Slymovics’s indication of the New York City’s Muslim Day Parade as a means of reconfiguring “religion into an ethnicity” is the concept that stood out to me the most in this article. There seems to be a certain degree of truth behind such a suggestion as the parade is made up of individuals of a plethora of ethnicities, all of whom are bridged together under the religion of Islam. The fact that immigrant Muslims from different areas of the world can come together and take part in the prayers and festivities of the parade as one people shows that Islam does—to some extent—serve as an ethnicity.

Slymovics then goes on to an extensive discussion of the parade, emphasizing that like other groups of people who hold parades to “show their communities’ strengths,” the Muslims too are aiming to present their identity to their fellow New Yorkers. What’s interesting about the Muslim Day Parade is the distinct ways in which it is like a “typical” New York City parade and the other ways in which it is clearly not. New Yorkers are generally view parades as a manifestation of ethnic pride, and it is clear that the Muslims use this to their advantage as they incorporate a variety of signs, floats, bands, and other components that demonstrate to the public that they can and do collectively participate in American civil society.

On the other hand, the lining up and orienting of hundreds of Muslims toward the “traditional east,” resulting in the conversion of the city’s street into a place of prayer, and the inclusion of the “takbir” in the parade despite certain concerns creates a distinct foundation for the event and reinforces the religious significance of it. The dual aspects of the parade show that “Muslim rituals could operate simultaneously with secular parade rituals,” and “the result was that the parade does not always keep events apart. Sometimes the two worlds of foreign religion and urban secular American culture clashed…” In other words, the Muslim Day Parade demonstrates that while Muslims can be like the rest of New Yorkers in certain ways, they are inarguably different in other ways, leaving us to wonder whether this group of people can ever come to be fully integrated into and accepted by American society.