Muslim migrants were initially subsumed under the hegemonic ‘Asian’ label

Evidence

Since their arrival as one constituency of the mass migration to Britain from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and other Commonwealth countries following the Second World War, Muslim communities were, up until the 1980s at least, largely both politically and socially invisible not least because the first generation primarily defined themselves in terms of their country of origin albeit with a religious component. Initially therefore, Muslim communities both defined and described themselves largely in terms of their heritage, namely: Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and so on, a process that was reciprocated by wider society. Consequently, early Muslim communities became a part of the hegemonic collective that was known as the ‘Asian’ community. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 50

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anti-Muslim stereotypes recycle older racialized images of black and Asian youth across decades. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 169; Britain’s Muslim population age structure derives from labour-migrant migration patterns. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 210; The racialized content of the Muslim category persisted across changing labels — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 163 (+5 more)

Related

• Anti-Muslim stereotypes recycle older racialized images of black and Asian youth across decades. (similarity 0.84)
• British racial categories for Muslims changed labels while retaining racist content. (similarity 0.84)
• British Muslims were ethnicized before being recognized as a faith group (similarity 0.83)
• British-born Muslims replaced ancestral ethnicity with religious identity (similarity 0.83)
• The racialized content of the Muslim category persisted across changing labels (similarity 0.82)
• The anti-racist term ‘black’ excluded Asians and prompted new identities (similarity 0.81)
• British Muslims are a diverse minority diaspora, not a monolith (similarity 0.81)
• Second-generation British Muslims replaced heritage labels with Islamic identity (similarity 0.81)
• Suspicion of Britain’s Muslims predates modern biological racism (similarity 0.80)
• British Muslims were historically less demonized than Caribbean immigrants before the 1990s (similarity 0.79)
• The category ‘black’ historically privileged Afro-Caribbean experience and lost descriptive force for Asians. (similarity 0.79)
• Britain’s Muslim population age structure derives from labour-migrant migration patterns. (similarity 0.79)
• Religious identity grew more salient than ethnicity among later-generation British Muslims (similarity 0.78)
• Renewed Muslim immigration shifted Islam’s racialization from Black radicals to Brown aliens (similarity 0.78)
• Britain first recognized Muslims only through the lens of fundamentalism (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The racialized content of the Muslim category persisted across changing labels #corroborates (0.90) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 163
• British Muslims were ethnicized before being recognized as a faith group #corroborates (0.80) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 185
• British racial categories for Muslims changed labels while retaining racist content. #corroborates (0.80) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 168
• Orientalism converted Muslim identity from a religion into a race. #expands (0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161
• The anti-racist term ‘black’ excluded Asians and prompted new identities #expands (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 57
• British antiracism’s black-white frame erased the West Indian-Asian divide and hindered Asian mobilization. #expands (0.75)