When Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh living in the US, was murdered in supposed revenge for 9/11, his killer told police ‘I stand for America all the way’. Cynthia Weber, academic and film maker, reports that advertising executives, fearing an anti-Muslim and wider racist backlash, dreamed up a 30- second Public Service Announcement ( PSA) TV advertisement entitled ‘I am an American’. It was made up of a number of Americans from diverse ethnic backgrounds (although none recognisably Muslim by appearance or dress) saying to the camera ‘I am an American’.
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‘I Am An American’: Filming the Fear of Difference by Cynthia Weber, Bristol/Chicago: Intellect, 2011