into account. I am well 

the body. 
She considers ethnicity and class as behaviors that c
an be altered. The question is
, then, how does the notion of visibili
ty in regard to race hold when the idea of whiteness as we know it 
in the Western context is not there?    
 Religion
. Religion 
is 
In school, religion 
is a source of marginalization for Somali students (Bigel
ow, 2008, 2010),
 but in private life 

shared her journey to wear
ing the hijab. Her decision to wear the hijab was a direct result of her 

irst, instead of focusing the discourse surrounding religion (Islam) as it pertains to
 the essentializing 
and racializing of Muslim youth, there is a need to consider religion more than as an identity 
marker. This is evident in the predominant focus on ethnicity in the literature about immigrant 
youth, rather than religion (Lippy
, 2000). If we a
re truly interested in understanding Muslim 

 
and in the community. But
, what i
s more important is the various ways in which Sahra navigates 
and negotiates with the very discursive practices that marginalize her. Similarly, Suad
 and 
135  
, their experiences are 
unique because their stories reveal the direct roles that teachers play in racialization of religion 
among Somali youth. Meanwhile, their stories also challenge the notion of the hijab being a 
primary source of racialization among Muslim females. This is so b
ecause both Suad and Hibo 
experienced essentialization and racialization of religion at a time they were not wearing the 
hijab. 
 The teacher
-figure in the essentialization and racialization of Islam is instrumental in 
understanding the school as a racializ
ing space. This is consistent with the findings reported in 
the literature (Bigelow
, 2008
, 2010; Sirin 
& Fine
, 2008). However, there are no studies that I am 
aware of that illuminate the role teachers play in constructing essentialized Muslim identity in 
schools. The results from this study bring this issue to light, where the teacher
-figure has shown 
to engage in practices that essentialize and racialize Somali youth. For instance, the teachers 
ascribed Somali students as Muslims as a way to position them 
as the 
other. Here
, the naming act 
is not a mere description
, but it is an intentional act to alienate Somali students. In these stories, 
the teachers are drawing from wider anti
-Islamic sentiment discourses. For example, 
the teacher 
re-enforce
s these disc
ourses by referring to the 
perpetrators 

sense
, then, the act of naming is an abuse of power (Fassin
, 2011). Of course, here the teacher
 voice is not central to this investigation, and
, hence
, unknown. But
, if we are 
interested in Somali 

-
that we can learn from. 
While, the above can be identified as a racist racial project, yet, the 
teacher
-figure in these stories can be 
placed in a spectrum of racial attitudes and behaviors that 
range from overtly racist to ambiguous and finally to compassionate and relatable adults, in 

 136  Relevance of School Climate
 Thus far, this dissertation has focused on student 
experiences. As the interview data 
suggest, the student stories speak mainly to past experiences that often took place in
 previous 
school contexts (i.e.
 public schools). It is imperative, however, to explore the school contexts in 
which these experiences t
ook place and the school spaces from which the student narratives were 
told. If racialization is relational (Alcoff, 2006), then it is important to consider the contexts or 
spaces where these relations occurred. This section looks at the role of the school
 as a space 
where racialization occurs. I do this by considering both the current school context where the 
student stories were narrated and previous school contexts where student experiences took place. 
Dahlberg et al. (2001) found that understanding the 
context in which phenomenological research 
takes place augments the appreciation of the studied phenomenon. For this reason, field 
observation, a method developed in anthropology and ethnography, is also important in 
phenomenology (Dahlberg et al., 2001). 
In considering racialization as a process, the role of the 

stories of past school experiences must be read in conjunction with their current school 
environment.
  School leaders at Summit Academy consist of both first
-generation immigrants and 
Americans of European descent. For instance, the school director is a first
-generation Arab 
American, while the three school principals (elementary, middle, and high school) a
re White 
females. Yet the school seems to share and implement values consistent with the broader Somali 
community it serves. This is evident in the school policies regarding modesty, dress code, and 
gender relations. While at first glance it was not clear 
how the school policies were indicative of 
racialization, a closer examination of the meanings and implementations of the school policies, 
137  particularly regarding dress code, provide evidence of racialization of Somali youth. 
 As shown in the analysis of st
udent interviews, the visibility of race grounds the system. 
In other words, elements such as religion, immigrant status, accent, and academic track can all 

skin, however, that provides the basis for racialization among Somali youth. This was evident in 
several informal conversations I had with the school staff. During one particular conversation I 
had with the school director, Mr. Ali, he referred to Somali s
tudents as Blacks while referring to 
other ethnicities such as Arabs and South Asians as Whites. Thus, even though the school 
director is a first
-generation immigrant himself, in his conversation he drew from common 
discourses surrounding race and racial r
elations in broader society. This may affect his 
relationships and interactions with the Somali students, who make up 90 percent of the student 
body. 
 
all groups
. They ignore any difference between African Americans and Somalis, and instead 
group them as Black. In addition, they dismiss differences among Arabs, Asians, and Whites of 
European descent. In considering the importance of race and racial relations withi
n a US context, 
the social positioning of Somalis versus Arabs or Asians clearly has different implications and 
produces different results in this particular school context. Second, the assigning of Somalis to a 
Black identity also assigns them to a lower 
social hierarchy in which particular power relations 
are 
in play
. Meanwhile, as an Arab American, Mr. Ali assigned himself to a White racial 
category, presumably allowing him certain privileges in his interactions with his Somali students. 
Thus, not only d
o immigrant communities see themselves in the eyes of larger societies, but they 
also accept racist practices inherent in these discourses. Notably, while Mr. Ali and other school 
138  leaders consider Somali students to be Black, the Somali school staff and th
e larger Somali 
community do
es not necessarily embrace the Black identity assigned to them by the larger 
society (Kusow, 2006). Instead, Somalis perceive the Black identity to be related to the cultural 
practices of inner
-city African Americans. Research s
hows that Somali elders often worry about 
their youth becoming Black (Bigelow, 2010; Forman, 2001). While non
-Somali school leaders 
and their Somali counterparts may differ about what constitutes a Black identity, they do agree 
on one thing: that a Black i
dentity (i.e., hip
-hop youth culture) is undesirable and should be 
guarded against.
 
-hop dress and hairstyle may be viewed as a regime of power to discipline and control (Fou
cault, 

race and racial relations by attempting to keep the children under strict rules of acceptability. For 
this reason, in their narratives, many students shied
 away from talking openly about differences 
between African Americans and Somalis or avoided the notion of race altogether, instead 
focusing on religion as a basis for their experiences of being different in their previous school 
context. As explained earl
ier, however, students at Summit Academy resist school policies, 
particularly those surrounding the dress code. Both boys and girls challenged the school uniform 

 what it meant to be a Muslim, and Somali, or Black youth in this Midwestern urban community. 
Similarly, most students at Summit Academy resist being identified as Black despite their 
tendency to adopt and appropriate hip
-hop youth culture, showing the com
plexity and 
ambivalent nature of being an immigrant youth of color.
 Juxtaposing the context of Summit Academy with that of traditional public schools where 
139  
process. Racialization of Somali youths occurred differently in these two contexts. At Summit 
Academy, the Somali youths are considered Black because of their dark skin, and the school 
attempts to de
-racialize them by regulating and monitoring their bodies
 and focusing on their 
religious identity. Conversely, in the public
-school context, the Somali youths were often 
racialized due to their religious difference. These findings highlight the relevance of a school 
climate that supports plurality and inclusion

or 
harm, for that matter
can be augmented or rectified by broader school policies that take all 

   140  Continuing Questions 
for Future Research
 The findings in this study sh

experiences with racialization for two reasons. First, the literature about Somali youth related 
racialization to race and religion
. Because of this, gender was not considered as a major factor in 
the con
ceptualization of this study. However, the findings indicated that racialization of religion 
was significant particularly as it related to gender. Gender was important in regard to various 
ways student negotiated identity in schools and in community spaces
. Second, gender was 
significant in how Somali students were positioned by school staff. Hence, future directions for 
research about 
the racialization of Somali youth may entail the role of gender in the racialization 
process. For instance,
 there is a need to
 examine the trend of 
looking
 at the Muslim woman/girl 
as a construct and what sort of subjectivities it produces in US and other 
Western contexts. This 
will improve our understanding of Somali youth
 lived experiences.   
 Lastly, missi
ng from this study is the role of community spaces in the racialization 
process. For instance, this study could be expanded by investigating Somali youth experiences in 
mosques and other community organizations. This is important because it can provide ven
ues
 through
 which schools and community organizations can work together in engaging Somali 
youth. 
    141         REFERENCES
   142  REFERENCES
 Abdi, C. M. (2007). Convergence of civil war and the religious right: Reimagining Somali 
 women. 
Signs: Journal of Women in
 Culture and Society,
 33(1), 183
-207.  Abu el
-Haj, T. R. A. (2006). 
Elusive justice: Wrestling with difference and educational equity in 
 everyday practice
. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis.
  Abu El
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I was born h
ere, but my home, it'

: Educating for 
 democratic citizenship in an era of transnational migration and global conflict. 
Harvard 
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