Cultural boundaries matter for at least two reasons. 2016 Kroneberg and Wimmer 2012 Lamont and Molnár 2002). These statements and actions are part of a broader public discourse about whether Muslims belong in American life ( Selod 2015), and thus about the boundaries of American belonging ( Edgell et al. Among the first actions of the Trump administration was a declaration of sweeping travel restrictions that the president himself referred to as a “Muslim ban,” leading to repeated review by federal courts before its final approval by the Supreme Court in June 2018 ( Husain 2018).

Many state legislatures have introduced bills to ban Sharia law ( Ali 2012), and calls for control and surveillance of American Muslims became a central component of the 2016 Presidential campaign ( Braunstein 2017). Hostility toward Muslims has also become part of public and political discourse. Hate crimes and other bias incidents are now reported at higher levels than they were in the years immediately after 9/11 ( Bail 2015 Peek 2011). Public polling data suggest that Americans have less warm feelings about Muslims than about any other group measured, despite the fact that Muslims comprise only 1 percent of the population ( Pew Research Center 2014, 2017).

Muslims have long served as a cultural “other” to the West ( Grosfoguel 2012 Said 1979), but in recent years there has been a new breadth and intensity to anti-Muslim beliefs and actions, a phenomenon that many have labeled “Islamophobia” ( Allen 2010 Helbling 2012). Muslims, race, religion, boundaries, culture

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