Additional information
by Alia Malek (Editor), Karen Korematsu (Foreword by)
In today's political climate, where threats of mass deportations and a Muslim registry are making the headlines, the issues of civil rights, identity, and belonging explored inside Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice are perhaps more urgent than ever before.
A groundbreaking collection of oral histories, Patriot Acts tells the stories of people who were needlessly swept up in the War on Terror. In their own words, narrators recount personal experiences of the post-9/11 backlash that have deeply altered their lives and communities. The eighth book in the Voice of Witness series, Patriot Acts illuminates these experiences in a compelling collection of eighteen oral histories from men and women who have found themselves subject to a wide range of human and civil rights abuses--from rendition and torture to workplace discrimination, bullying, FBI surveillance, and harassment.
Download the corresponding lesson plans on the Voice of Witness website.
NARRATORS INCLUDE:
ADAMA, a sixteen-year-old Muslim American who was abruptly seized from her home by the FBI on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. Even after her release from detention, she was forced to wear a tracking bracelet for the next three years.
TALAT, the mother of 9/11 first responder Salman Hamdani, who went missing after the attacks. As Talat and her husband searched desperately for their son, they were hounded by the media, who portrayed Salman as a possible terrorist in hiding.
RANA, a Sikh man whose brother Balbir was gunned down outside the gas station where he worked. Balbir's death was the first reported hate murder after 9/11.
Author Biography
ALIA MALEK is an award-winning journalist and civil rights lawyer. She is the author of The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria and A Country Called Amreeka and editor of Patriot Acts and EUROPA. Her reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Nation, and Christian Science Monitor, among others. For more, please visit www.aliamalek.com
