If They Should Come for Us

Very shortly after assuming the presidential office, on January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order that came to be known colloquially as “the Muslim ban.” The executive order “banned foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from visiting the country for 90 days, suspended entry to the country of all Syrian refugees indefinitely, and prohibited any other refugees from coming into the country for 120 days” (ACLU). Several federal courts took immediate action to block the deportation of people stranded in United States airports as a result of the ban. Many saw the ban as an attempt to vilify Muslims and stir animosity against Muslim communities.

“If They Should Come for Us,” written in 2017, challenges the notion of Muslims as a homogeneous, faceless group of foreigners. The Muslim and non-Muslim people that comprise “my people” (Line1) throughout the poem are a collection of diverse human beings. The poem utilizes characterizations of people from multiple cultures, from the women with the “sari dissolving to wind / bindi a new moon on her forehead” (Lines 6-7), to “the sikh uncle at the airport” (Line 13) and the “lone khala at the park” (Line 20). These individuals are not only not all Muslim, but from different parts of the world.