Anaya Qamar ’26 kicked off this academic year’s series of Community and Multicultural Development (CaMD) Scholar presentations with “The American Gaze: Media and the Racialization of Islam” last Friday in Kemper Auditorium (Kemper). Qamar’s presentation combined historical context with recent instances of Islamophobia in American multimedia, including news sources, caricatures, and videos.
Qamar began her presentation with an activity in which she showed two photographs from her childhood to the audience and asked them to guess where they were taken. One of the photos had been taken at the Islamic Center of Orange County, a mosque frequented by Qamar and her family. Qamar explained the mosque’s relevance to her research.
“The reason why I decided [for this photo] to be in here is because this same mosque, ten years earlier, was the center of an FBI surveillance case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In this case, a government informant had disguised himself as a Muslim convert and secretly recorded worshippers inside prayer rooms and during spiritual processions. This history of Islamophobia and government- invented hate and oppression existed in the very place that my family and I had been living for years, and I had no idea, but this history of ingrained oppression and Muslim-American struggle should resurface,” said Qamar.
Gina Finocchiaro, Protestant Chaplain and International Student Coordinator, served as Qamar’s faculty advisor during the project. As part of the introduction to Qamar’s presentation, Finocchiaro spoke to Qamar’s research and writing process throughout the summer.
“Anaya shared how this topic spilled into all of her summer. Conversations with friends from home, shared movie-watching, research-related, with her family, talking through different pieces of it along the way. The best of our major works are always this way. They live alongside us for a time, and they emerge into being, carrying pieces of our lived experience informed by the perspectives of others and good, solid research. Anaya interrogated her research, always questioning if it was enough… Quickly, my role became just to be an encourager, a familiar role for me with Anaya,” said Finocchiaro.
Matt Robinson ’27, a student attendee, reflected on his takeaways from the presentation, noting the relevance to the Andover community. He shared how the presentation encouraged him to think more critically about bias in the media.
“One of the themes was encouraging more informed debate and making sure we’re not silent and using our power as an institution to educate and our general standing in the educational world to bring greater attention to these issues and make sure that everyone gets the correct, unbiased information… It changed my perspective a lot. I hadn’t thought about these issues and I didn’t know the information. I haven’t dived deep into this aspect, but it made me look at the way articles are written,” said Robinson.
Qamar encouraged participation from the audience through frequent questions and discussions. Christian Ramirez ’29 appreciated the interactive aspect of her presentation and explained how it made her points engaging to him.
“I really enjoyed the way that she incorporated the audience into the presentation, having us read and ask questions and even just share our thoughts. That kept me specifically more engaged. The ways in which she was able to articulate her thoughts and put that onto the audience as well was very impressive to me,” said Ramirez.
For Manalee Chowdhury ’28, the presentation offered an opportunity to better understand public perceptions of Muslim identity. Chowdhury noted that the chronology Qamar provided on government and media portrayal helped her recognize the experiences of those who share similar identities to her.
“I was lucky to grow up in a space where I wasn’t bullied for my identity. I knew there was societal stigma, but I didn’t necessarily feel like I faced a lot of the external pressures other students with my identity feel. It was more of a realization when I heard her presentation… I appreciate the way Anaya made that timeline and timeframe about how long this has been going on and how Muslims are starting to be seen as a group that are very anti-American when obviously the two coexist and intersect,” said Chowdhury.
Qamar shared her hopes with the presentation in a separate interview with The Phillipian. Pertaining to her research and beyond, she stressed the importance of exploring different perspectives to gain a better understanding of certain topics beyond face value.
“I hope that people take away [that] when it comes to current events that involve portrayals of Muslims or treating Muslims it’s important to see a variety and breadth of perspective regardless of what your own stance on a certain topic is. It’s important to reach beyond that and question the media that’s being fed to you or what you see on the news, because sometimes that’s not the full picture,” said Qamar.
