Mirrors & Reflections

Abstract

This guidebook is based on the study which addresses the perceptions that Muslim immigrant women in Canada have about themselves, as self-perception, while also speaking to how they perceive others’ views that affect their lives. Drawing on the experiences and perceptions of self-identified Muslim immigrant women in Toronto, who are English language learners, this study aims to understand Muslim immigrant women’s self-esteem. The study seeks to understand how they perceive themselves, how they simultaneously perceive how others see them in Canada, and the impact of such a double reflexive process. The study examines the cultural and religious impacts on immigrant Muslim women that lead them to deal with a certain “double consciousness” (Du Bois, 1968) to fit into a dominant Canadian culture shaped by colonialism, patriarchy and anti-Muslim racism. Specifically, the study investigates the challenges and needs encountered by Muslim immigrant women in Canada due to existing Orientalist stereotypes and biases about the Muslim community, and how they navigate these challenges. This study adopts a mixed methodology grounded in autoethnography, interviews and a focus group, reflexivity and poetry expression, and creative imagination and visualization. While the study is based on a limited sample, results revealed that Muslim immigrant women’s response to the racist and patriarchal gaze does not diminish their self-esteem; instead, the key finding is that their sense of themselves as agentic, confident women is strong, and this self-perception is not lowered by the perceptions of others.