By Lee Lawrence
FLINT, MICH.; AND ALEXANDRIA, VA.
Listening to immigration attorney Muna Jondy talk about growing up in Flint, Mich., it’s easy to imagine her as a teenager, eyes ablaze, hands on hips, confronting her Syrian-born parents with her all-American attitude. A petite woman with a strong, expressive face, she sits cross-legged on her couch and leans forward to recount the day, at age 13, that she wanted to go to the movies with a friend.
Ms. Jondy says her mother, a devout Muslim, responded “like I had asked to snort cocaine.” She was incredulous, and Jondy recalls her asking: “Did you just ask that? Did you just say that out loud?”
Jondy had already started to cover her hair with a head scarf out of modesty. She never questioned the family’s dietary restrictions. She prayed faithfully, and during Ramadan she fasted. But not go to the movies at the mall with her female friends? She balked: “Really? Is that Arab or is that Islam?” [Read more…]
