What Trump winning would mean for me as a young Muslim woman in America

Following the news of the intense protests surrounding the Trump event in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which turned incredibly violent and filled to the brim with intense anger and hate, I felt the need to sit with the current election for a moment a reflect on what it means to me.

I’m not a violent person, and no matter what rhetoric is spewed from Trump’s mouth, regardless of whether I agree with it or not, I just don’t see myself as ever becoming a part of a protest like the Albuquerque mess. People are angry. Bernie Sanders supporters feel lost and hopeless, struggling with the idea that they might be forced to hand over the nomination to Hillary, leaving the election to fall between Trump and Clinton.

It’s saddening. In fact, it’s naive of me to think that it’s not. As a young Muslim woman who grew up with a multicultural background (I am half Afghan and half American), exposure to many cultures, and the way my Eastern cultural roots blurred with the West throughout my upbringing, the election is forcing me to hold a mirror in front of myself and ask who it is I am, and what it is I’m looking for. What is my identity? What am I looking for in a candidate and in a nation as a young hopeful individual?

What am I looking for as a woman?

The answers, ultimately, are very simple. As a woman, I want the option to care for my own body and make decisions about it. I want for women to have to option to have a safe and legal abortion, based on their own decision, and not a decision made by the government. I want women to have access to birth control if they so choose, and I want them to be able to access health screenings that can save their lives and protect them from STDs and cancer.

I want a candidate to not talk disgustingly about a woman and her body. I don’t want to hear shameful comments about how a woman should be punished for having an abortion, and I don’t want to be referred to as “dog,” “pig,” or a “hot piece of ass.” I want for no woman – my friends, my mom, my sister, coworkers, any woman–to be referred to as these things.

In terms of my multicultural background, I want hate to be done away with. I want Islamophobia to be done away with. Hundreds and thousands of individuals are trying to wrap their head around how Sanders has such a strong support group among young people, and it’s frustrating to think how they must not understand that it’s because we’re all craving the same things: acceptance and equality. Sanders is promising us that.

I don’t agree with the ban on Muslims entering the country. There just can’t simply be a ban on every person that belongs to a certain faith or culture. Do I agree that maybe there needs to be stricter immigration laws that allow for more safety, freedom, and efficiency? I do, but not only for Muslims. I feel like there does need to be a dialogue about how to fix the immigration system to allow for people from all around the world to enter the US in a way that is fair and legal, and that ensures we have a better understanding of who is entering the country. Putting a ban on a certain faith – my faith – is disheartening.

It makes me feel as though I am from the outside looking in. There are immigrants fleeing war-torn countries seeking refuge and here I am, belonging to the same belief system, but standing on the outskirts of the issue at large feeling forced to hold my hand up with the rest of the American people and tell them, what? They just aren’t allowed to come in? Someone like me is not allowed to come in?

I understand the issue of making sure that there is proper identification and background checks, and I agree with it. But if someone is Muslim and has no criminal history, not ties to any kind of radical terrorist group, and is honestly looking for a place to call home, how do we tell them no?

This election makes me feel as though I am standing behind a glass wall, and I am watching other Muslim women, children, families, walk past, but I am unable to talk to or touch them. I can’t tell them it’s going to be okay, that they’ll have a chance here, that they’ll escape the unfathomable violence and terror that they’re facing because I don’t know if they will.

Trump has even gone as far as saying that every Muslim-American would have to carry a special identification card, which many, including myself, have taken to be reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s mandate for Jews to wear a gold star of David on their clothes.

As a young Muslim woman with roots in both the East and the West, I am still full of hope. I have hope that other Muslims facing trauma so far beyond my understanding will have a chance to escape it. I have hope that the candidate we choose will not have hateful rhetoric, whether it be for show or not. I have hope that Sanders’ message, whether he wins the nomination and presidency or not, about income equality is at least given consideration. He is right when he says “A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.”

And ultimately, I have hope that my dreams of becoming a successful, empowered, and protected multicultural woman in America will materialize in a way that is inconceivably more beautiful than I ever could have thought.