Lone Star Muslims

Reading this title by an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purchase College, N.Y. State University, a graduate of Vassar College, the London School of Economics, and Yale University with Pakistani roots, one wonders why it should be restricted to Texas. One wonders even more why the volume should deal with (ten years of) events in Houston only, although the city co-exists with Lone Star colleges, investment companies, grills, restaurants, and brands of beer. Houston, the fourth-largest American city, was in fact chosen because it also houses the fourth-largest South Asian Muslim population in any American city. Climatically it is similar to Karachi, it is connected to Pakistan by Pakistan International Airline, and has an Urdu-language Pakistani newspaper (p. 110). One can live and function in Houston without ever speaking English.