Is this a new era for American Muslims? American Muslims are building their own cultural institutions – <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/swana-new-york.html"target="_blank" >New York Magazine</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/03/muslim-new-york-city"target="_blank" >The Guardian</a> have reported on flourishing ecosystems of cafes, magazines, dance nights, meetups and readings for Muslims and/or people with heritage from the SWANA region. And on a political level, Muslims like Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani have become prominent faces of the left. On the one hand, this swell of Muslims coming up in politics and building cultural institutions is not surprising – there are over 4 million Muslims in America. On the other hand, this shift is pretty significant given how deeply Islamophobia and racism are rooted in our culture. So what's changed for American Muslims in recent years, and what’s stayed the same? What does it mean that Muslims are accruing a little more political and cultural capital now, and that non-Muslims are noticing? To get deeper into it, Brittany is joined by <a href="https://donnaauston.com/about/"target="_blank" >Dr. Donna Auston</a>, cultural anthropologist, and Dr. <a href="https://artsci.washu.edu/faculty-staff/tazeen-ali"target="_blank" >Tazeen Ali</a>, scholar of Islam in America and associate professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at <a href="http://plus.npr.org/"target="_blank" >plus.npr.org</a>. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

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