Psychology team hopes to increase mental health care for Muslim Americans

Salman Shaheen Ahmad can still recall the day a family member was beaten at his Washington, D.C.-area high school simply because he acknowledged that he was Muslim. Ahmad also has become accustomed to security guards at airports scrutinizing him more thoroughly than others, simply because of his name and beard. Merranda McLaughlin has a close Muslim friend who wears a head covering. And the friend cannot forget the day when she was shopping in Miami and a woman pointed at her and called her a terrorist in Spanish. These are just a few of the examples of Islamophobia-dislike, fear of, and prejudice against Islam or Muslims-which is widespread in the United States. Hate crimes against Muslims have steadily continued in the United States, peaking a few years after the September 11 attacks and again around the time of the 2016 elections. And stress about this prejudice is taking a toll on the mental health of Muslim Americans.