Zeitoun: Part 1

I've separated this book into five equivalent sections and after reading one I will post a blog about the issues and what I think. The first section of this book what sort of uneventful mostly because all books start off slow because they need to introduce everything. However, there was the issue of religious intolerance and prejudice to the main character and his wife. This book takes place a few years after September 11th and people are still hateful toward Muslims. Zeitoun is Syrian and some people deny his services as a carpenter because he's Syrian. For example, people would ask where the last name Zeitoun originated and where he's from. Once his wife and secretary, Kathy, says he's from Syria, some people don't want their services. I can't believe some people would chose to not hire one of the best carpenters around just because of his race or religion. Reading this book, it seems like Zeitoun is the most loyal and reliable person someone could know, but some people can't see past his name of religion.
Kathy is Zeitoun's wife and used to be Christian, but later converted to Islam. She wears a hijab, what some women of Islam wear to cover most of their head. Kathy doesn't mind wearing this and is proud of her faith, but she knows other people don't like it. She knows she'll encounter "ugliness" sometimes when she goes out. "The frequency of incidents seemed tied, to some extent, to current events, to the general media profile of Muslims that week or month. Certainly 9/11 it was more fraught than before, and then it had calmed for a few years. But in 2004 a local incident had stoked the fire again."(Eggers 45) Basically the incident was a tenth grader of Iraqi decent being harassed by her history teacher for her race and he pretty much got away with it. After that, there had been a noticeable increase in harassment toward people from the middle-east. Kathy had people repeatedly sneak up behind her and quickly remove her hijab in public as a joke. She hated it it and at times felt like an exile in her own country. I think people should be more informed about other religions and races so they could learn to respect them. Kathy claims people, "don't know or don't care, that Islam, judaism, and Christianity were not so distantly related branches of the same monotheistic, Abrahamic faith."(Eggers 66) She also says thats how she felt until she looked into the Islamic faith and realized it was right for her. I think if people are well informed about other religions and races they would be so quick to hate and harass them. No one should be judged for their appearance of religion especially in America.