MOSQUES, COLLECTIVE IDENTITY, AND GENDER DIFFERENCES AMONG ARAB AMERICAN MUSLIMS

on gender and political engagement and participation have found that women in general are less politically engaged than men (Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001). Scholars have attributed higher levels of male participation to the availability of political resources as educational levels, income and employment opportunities (Dalton 1988; Scholzman, Burns, and Verba 1984; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993). Few studies have examined the ways in which women of ethnic minorities or, specifically, immigrant women are affected by this gender dynamic (Lien 1998). Immigrant women face a host of obstacles that pose serious difficulties for mainstream political participation in the United States. Learning about politics in a new environment is a process of cognitive reach and behavioral competence, which involves confronting and hurdling numerous barriers: acquiring language, interacting with and in American culture, and reconciling both homeland and American identities in their daily lives. Some immigrants find themselves in networks or communities where they are able to reproduce many aspects of their lives in the homeland. Others find themselves in environments completely detached from co-ethnics. Needing to adjust to a new form of life, immigrants face challenges compounded by the reception with which immigrants are greeted in their new homes. Fear of others with different backgrounds, wariness of those who speak a different language, and unease about the impact immigrants have on the availability of jobs all mediate the way immigrants understand themselves as members of