identity

Beyond Politics: The Muslim American identity

“Don’t judge Islam by the actions of a few. For Islam is perfect while Muslims are not.” What this advice fails to address is that people generally don’t care what you believe, only how you behave. Armed with this insight, American Muslims are shifting from expending precious time and resources…

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When Muslims Protected Jews

The past few weeks have been disheartening for a lot of people, and particularly Muslim Americans.  The Muslim Ban and the ratcheting policies targeting Islam and Muslims have constructed a narrative of “us versus them”. Muslims are rapidly becoming “the other.” However, all the protests since the Inauguration have given…

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This is What America Looks Like

We landed at JFK Airport on a sweltering August day twenty-seven years ago.  Me, my two younger brothers, and my parents – arriving to stay with a relative in Staten Island until my engineer dad could find a job.  From Pakistan my parents had migrated to Saudi Arabia, and at…

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Eren Cervantes-Altamirano: Youth Muslimah

I find that writing helps me connect with other amazing Muslim women and women of colour. It also allows me to detangle the contradictions of being an indigenous Muslim woman living in Canada. Who are you? My name is Eren Cervantes-Altamirano. I was born and raised in Mexico City, but…

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Don’t Call Me a Hijabi

Hijabi. The word stumbles about my tongue in an ungainly fashion instead of rolling off gracefully. When it escapes my mouth, it falls flat. I realize then that I hate it. This word confines me within a box, reducing who I am as a human being to a dress code…

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