Lived all of my life in America.... and have to say that those that have put in the effort to get to know me... family and friends and co-workers have never made me feel awkward or weird about my ethnicity and religion. You can imagine what the atmosphere over here is and was post 9/11. But alhumdullilah I have never had any issues. I studied in a huge university that was extremely diverse. The muslim student associations was the third largest associations... Indian student association was the first... and Arab association was second largest. So you can imagine. The topic of terrorism and the "why's" have been discussed alot throughout my education ... I was a political science major in undergrad and then went on to law school. People were curious - yes... but respectful. I feel like people have been tactful in the way they discuss this topic in general in front of others and especially with me.
I think the only time I ever feel weird is crossing the border btw canada and america.... they look at the pakistani visa in my american passport and immediately take me in for questioning. It has gotten really annoying. I used to cross the border alot so I think they just got suspicious for that (hey .. i lived 15 minutes away from the border... and the shopping and food is better on the other side :D).
I have heard unfortunate stories about ignorance obviously. It definitely unfortunately exist. I have heard its particularly bad down south. Hey... Bush is from texas.... the majority of his followers are southerners. Makes sense why I have heard there are more ignorant people down there.
PunjabiRose its great to hear that you've never had any issues, even during 9/11... The Irish people too are very polite and respectful but their mood kinda changes when something like 9/11 happens... I've never had a direct racist attack or anything but u know u can just feel what the other person is thinking... And this is what I felt in the explosives lecture today... nobody gave me dirty looks or anything like that but I could just feel them looking at me with questioning eyes...