Butetown, Cardiff, has long been a place of harmony for all races. It is particularly popular with Somalis. There is even a Somali proverb, "Cardiff, my home", which suggests just how powerful the image of a tolerant, multicultural Cardiff is in some parts of the globe.

But it has always been a man's world, this immigration lark. Cardiff, with its thriving dock scene at the end of the 19th century, was one of the first places in the UK to have an integrated non-white community, and the Somali community there is the oldest in the UK. However, during the civil war in Somalia in the eighties, thousands of women and children flocked to join their husbands and fathers in the safe arms of Mother Wales.

These families have lived quietly in Butetown for twenty years now - many of them feel that there has never been another home for them - and yet Muslims in Britain may never have faced such animosity from the press, the people, and the politicians. Even on the streets of ever-tolerant Butetown, no one is very keen. "They don't mix," hints Jim Green, 67, owner of the local pub, darkly. "There's so many of them," adds his punter, Bob, 72.

But the women themselves tell a different story.

When I speak to Nemo Mohammed, 28, about being a modern Muslim woman living in the UK, she keeps saying, "Do you understand?" over and over again. Seemingly aware of the hostile feelings surrounding her at every turn, she is desperate to get her point across properly, and for me to see her point of view.

But then, you've got to feel for her. She is fighting against a tide of media misrepresentation, ignorance and intolerance. "Why would I be like this, why would I be a Muslim if it was about us having no freedom?" she asks, quite sensibly. "The media is to blame for portraying us as having no freedom."

So this is Nimo Mohammed, from Butetown, Cardiff. She's 28, and under her hijab she wears jeans and a Nike jumper. She came to Cardiff when she was 11 to escape the civil war in Somalia. She attended a high school in Cardiff and she now works in telesales. She is proud to call herself part Welsh, part Somali.

"People say you can't be both, but of course you can," she says, in a horrified voice. "I eat fish and chips, but I cook Somali. I live in Wales, but I still believe that Somalia is my homeland, and one day I want to go back there to live."

Her recent visit to Somalia - her first since leaving in 1989 - reinforced her feelings. "It felt strange to go back," she says. "Although it is modern now, it is still a different culture to mine even though, technically, it is my culture. Somalia is my country and I love it, but I grew up here, and I think when I was there I was homesick for here!"

It is only part way through speaking to Nimo that I realise she has a Welsh accent. It is somehow strange to sit in Starbucks, that potent symbol of all that is corporate and Western, and talk amicably to someone who, we are repeatedly told, is violently opposed to this.

When I tell Nemo this, she laughs. "That's not Islam," she says. "It is a way of life, but not like that. This is my culture now." She pauses. "You just have to be aware that everyone's different. I love that - the spice of life and that. Like, I'm black, and you're white, but that doesn't mean we won't get on."

But she knows that it has meant that, many times, in the past. "After September 11 and the attacks in July you do get a few odd looks," she says. "Nothing like that round here, though." She is at pains to explain that the bombings were as devastating to most British Muslims as to everyone else: "Growing up here, you're part of the anger in a way. I don't hold it against anyone.

"And terrorism - that's nothing to do with Islam. Killing someone, for whatever reason, is a major, major sin in Islam. They're just people who call themselves Muslims, not real Muslims." She feels the same about the recent protests over the Danish cartoons. "They were offensive, sure, but not worth everything that happened.

"There's so much hatred," she sighs. And, surely, being not just a Muslim but also a woman must make it worse? Actually, Nemo thinks that it's better for female Muslims because people are less wary of them. "People come up on the street all the time and ask me why I am wearing the hijab," she says, as if amused. "People have got to know, so I say, 'It's part of my religion and I'm wearing it because I believe it is right'. It's easy to respond when it's something you really believe in - a purer way to live."

But Nemo doesn't want the world to see her and her friends as martyrs, drifting around clad in black on the edges of society. "All right, women and men are kept separate in our culture," she says. "That's not like Cardiff society. But we do all the other things everyone else does - just without the men!"

She and her friends meet up most days for a chat and a coffee, in town, in the mosque, and at each other's houses. They always go to the bookshop in nearby Grangetown on Saturdays to talk and laugh. One of Nemo's friends, Amal Mohammed, 32, set up the Somali and Bangladeshi Women's Group in 2002 to reinforce these friendships. "Somali women were desperate for some sort of community group and spirit," she explains. "They didn't want to just sit at home while their husbands went out - that is not what Somali Muslims are like."

Muslim women in Butetown might not be a visible presence - outside the mosque on a chilly morning there are hundreds of men but not a single woman - but, if Nemo and her friends are anything to go by, they're far more than just shadows of bullied women hidden from the world. They're lively, modern women who have learnt how to balance their religion, ideology and culture within the boundaries of their dual citizenship - Welsh and Somali, West and East - and live their lives accordingly. "We've not lost our identity yet," Nemo says gently, and she's right: she and her friends have just learned that identity is a whole lot more multi-faceted than most people realise.