I suspect that we can never make you feel really at home and comfortable. Even when we try we often make it worse not better. Whatever we achieve in that vein will probably be undone by some bigot.

When I was growing up but still very young we had a neighbor who would feed us Beef Kibbeh in a Pita. She was maybe not Muslim but they were from the eastern Mediterranean, Greek or Lebanese, maybe Syrian or Palestinian probably, we are talking like 1964. I loved the sandwiches and thought she was wonderful. I expect she kind of felt out of place.

Be yourself, ignore the bigots and try not to take offence at the clumsy attempts has hospitality that the nice people make.

We moved from that home in Springfield, Massachusetts to Dexter, Maine. While we were White Catholics in a town of White Catholics and White Protestants we were sort of out of place because most of the Catholics had anglicized French surnames and the protestants had English or Scottish surnames like we did, Dad was a Knowles (very common up there among protestants) and Mom was a Mudge. Also we were a little too Citified. Just saying I always felt like an outsider.

I know 911 and the gulf wars makes being Muslim way more of a hurdle being a bit of an outsider does not make you an outcast and hopefully you don’t feel outcast.

TEK