Today, he lies buried only a few miles from the cafés he frequented, the friends he made, the streets and corners that perpetually remind me of him, where his long-estranged son returned and made a home. My father, a man who was a shadow for much of my life became real, present, and finally, a father, in his last days. Since his death, his shadow is ubiquitous in the city he brought us to in 1982, a city that would become the most concentrated, celebrated, and scrutinized Muslim American community in the country. I see him more today than I ever did before, and I listen closely to the vision he had for me and the pride that would beam from him when he read about my work.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 534