A site-specific adaptation of Marina Budhos' novel WATCHED, set in Jackson Heights, Queens. This riveting and timely story explores the impact of surveillance on Muslim-American communities.
ABOUT WATCHED: Naeem, a Muslim-American high school student, is adrift and flirting with trouble. He chafes against the limited opportunities available to him, and struggles with his family and community. When he is picked up by the NYPD for a minor infraction he is also offered what seems, at first, to be the opportunity he craves. By becoming an informer on his own community, he can have access to power and a way out. But Naeem soon finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, and must fight to regain his own integrity in a world that is far more complex than he realized.
Set in the Bangladeshi-American community of Jackson Heights, Queens, WATCHED invites us into mosques, family gatherings, and holiday celebrations. It offers a glimpse of the ordinary rhythms of Muslim-American life—work, prayer, and community—and it paints a haunting portrait of life under surveillance, and the price we all pay for forcing a generation of young people to come of age in the shadows.
Set in the Bangladeshi-American community of Jackson Heights, Queens, WATCHED invites us into mosques, family gatherings, and holiday celebrations. It offers a glimpse of the ordinary rhythms of Muslim-American life—work, prayer, and community—and it paints a haunting portrait of life under surveillance, and the price we all pay for forcing a generation of young people to come of age in the shadows.
