Hijabi: An American-born Muslim Woman's Struggle with Identity and Faith

A woman rocks a hijab

It's no secret I teach high school social sciences; covering subjects like history, politics, sociology, and geography. This year, the US commemorated the fifteenth anniversary since the attacks on 9/11.  It was also the first year I've had students born in Post 9/11 America.  These "Post 9/11" students have no living memory of America prior to the US led Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.  For their entire lives, they have watched the US military engaged in wars throughout the Muslim world and retaliatory attacks by militants is a constant threat domestically.  They have grown up seeing Muslims in a complicated light and often depressing light.  The vast majority of images and stories from media,  movies, television, and politicians related to Muslims have been overwhelmingly negative.

Images and stories like this dominate America's interaction with Muslims and Islam

Now imagine, being a Post 9/11 Muslim high school student in the United States today.  If teenage angst is not enough, try upholding the Islamic values, while trying to be cool and fit in the mainstream American teenage world.  You will learn quickly, that mainstream America's view of your Muslim world is largely regarded as oppressive, backwards, and violent to infidels. 

typical American teen peer pressure often emphasizes revealing skin over modesty.

With such a small percentage of people living in the US identify as Muslim (about 1%), it has been rare to have Muslim students in my classes throughout the years.  But I can tell you that when I've had them, all have consciously distanced controversial attention to themselves regarding their culture and religion.  As a result, a real opportunity was missed for non-Muslims to learn first hand about the Muslim community.  

Balancing faith, tradition, and secularism

For example, I recall students identifying their country of origin as Persia, because they were afraid of the negativity associated with being from a country considered by former US President George W. Bush, as one of the "Axis of Evil".

Other times, when covering Islam in class, I've had Muslim students remain unusually silent, never wanting to publicly identify as Muslim in front of their classmates for fear of cutting comment or jokes.  On one occasion, I'd learned of a Muslim student's religious background only when I met their hijab covered mother during a parent conference meeting.  

Since 9/11, I imagine many Muslim students in the US have decided to quietly blend in.  And that makes sense.  They are often misunderstood and looked at with suspicion, so it's rare a Muslim student will wear a head scarf or kufi in class.  It's okay to wear your religion publicly in the US if you are Christian.  However, the students I've taught, rarely if ever, display their religious affiliation externally, unless you count wearing a crucifix on a necklace.  Matter fact, the only time during the school day that I see or hear anything about a god, is during the Pledge of Allegiance.  Hmmmm, separation of church and state my ass.

This year would be different for two reasons.  1) I have a Muslim student who has bravely made the choice to wear her hijab publicly in accordance with her religious beliefs despite the negative climate surrounding the practice of wearing head scarves in the West.  I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to address Muslims in America.  Hell, we have a major presidential nominee who stated he wants to ban all Muslims, and repeatedly uses the phrases radical Islam and Muslim terrorists to the point, non Muslims can't discern between a Muslim and extremist .  She agreed to do a class interview discussing her faith and traditions, to help students better understand what it means creating one's Muslim American identity in America's Post 9/11.  2) Her act motivated me to reach out to an old friend who started her journey over twenty years ago, while growing up Muslim in the heavily Baptist Bible Belt of the American South.  I felt her experience could give some desperately needed insight to many people who actually know very little about the religion of 1.7 billion people on the planet.

random Muslim teen doing some back to school shopping

In addition, I wanted to compare both experiences of being a Muslim in the US, prior and post 9/11.  The piece below is my friend's testimony on her personal decision to begin wearing hijab as a young teen in northwest Florida, and why she eventually decided to stop wearing it after ten years.  My students read and discussed her testimony, and it was probably one of the most enriching lessons we've had.  

Nearly every student admitted changing their mind about the hijab and Muslim women who wear it.  So I invite you to take a few minutes to read and see for yourself... 

Hijabi: An American-born Muslim Woman's Struggle with Identity and Faith

I first considered wearing hijab at age 14. I grew up in the Panhandle of Florida, in a tiny conservative town in the Bible Belt (population less than 20,000 at the time), and as a Pakistani-American Muslim, I was one of perhaps 80 Muslims in a 60 mile radius of my home. There were only a handful of Muslim families and we all congregated in a makeshift mosque once a week. Some of these families traced their roots back to the same areas in Pakistan as my parents, and were friends or acquaintances before moving to the U.S. Almost all of the local Muslim families I grew up with were fairly conservative in their faith while being all-American kids; most of the females chose to wear hijab and many of the men grew beards, while prayer and community involvement was paramount. 

I developed a close friendship with one girl starting around age 12,  who along with her sisters and friends all wore hijab. We started spending more time at each other's homes for visits and sleepovers, and with mutual friends at the mosque, community events, weddings and parties. I admired her and the other women's decision to wear hijab, feeling as though it "completed" their faith and sent the world a message about who they were, what they stood for and how protected they felt in a sexually aggressive world. I began experimenting with trying on hijabs. 

My first step in wearing any traditional clothing in the school setting was to pin a long scarf (called a "dupatta" in Pakistan) decoratively around my neck and chest each day to school in the 10th grade (age 14). I was the first Pakistani kid to attend that high school, but there didn't seem to be any negative reaction. In retrospect, I realize that my decision to wear hijab and traditional Pakistani dress as well, was a form of positive peer pressure - but less pressure and more influence (no one, including my friend or anyone else, pressured me or ever even mentioned to me that I should wear it). But obviously at age 14, 15, it's a very impressionable developmental stage where your peers' actions and behaviors mean a lot to you, as does acceptance. 

I realize now that becoming "hijabi" was a big part of my identity development, especially as an ethnic and religious minority in that space. It gave my confidence and camaraderie in my peer group. Thus, I began to wear the headscarf everyday officially in March of my 10th grade year, 1995. No one really seemed to notice at first, or if they did, they didn't say anything, perhaps because they'd already accepted me for who I was, uniquely not white or black, but a familiar face in the community (my father was and still practices medicine in my hometown and many students' families and relatives knew him). 

2. In terms of how I was received in general in America as a hijab-wearing Muslim, I must say that I was generally treated very nicely and respectfully. Even though I lived the first 25 years of my life in a very small, homogeneous and heavily Baptist town, I never felt that I was stared at, discriminated against or disrespected. People often smiled and approached me with well-meaning questions about my faith or background. All of my non-Muslim friends continued to love and support me. I felt like I was taking control of my image as a woman, and was being taken seriously as a leader in high school and a focused college student. Even in those days in the 90s, Muslims were sometimes associated with terrorists (due to plane hijackings and bombings in the news in the 80s), but not as prevalent as they are now. 

There was one small pre-9/11 incident that occurred.  I remember the Oklahoma City bombing happening exactly one month after I started wearing hijab. Around that time, my family and I went on vacation in New Orleans and as we were walking along the street, some young men drove by and the driver yelled some unintelligible out of the window, but clearly at me. I was shaken a bit and assumed that it was some backlash with the assumption that Muslims had done the bombing in Oklahoma City.  

However, the vast majority of my experience wearing hijab was positive. It became a huge part of my identity, inspiring my younger sister to wear it and even a non-Muslim young woman I met in college. As with any subset of people, wearing hijab brought with it unique and fun challenges of finding appropriate clothing, matching and diverse colors of scarfs, ways and styles of wearing it, incorporating it into various events, etc. I always hold that part of my life and my identity very near and dear, and continue to respect all my sisters who wear the hijab daily and with such conviction, even in the face of subtle and overt, even violent, discrimination and hatred. 

3. After a decade of wearing it, and wearing it constantly through the post 9/11 sociopolitical climate, I ironically decided (slowly) not to wear it any more in part because of the evolution of my own personal feelings and a few negative experiences with some people in the Muslim community. First and foremost, I felt that wearing hijab is huge and important responsibility, both to my community and to non-Muslims who may have questions about Islam. I was raised to believe that as an ethnic and religious minority, I'm an ambassador for my country and my faith, and to uphold the best and highest behavior. I was starting to feel that I wasn't living up to the standard of "wearing hijab." (Now I realize through education and awareness that I was viewing it all as a dichotomy, a hijab/non-hijab world, in my narrow worldview of a conservative Muslim community. I realize now that religiosity, spirituality and faith all have different forms and we can't be categorized based on these outward symbols.) 

At the time, I felt guilty that I was internally or privately not being as regular with my religious rituals such as prayer, and yet was prioritizing covering my hair every time I was around males. I was also starting to explore my options as a young woman with an increasingly diverse group of friends in college. Throughout childhood, my best friends were and still are Muslim, but thankfully in college I also became close to Hindus, Christians and others of varying backgrounds, often whom I connected with more culturally (being South Asian) than necessarily religion. I started to want to explore what it means to be Muslim - what I could and could not try, where I could go and what that meant for people viewing me as a Muslim. 

Basically, I began to feel that my outside was incongruent with my inside, and that since I had so much respect for the hijab, I did not want to tarnish it or confuse others about why I was wearing it, and so I chose to gradually stop wearing it until I was in the right place spiritually and emotionally. The other, more minor factor in my decision to stop wearing hijab was related to my epiphany that some muslims in my conservative community were judgmental - they tended to judge females who dressed a certain way and only accepted women who wore hijab. It became more and more clear to me that these particular families saw the world very black and white, and I was learning more about the gray in the world. 

Looking back, I now know that not all muslims are that way, and in fact, the vast majority, especially Muslim Americans, are very welcoming, open-minded and progressive. The key example of this was when I graduated with my masters from Pensacola, Florida, leaving behind the conservative small Muslim community, and deciding to move to NYC while also shifting my identity as a Muslim. After much contemplation, I chose to the fall of 2005 as the turning point to experiment with no longer wearing it. I think I wanted to start completely fresh in a place where literally no one knew me and I could be my new self, and what better town to reinvent oneself than New York City? As expected, the non-Muslim society didn't treat me much differently as I just blended in with everyone else. But what pleasantly surprised me was how supportive, welcoming and non-judgmental the Muslim community was to me in NYC. 

Walking in to my first Friday prayers at the Islamic Center of NYU, I wondered if I would be accepted with my head uncovered, dressed in jeans and a t shirt, and I was. In fact, I was surrounded with so much diversity among that beautiful community that it opened my eyes to what Islam and Muslims truly are (even though I've been one all my life!) People assumed the best about you and welcomed you for who you were, not how you dressed. It's been wonderful ever since. I became very involved once again in the Muslim Student organizations worked closely with the NYC Muslim community to provide mental health workshops, raise awareness and pro bono counseling to muslim college students. I've never looked back, and let my actions speak for myself. 

All in all, I look back at the memories of my sister and I continuing to wear our hijab after 9/11 despite my parents' concern for our safety, and I am in awe of our bravery. Was the backlash just not as bad as it is now, with Trump and ISIS dominating the news? Perhaps, but I know that I have the deepest respect for my Muslim sisters who wear it proudly and are the easiest targets in society for the strength of their conviction. I wish them safety and protection.