PSAs tried to legitimize Muslim Americanness through patriotic service rather than heritage alone

Evidence

“American Muslims,” it serves to correct the common conflation that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims Arab. Second, by invoking slavery, representing a Native American, and speaking of ancestors, the notion that Muslims are “foreign” or “new” immigrants—and therefore un-American—is challenged. Instead, the PSA establishes a narrative of a Muslim legacy in the United States. Third, Muslims are represented as productive citizen-patriots who serve their country by being Girl Scouts, by fighting for the nation, and by having ancestors who also fought for the nation. Thus this advertisement claims that Muslims are American by virtue of their legacy of patriotic service to the nation, and patriotism is defined by one’s willingness to fight and risk his or her life for the United States. The discourses that are mobilized to include Muslims within American cultural citizenship21 are centered on notions of the United States as a melting pot nation and on service to the nation and are expressed in a variety of ways for men and women and for U.S.-born and foreign-born citizens. Diversity is expressed through representing Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, and European Americans as Muslim Americans (or rather, as “American Muslims”). Service to the nation is articulated for men through military service as the quintessential enactment of patriotism and for women through being a Girl Scout or participating in volunteer or relief work. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 1191

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the strategic discourse of the post-9/11 ‘good Muslim’ PSA: inclusion via melting-pot diversity plus gendered service.
• XREF: Connects to earlier PSA-literacy work on ‘model minority’ and citizenship-by-performance in the same chapter.