The Identity Crisis

I just heard a piece on NPR Morning Edition examining the lives of two Muslim American girls who have Algerian parents and wear the hijab. Two snippets that struck me:

* Who am I? When asked in the US, the girls would say America. When asked in Lebanon, they'd proudly say "American". The response to "where are you from" , that eternal questions all immigrants face day in and day out, depends on what makes you different from the environment you're in. Not simply a red, white, and blue issue.

* One of the girls' moments of reflection: she went to a Muslim school in Paris, with 120 Muslim girls. They told our subject, in tears, how the most difficult decision of their lives was to decide to either give up the scarf or give up schooling. Our subject kept thinking how lucky she was that she was an American...