Page 21 - Reflections on the Danger of a Single Story

Growing up in New York City, as a Muslim, an Arab and an immigrant was alienating. Once I started to wear the “hijab” in middle school, that alienation just became stronger. In middle school, transition time was terrifying. Students did not understand me or others like me. I used to wear two hijabs because during transition, other students would pull my hijab. They would meet us in the play yard and say things like “Sand nigger” and the likes. They felt somehow empowered to bully us because they assumed people who wore hijab would not fight back and the hijab made us identifiable and immediately different. In high school, things improved for me because I was in an international school and I was not targeted as in Middle School. But when 9/11 happened when I was in 10th grade that alienation became prevalent.
I stayed hope for two weeks after 9/11 because of the safety concern since I wore a hijab. My friends and I were scared of walking in the streets of NY because of the hijab and rightfully so. I was shocked when I went to the local market with my mother and the person whom I greeted and saw for years in the market (a worker) yelled at me and mother “to get out of America.” I remember walking to school and a person riding a bike screaming and calling me a “terrorist.” I remember that my friends and I never left school but together. One, as we were walking, there was a group of other teenagers from another school. When they saw us, they threw their McDonald fries and food at us, calling us names and threatening us. I remember walking in plain summer days carrying an umbrella, hoping I’d be camouflaging my hijab.
Yes, I attended an international high school but that did not mean I did not face similar struggles. When sitting in groups when we were assigned to do work, students in my table would change the topic and provoke me with questions like “oh you love Osama bin Laden,” “Osama is your father,” “you like killing people,” and so on. It was actually one of the reasons why I did so poorly in math class because I didn’t listen to instruction. I would push back and argue. Additionally, teachers were also ignorant of Islam. They didn’t know how to address students’ questions or to allow their students an opportunity to address Islamophobia. Hate has infiltrated the media with hate about Muslims and Islam with an exponential rate and it was impacting us. In fact, I remember on the day of 9/11 all the Arab students, not Muslims, were called to meet with the administrator to discuss what happened because at first when it happened they thought it was led by Palestinian/Arab hate group. When we left that meeting, we all felt targeted and because we were Arab, we needed to know that hate crime is wrong. We all stayed silent and felt alienated when we returned to our classes. We felt somehow we were being punished for our identity and our identity became hijacked by the actions of few.
Little did teachers and students know that few of my friend’s fathers worked around the twin towers and couldn’t get home. A friend of mine, her father was injured and thus hospitalized. My brother came late that day as he was attending college, with his face all white from the dust. My father and brothers stayed home for a week, no one attending work or school until things cooled down.
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SARA QATABI