Rozana Asfour finds it unfair that seven years later, one event created by 19 people fosters feelings of hate and fear toward the entire Arab culture.
Asfour, the president of Loyola's Middle Eastern Student Association, was at a recent Village Café forum Monday as part of Arab Heritage Month.
At the forum, participants discussed how Middle Eastern students at Loyola experience these post 9/11 emotions on a daily basis. They described how they face specific stereotypes everywhere from bus rides to classrooms.
Students were given an open-ended question on what words come to mind when they hear the word "Arab." Words such as "Muslim," "terrorism" and "Middle Eastern" were all given.
It is unfair for the word "terrorist" to be attached to anyone resembling a person of Middle Eastern descent, Asfour, a senior, said. She feels that the events of 9/11 created a mass stereotype that was applied to many who did not deserve it.
"There were 19 people who ruined it for everyone," she said.
These stereotypes are ones that Arab Americans struggle to break, the group discussed. Being both an Arab and an American is an idea that Asfour believes is rarely accepted.
"It's never synthesized," she said. "It can't be one."
The group discussed how the events of 9/11 caused some Americans to take a second look at anyone identifying as Muslim and at anyone who appeared to be Middle Eastern.
The generalization that all Arabs are Muslims is not accurate, according to the group, when only 12 percent of Muslims are Arabs and 75 percent of the Arabs living in America are Christians, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The group discussed how public displays of religion caused Americans to associate terrorism with Arab-Americans. The common expression of a woman covering her body is often one of personal choice, said senior Nida Hussain.
"I call on my values as a Muslim-American to advocate social change and justice because our global society at large is desperate for such change and my identity as both a Muslim and American obligate me to fight for such causes," Hussain said.
Hussain lived in Saudi Arabia at the time of the 9/11 attacks. She attended the largest American school and faced discrimination from the opposite end.
"We had extremists threatening the school because of its American associations," she said.
The students at the forum discussed that after 9/11, the media employed sensationalism and the U.S. government helped foster fear while dealing with terrorism.
"In film, a person from the Middle East is commonly portrayed as a Muslim dressed in non-Western attire, living in non-developed conditions," Asfour said. "In the U.S. media, any individual from the Middle East is either a terrorist or part of a terrorist organization."
They generally agreed that lack of education in schools was the beginning of the mass confusion over the difference between terrorists and people of Middle Eastern descent.
"I don't believe that we have an adequate representation in our education system," said Laila Al-Chaar, a graduate assistant in the office of Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.
Alchaar feels strongly that it is important to attempt to change these ideas.
"Making people uncomfortable and challenging them is the best way to make people change," she said.
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