A brown girl with a scarf: My experience being a Muslim girl in Durham

I remember the last day I spent outside without a hijab at Durham University. The frigid gasps of winter were fading into a peaceful springtime. Meditating on my upcoming decision while meandering down cobbled walkways, I remember feeling the wind rake nails against my scalp, tousling hair chaotically around my ears and mouth. I felt small, lost in a sea of people who didn’t know my commitment to my faith, the most important part of my life. They saw a girl with brown skin drowning in her decisions with a furrowed brow, and I didn’t know if they saw anything past that. I didn’t feel free without the headscarf, I felt exposed and vulnerable, small and forgettable.

My first week of wearing the hijab outside, I kept having the feeling of being watched. I would walk hurriedly through campus, trying to outpace the sun on my way home through the easy spring air. Cherry blossoms unfolded overhead, the serene sight dampened by my rising self-consciousness. With the hijab draped over my head and shoulders, dress fluttering shyly in the wind, I tried not to scrutinize every look thrown my way, wondering if every mutter and muffled laugh was targeted at me. I wondered what generalizations were being piled onto me, if they thought I was oppressed, if they thought I was judging or rude or a thousand other stereotypes.

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I am incredibly proud of my religion, but also incredibly aware of the assumptions now placed upon me by people who had never met me. The first friend I met up with after putting on the hijab asked me, eyeliner drawn thickly around concerned eyes, “Did your parents make you wear that?” I had laughed slightly, my smile fading once I realized that she wasn’t joking. I took a calming sip of the hot chocolate in front of me and made myself actually consider an answer.

“My mom doesn’t wear the hijab, actually. It’s her choice whether or not to put it on, to dress as covered as they want. I choose to dress modestly because I like being known by my faith.” I twisted my lips to the side, considering. “Just like how your goth clothes,” I gestured to her fashionable all-black ensemble, “let people know that you’re a theatre kid with great taste, my hijab lets people know how I conduct myself, just like my Indian jewelry lets people know that I’m proud of my heritage. I choose to dress in a way that displays my identities, and how happy I am to represent them.”

She pouted at the thought that she was goth and we laughed it off. She never brought up the subject again. One night a few months later, preparing to walk home from the library into the frigid air, she turned to me while tying her scarf into a balaclava. “Can you teach me how you do your scarf? I want it to look elegant like that.”

I remembered our conversation in the spring a few weeks after making the big decision. I was walking with my mother around the quiet streets of my American hometown, a green scarf covering my head, a blue scarf covering her shoulders. “You’re already all the way in England, beta. What if something happens to you? What if someone tries to attack you because you wear a hijab?”I smiled at her gentle, protective prodding. “I’ll be okay. I’ve been a brown girl in this town,” I flung my arms out, gesturing to Chicago, “for my whole life. I already know what it’s like to be scared around people who might not understand me.”

She pursed her lips.“I know, I know you’ll be careful.” She paused, collecting her words. “It’s a brave thing to do. I’m just so worried about you.” I hate that I have to carry my mother’s worry around. I hate that I can’t tell her about my hijabi friend who had her scarf pulled off, violently, suddenly, in the middle of the street just a town over from my university campus. I hate that her worries have so much validity. “By the way,” a full smile returned to my mother’s face, “I know some Indian moms in the community who want a ‘good Muslim girl’ for their sons.”

I laughed, well aware of the trope. Yes, I wear hijab with mindfulness, and I know the stereotypes that come along with it. But I am not a “good Muslim girl,” and my mother knows that. I am not good. I am passionate, I’m angry, and I cry during rom-coms that aren’t really that sad. The people that love me understand that putting on the scarf never changed who I was – it just made me less invisible, made my identity more clear, and put the declarations I’ve made to my God at the forefront of who I am.

The ability to be seen for who I really am is why I wear my hijab, why I wear Indian jumkahs and eat paneer and celebrate Eid. It makes me feel at home, protected from gazes that seek to put me in a box. The people that love me, know me – and I hope anyone staring at me in public, transfixed by my brown skin and modest clothes, will know who I am as well.