The American Mask

November 7 of 2016, was a day of celebration for some, but for me it was a day of grief. I sat there, up at 12:17 am on a school night, watching what CNN had to say. I kept thinking to myself how much I had trusted Nate Silver - the statistician notorious for predicting election results - that night. For anyone not familiar with American politics, November 7 was election day. The day Donald Trump closed the gap on Hillary Clinton. But my fear didn’t start on that night. It began months before.

I am an American, born in Chicago and grown up in Naperville and Hinsdale Illinois. And I am a Muslim. Born to two immigrant parents who came from the UK in 1998 to start their life here. To be a part of the American dream. I was born to a light skinned Pakistani mother and a dark skinned West Indies/Indian Muslim, born in Harrow, a small working class, city outside of central London. And like many American Muslim teenagers today, I have the burden of navigating the American society as a Muslim, to try and paint the right picture for me and my future generations, and to fix the shortcomings of the generation before me. But on top that, I am forced with the dilemma, the painful dilemma, of internal conflict with my faith. “Is it right to be Muslim?” “Will being Muslim prevent me from future opportunities?” A conflict that only can truly be felt by someone else had they endured their own faith conflict.

When I was about 8 years old, I began to realize that there was a wide world out there for me to navigate. That’s when I began to realize that it wasn’t just luck that got my parents to success in America. Hard work, hard work, hard work, my dad would drill into me. He told me my Daadi (grandma) used to say to him, “As a person of color, you have to work twice as hard as someone who is white.” My naive, 8 year old told myself, well, this is America, and everyone's opportunities will be equal.

It wasn’t until last year, 2016, that I began to struggle with that concept. The concept of not being given equal opportunities because people had a prejudgment about me due to my faith. And the more and more I write that sentence, the less absurd it seems. As America…”regresses”, the justification for prejudice seems so much more real. As I had that realization, 2016 ignited a few ideas into the minds of people that had been shallow or extinct for decades.

Fear. Experts tried to figure out why Donald Trump won and why some didn't see it coming, but in my opinion, it was fear. He entered the political limelight at an unstable time in American politics and economics. An unstable time with American foreign relations. And Donald Trump highlighted the fear that many Americans were feeling with the “unknown.” The other tribe. The media did us no favors and continues to do. Covering only the terrorism, highlighting “Islamic Terrorism.” I tried for that entire election campaign to give Donald Trump a chance. To perhaps see that he had good intentions, but one event, and one speech after the next lead a downhill snowball of dislike towards Trump. But I lost Donald Trump, the day he came on TV and addressed his supporters “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until we can figure out what the hell is going on.” That was when I lost him. When I could no longer listen with an open mind. I was sitting in the living room, just before dinner, and I turn to my dad, expecting something to calm and quell any fears I had. My dad always has an opinion and he stays calm and collected in the heat of debate. Nothing. My dad had nothing to say. I stared, expecting something, some justification, some explanation. Nothing. And that was when I realized that this is bigger than me. This isn’t something that I can let roll off my back and carry on. It’s hard to imagine or feel that pain, but it was scary, painful, what’s worse is the arguments and debates that came at school. Now I had to justify my religion to kids, who I was the first and only Muslim they had ever interacted with. Now I had to defend not only myself, but my family, and my religion, through my words of debate. And as the rhetoric continued from Trump, “I think Islam hates us” or the Muslim registry, it became more than my words that were up for judgment. I had to put on the “patriotism mask.”

I love this country. Immigrants, love this country, but everyday, I am constantly faced with having to justify myself to everyone else. Every time I am at school and out of the house, I not only have to wear the patriotism mask, but make sure it’s stuck there. And it is physically and mentally taxing. If I am the only Muslim that anyone has ever known, my actions, words, work, and even my hobbies are the exposure people have to the Muslim world. Then those people go home and turn on the TV to the news of ISIS and Al Qaeda bombings. Now not only am I battling their lack of exposure, I am battling terrorism. Constantly trying to separate myself from terrorists. And now I am battling the President who is connecting my faith with terrorism.

This story isn’t meant for you to look at me and take pity on me, or to feel bad. It’s to get the ball rolling. Now it’s time to ask questions. Now it’s time for the quiet American Muslim community for so many years to stand up and speak out because no matter our views on law, politics, marriage or rights, that we Muslims are not the monsters that are tearing up this world. I’m a sophomore in High School, and I surely don’t have all the answers, but someone has to ask the questions.

Don’t read this and let it roll of your back. The least you can do, and yet the most powerful thing you can do is to read this and feel unsettled for the constant state of fear our world is in now and for the future. The generation that will come after us. Our kids deserve a world where they can easily come together and solve bigger things in science and history and not be held back by racism. By fear. By prejudice. By Islamophobia. Get to know a Muslim. Extended an arm to a person you don’t know who is a Muslim. And if this doesn’t seem possible, talk to Muslims, and ask questions, go with an open mind and learn. Learn and learn and learn. Be able to understand with us, with any minority in the United States or around the world. Be able to understand. And most of all empathize. If you can’t get yourself to do this for your own good, then do it for your kids, because they - we - are the future of the world. The brilliant thinkers, mathematicians, scientists, and astrophysicists who deserve an equal ground to work on, because maybe you don’t think you may change the world, but I bet they will.