That issue of the Journal also included clinical social worker Meredith McEver’s analysis of how Aysha and other women had suffered from the raids.
McEver reported that one woman (she did not list names) couldn’t get the memories out of her mind, and that whenever she heard a knock on the door she thought the raid was beginning all over again. “Another woman, awakened in her bed at 10:30 A.M. by ten large men pointing rifles at her, now will coincidently look at her clock at 10:30 every morning and memories of the raid will overwhelm her,” McEver wrote.
Most of the women had symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome and many, she said, suffered physical reactions from the raids.
“Some had trouble with their hearts racing,” she reported. “To varying degrees, they had trouble sleeping, were irritable, had angry outbursts and had difficulty concentrating. One woman said that she went to work and people thought she was working, but she wasn’t. No matter what she did she couldn’t concentrate so she just sat there. The women reported being hyper-alert, always on watch for the next raid.”
One woman told McEver that she didn’t bother to fix her broken door because “the FBI would just break it down again the next time they came.”
The quiet and soft-spoken Aysha says she is still in shock over the raid into her home. Born in Pakistan, she is a housewife who has been in the United States for thirty-three years. “I was raised in Catholic schools,” she says. “I had a coed education.” She eventually got a master’s degree and came to the United States as a newlywed. She and her husband have been American citizens for years.
A devout Muslim, she wears a hijab. On the day of the raid she felt violated as the agents would not allow her to cover her hair in their presence. She and her daughter were handcuffed for two and a half hours with their hands behind their back. When the pain became too much, the agents allowed them to wear the handcuffs in front. In all, they spent four hours handcuffed.
Aysha says she and her teenaged daughter were not told why the federal agents had picked their home or what they were looking for. When her daughter protested, one of the agents angrily said, “We are treating you better than your own police!” He apparently assumed that she had been born in a Middle Eastern country under a dictatorship.
The girl was stunned. “Which police?” she asked in disbelief. She had been born in Indianapolis.
The local police officers, though, were helpful and eventually persuaded the agents to let the women wear their scarves, and allow them to pray as part of Islam’s five-prayer daily routine.
As the feds’ investigation stretched into the afternoon, the agents told the two women that they could leave the house and come back, but only after the agents had left. However, Aysha, understandably, did not want to leave her home.
After the agents had gone—about 2:30 P.M.—she and her daughter were able to walk freely around their own home. They examined the wreckage caused by the agents, and imagined the cleanup that was before them.
Since that March day, they have not been visited again. Nor have they been told anything more about the reasons for this raid.
The family’s attorney is looking into the situation. Aysha hopes no other woman will have to go through what she and her daughter did. “We have been treated unfairly,” she says.
The raid has galvanized local Muslims into becoming politically involved. They started their own Platform for Active Civil Empowerment to contribute to political candidates who will be sympathetic to Muslims. They have already had success with more Muslims running for office, and they are getting more media coverage. The raid “was the defining moment,” says Mukit Hossain, one of the organizers. Never will Muslims be in such a weak position again, he promises.
6
AREEJ: WEARING A HIJAB INTO THE WORKING WORLD
LIKE MANY OTHER MOMS returning to the workforce after taking time off to raise three children, Areej Abdallah fretted over what prospective employers might think. She was about to finish her computer-science degree and was eager to put it to use. She was ready to be part of an office and some exciting projects. The question was: Were U.S. companies ready for her?
Areej is a Palestinian who grew up in Kuwait and studied and worked in Jordan after she married her husband, who is also a Palestinian. They came to the United States as a young couple in the late 1980s, and currently live in Arizona. She wears a head covering as part of her Islamic faith. At first she was afraid to wear her hijab to job interviews, knowing that it would identify herself as a Muslim. Even before 9/11 there were stereotypes about battered, subservient Muslim women, and this was hardly the image Areej wanted to project as a former stay-at-home mom entering the computer-science field, a predominantly male preserve. But she couldn’t give up her hijab, which she sees as an extension of herself. This is who she was, and she prayed a good company would accept her.
She steeled herself to the interviewing process, but the going wasn’t smooth. Major U.S. companies interviewed her on campus at Arizona State University in Tempe but Areej would never hear back from them. She kept trying, presenting her résumé with its list of impressive grades and academic achievements. The telephone stayed silent. “I was applying for jobs for nine months,” she says. “Oh, I thought to myself, it’s my hijab. That’s why I can’t find a job.”
Then she met with a representative from Boeing, the airplane manufacturer. The company needed software engineers. Areej thought, “It’s not going to happen.” Still, she had researched the company and went to the job interview prepared.
“I didn’t have high hopes,” she remembers. “But, I got a call two to three days later.”
During that call, which came through on a Friday, a Human Resources officer asked her one question: When would Areej like to start? Areej blurted out, “Monday!”
The HR worker told her not to worry, she didn’t have to start that soon.
But Areej insisted, “No, no, I will start Monday.”
As she tells the story, she is grinning. “I thought she was going to take back the job!” she says. “It was a happy moment. I was so happy I thought I was going to collapse.”
Three days later, despite her nervousness, she indeed went to work at Boeing as a software engineer—her luxuriant, henna-enriched brown hair tucked under her hijab—and has been employed there ever since.
Besides working with computers at Boeing, Areej has discovered she has other skills. She has helped lead the company’s diversity classes, four-hour sessions in which she discusses her faith and the clothing related to it. As the class progresses, she can see participants noticeably relax and become more friendly as she regales them with jokes, anecdotes, and facts about Islam. Weeks, even months later, she still finds employees coming up to her to thank her for the classes.
Boeing has turned out to be an understanding company that even allows Areej private time to pray the required five times a day. A boss helped cajole HR into allowing Areej to pray in a room normally reserved for breast-feeding moms. “I have been surrounded by great people,” she says.
She remembers that one of her bosses came up to her after 9/11, and suggested that she come to him if she had any problems with harassment. She didn’t need to, she says, “but he was so nice.”
She also has enjoyed flexibility in scheduling her work, sometimes alternating between part-time and full-time. Boeing allows her to work part-time during the month of Ramadan so she can leave early to prepare the dinner feasts for her family. The company has also held sessions on educating employees about achieving their goals. These have made a big impact on Areej, who explains, “It helps me decide what I want to do.”
Both Areej and her thirteen-year-old daughter Aseel find, though, that they have to gird themselves to patiently rebut stereotypes about Islamic women.
For example, her daughter reports that when she enrolled in a public high school and started wearing her hijab, other students—intending to be friendly and sympathetic—said, “I would hate to have that rel
igion.” They wrongly believe that Aseel would prefer a religion with fewer strict rules, and that she doesn’t want to wear clothes that set her apart from the other teens.
As Aseel says, “They think I am pressured. I am not.”
Wearing the hijab is a way of keeping a spiritual life, she says. It’s also a reminder that she has crossed into womanhood. Once Muslim girls reach puberty they are expected to cover their hair, although many in the United States opt not to wear it until they graduate from high school or college—or maybe not ever. Some increasingly do not see their faith linked to covering their hair. But Areej and Aseel do. Both view the hijab as holy. They also like the Muslim prayers and holidays which reinforce their spirituality.
Take Ramadan, the month-long holiday that requires Muslims to fast from sunup to sundown. Aseel is glad that she is able to fast like the adults. She and her Muslim friends bypass the pizza and burgers in the school cafeteria to use their lunchtime to talk and hang out. Ramadan is also a time for reading the Quran and thinking about God, she points out.
She and her mother feel they can be both devout Muslims and achieving women.
Aseel, for example, has decided she is going to try out for her high school’s girls’ soccer team—wearing her hijab and long pants. (She can wear gym shorts during practice, when only other girls are around, but during actual games when both sexes are present she must cover herself. She is undeterred when told that an Orlando, Florida, college student decided to quit her basketball team when she felt she was becoming the focus of a media circus. A controversy broke out over whether the young player could wear her hijab on the basketball court during games. Across the country, in suburban Phoenix, Aseel doesn’t think that she will have to face that issue. “I’m sure they will let us,” she says.
As a high school freshman, she is already committed to doing volunteer work in her community. “Anything to help,” she says.
She also is considering what she wants to do in her life. Like her mother, she wants to have both a career and a family. “I used to want to be a teacher,” she says. “Then I wanted to be a pediatrician. Now I am thinking of something different—becoming a makeup artist or a chef. It would be so much fun.”
Her mother loves to be creative in the kitchen. During one recent Ramadan she was making lamb, stuffed zucchini, and Middle Eastern–style chopped salad in the large kitchen of their comfortable suburban home. Her hungry children—the two oldest having fasted from sunrise to sunset—lingered nearby until she announced dinner. Then, with long contented silences, the high schoolers politely wolfed down the delicious dinner. Areej excused herself to pray then returned to the dinner table to help herself to the stuffed zucchini and salad.
Areej claims her specialty is elaborately concocted desserts—gourmet sweets from around the world. She’s especially known for her pastries, from baklava to tarts. She has always dreamed of opening her own dessert shop, and in 2005 she decided to act on her dream, snagging the last available location in an upscale shopping center being constructed near her home.
The excitement and joy of being an entrepreneur keeps her occupied. It also deflects her sad thoughts about her homeland and the never-ending violence there. Areej was born in Palestine but grew up in Kuwait. The family had no choice but to relocate: Her Palestinian father was banished from his strawberry and flower fields because the newly organized state of Israel learned that he was supplying munitions to fellow Arabs. Luckily, Areej’s half-siblings were allowed to keep the family land—“I think how beautiful it is when we go there”—that remains within Israel’s borders.
Today, Areej’s family—three brothers and five sisters—are separated. Two half-brothers remain on the family land in Israel, two sisters live in the Palestinian area, and the others are in Jordan. The half-brothers have not seen their siblings in Jordan for years since they are not allowed to enter that country. Areej is grateful that she has an American passport. It allows her to visit both Jordan and Israel—and all her brothers and sisters.
Areej and her husband have thought about going back to Jordan to live and work. In some ways life would be easier there, but they cannot do it, Areej says, because their children are Americans with their own dreams to establish careers here. Her oldest son, Saith, a high school junior, is directing a film based on his own screenplay. “He’s very dedicated,” says his proud sister, who helps him with the makeup for the actors, who are among their friends.
The family likes the American Southwest. They often go horseback riding and biking. They enjoy the red and peach–cocolored sunsets and blue-tinged mountains. They also like taking drives on some of the rural Arizona highways—the ones where there are more cacti than people. “Arizona is so gorgeous,” Areej says.
The family also feels they “fit in.” After all, their ancestors lived in a desert land. “We love Arizona. It is so much like where we come from, from where we grew up in the Middle East.” The peace she and her family have found here, she says, is priceless.
* * *
Areej’s Baklava
(or as she calls it, baqlawa)
What is needed:
12 x 16-inch baking pan
2 cups unsalted butter
Filo dough which can be bought in grocery store
4 cups ground walnuts mixed with ¼ cup of sugar
½ cup of ground pistachios
2 cups syrup (instructions below)
Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.
Butter the pan.
A package of filo dough has 16 sheets. Place 8 sheets on the greased pan.
Spread melted butter on the sheets.
Put the mixed walnuts with sugar on the sheets.
Put the rest of the sheets on top of the walnuts.
Cut baklava into desired pieces before baking.
Bake at 350 degrees for a half-hour. Raise oven temperature to 450 degrees and bake for an additional 10 minutes until it becomes a golden color.
Take the pan out and cover baklava with the syrup.
Sprinkle the ground pistachio in the center of each piece.
Syrup:
Mix 2 cups of sugar and 1½ cups of water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and let cool.
* * *
7
SAKEENA: FINDING HER WAY HOME TO AMERICA
AMERICAN-BORN SAKEENA MIRZA went to Pakistan with her husband and small son to help out during a family emergency. “We didn’t know how long it would take to sort out the problem and were prepared to stay in Pakistan long-term,” she says. Indeed, they were thinking of settling there. In a sense, both Sakeena and her husband would be going “home.” He still had younger brothers and sisters in Pakistan and Sakeena’s father had long ago emigrated to the United States, where Sakeena had grown up hearing his stories about the old country.
“I have always thought of myself as an American but my Pakistani heritage has also been a big part of me,” Sakeena says.
During her months in Pakistan the twenty-something Sakeena discovered how much she treasured the richness of Pakistan’s culture. She loved feeling that she fit in, and that she was not the only woman on the street wearing a hijab.
But she discovered something else, something that stunned her: She missed the American way of life, with its cultural diversity, so much that she wanted to go home. In Pakistan, she says, “everyone seemed the same,” not like the people of the Los Angeles area where she had grown up. “I missed Mexican food—that was funny,” she says. Although her family in Pakistan tried to make her understand that many people there were just trying to survive and didn’t have the time for the “bigger” questions in life, Sakeena missed the particularly American “can-do” attitude, that if you don’t like it, you can do something about it.
Many Pakistanis would have traded places with her in a nanosecond: to be able to live and work in America, to have the kind of opportunity one finds there. “It made me feel grateful,” she says, to be an American, and so she decided no
t to fight against her homesickness. She and her husband returned to the United States.
After a time in California, Sakeena and her husband are now establishing roots in rapidly growing Las Vegas, Nevada. Soon, Sakeena’s older sister and her family are planning to move to Las Vegas from their home in northern Arizona. Sakeena appreciates Las Vegas’s diversity. It’s a young city where many feel comfortable, regardless of their ethnic or racial background. “That’s one of the reasons I like Las Vegas,” she says.
Five months after moving there, Sakeena finds herself in the middle of the Nevada desert’s rainy season. The irony of this amuses her. She is getting more rain now than she ever experienced while growing up in the Los Angeles area.
She is part of a small group of young Muslim women who meet at an apartment complex’s recreational center to discuss the Quran. They’re all newcomers to Las Vegas: Amanda, who converted to Islam, is originally from Arkansas. Myta was born in Indonesia but grew up in Washington, DC. Sakeena’s older sister Haseena also joins them from time to time. They laugh as they gather the news of what they’ve been doing.
Sometimes, Myta jokes, while driving her four-year-old daughter to preschool or running a quick errand, she realizes that she forgot to put on her hijab. It has not been a regular habit for her to wear one, nor the flowing white scarf that completely covers her thick black hair.
Indeed, her mother didn’t wear one either, and when Myta visits her native Indonesia, she notices how many women in her predominantly Muslim country no longer wear the traditional head coverings and modest long-sleeved clothing. But Myta feels a spiritual rebirth in going back to her Muslim roots, in praying every day. “It’s become part of my daily routine,” she says. As a result, she feels more serene, more giving. Wearing the hijab in public, she maintains, only adds to that well-being. “I’ve become more open-minded.”
The Face Behind the Veil Page 6