T.

A Day in the Life
My days right now are not very exciting.
I’m at the schools from 7:30 AM.
With speech-language pathology in a school setting
each pathologist has anywhere between
​60 to 100 people in a case load.
Every half hour we see different kids.
 I'm in therapy all day,
and then once school lets out we do a lot of paperwork.
After I end at the school,
every day has something a little bit different.
On Mondays I lead the haliqa at the mosque.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I TA for the English Department.
Fridays there tends to be a MSA event.
Wednesdays are the one day where I go home
and just sit and cook,
and I get my life reorganized.
Usually from 8:00 to 10:00 PM, I'm lesson planning
for all the kids I'm going to see the next day
I try to read at least two or three pages of the Qur’an.
Some days are better than others.
Weekends tend to be more of just getting things done.
Laundry, dishes, all that stuff.

Being Muslim
Being Muslim and practicing Islam was the framework of my whole childhood really. I really appreciated the way my parents did it. I went to Islamic school and public school, so I kind of got a feeling of both. Since forever my dad has always been super active in a Muslim coalition in Canada and the US. My mom has always been really involved with the mosque, and she led a bunch of haliqas. They always had Islamic circles in our house and at the mosque, and we were always part of that.
 
This wasn’t something that started here. Even in Algeria he was very, very active. I know for my mom, I think she had more opportunities to be active here, because in the 70s and early 80s in Algeria it was still thought that a woman shouldn't really go out. I think she was still as active in Algeria, but it wasn't at the same kind of level. Here, she had the avenue, and she did. I think it helped that they always did a lot together, and because of it we always had to join them, which was really great.
 
When we were kids we just kind of went between all of that. We would always have the children’s version. I think the one thing that I really appreciate that my parents always made Islam really fun. We were learning about Islamic history or memorizing the Qur’an, but I have very fun memories of doing it. I think it made me want to do it more. That's something I really appreciate. There are times when everybody is like, "I don't want to go to Sunday school." I never really felt like that.
 
I used to be like, "Dad, I want to talk, I have so many questions," and he would always entertain my questions. Thinking back, they were very heavy theological questions of, "Well, what does God think of…," or, "If all people are good, then why is it only some go to Heaven, some go to Hell," things like that. My dad would sit there and just try to explain to me as much as possible. I appreciate the fact that he would always sit and talk to me. It was never like, "Oh no, well that's not even a question you should ask," or, "Go pick up the Qur’an and it'll tell you the answer."
 
In middle school, I would sit down with my dad after breakfast on Sundays, and be like, "Dad, I need to talk to you. How do I know that Islam is correct?” That was my question all of 5th, 6th and 7th grade. "How do I know that Islam is the correct religion?" The way he answered it wasn't like, "Well it is because it is." He brought up Genesis and different sections of the Bible. He brought up the Torah. He would bring different cultures, and what Hindus think about God, and what Buddhists think about God, and compare Islam to all of them and really try to explain the rationality more than anything. One of the fundamental concepts we have in Islam is that you need to question. What we mean is that you need to rationally accept that there is only one god, and the prophet is his messenger.
 
This is a little bit different than other faiths, where you don't necessarily question the core. For Islam, you really have to question the core and accept the core before you move on. I was doing my questioning in middle school. I really wanted to understand. The way my dad presented it, he would never tell me like, "Read this section of the Bible, it's incorrect." It was more like, "Now rationally, what do you think about this? We'll talk about it, and we can compare it." The Qur’an and the Bible and the Torah are all very similar, and we would compare the same sections. Rationally, what does this mean? How do these all connect, and what makes them different? Does that rationally make sense? Those were the conclusions that I was making, and obviously my dad would support me but it really was stuff that I really wanted to understand. I think it helps me now, because there's all this other stuff that comes after the fundamentals, but I have a very, very solid grasp on the fundamentals. That's really not something that I ever worry about being shaken. I truly accept the fact that there is one creator and that the prophet is his messenger. That's something that I have come to rationally accept, because it makes sense to me. I have enough evidence for me to approve. It rationally makes sense to me.
 
Being Muslim makes me very aware of my actions. Because of Islam I feel like I act a certain way. I think my personality might be slightly different if I wasn't Muslim, or the way I act and I hold myself might be slightly different if I wasn't Muslim. What I mean by that, because of Islam and because of striving to follow the footsteps of the prophet as much as one can, is doing things like being nice even when you don't necessarily want to be right, or being patient when you're like, "Oh, I'm just frustrated now," or respecting those that you don't necessarily agree with, or respecting your elders.
 
I know with my parents, there are times where I definitely want to start screaming and shouting like every other teenager, right? In Islam, one of the things is you have to respect your parents. There are times where I'm like, "Okay, deep breaths, it's okay. They're your parents, you respect them before anything else." I think because of Islam and because of being Muslim, it's really shaped my personality and how I interact with the world. I don't know if I would be as positive if it wasn't for Islam. I think Islam very much tells you to expect goodness in others even if you don't see it. You don't know what they're going through. We have a saying, or we call it a hadith of the prophet, that's like, "Even if you're upset with somebody you make seventy excuses for them.” It's not actually sitting down and making seventy excuses for them, but by the time you get up to five, you're like, "Okay, fine, I'm not going to be mad." Or, for example, we think of gossiping to be like biting or eating the flesh of your sister, your brother. Those kinds of things I really incorporate into my day-to-day life, because I feel like it makes me a better person. I hope it makes me a better person. It really kind of makes me very aware of how I'm interacting with others, how I interact with God, how I portray myself to others. I don't ever want to be seen as somebody who is kind of a Negative Nancy who doesn't do their work or doesn’t put 100% into what she's doing. A lot of that doesn't necessarily come from me, but I know it comes from my religion. I even see it with my own education. Both my parents are educated and education was something that they always pushed for. It was less about, "Well, you need to study, you need to get an A, and when you get an A, you've got it because you're smart." That was never how my parents explained it to me. It was more of like, "Well, you got an A because God gave you the executive functioning ability to problem solve. He gave you your eyes to read. He gave you your limbs to write." Always just being very grateful and being very humble.
 
Obviously there are days when I just stay in bed all day because I’m tired, especially after exams. I try to the best of my abilities to really make Islam about a way of life, and less about, "Well, I did my five daily prayers, and after that I'm done."  The one thing I need to do is make sure I have time to pray my prayers. Sometimes I forget, and the fact that we pray five times a day really helps me reconnect and resort out my priorities. There's a saying in one of our prayers, “Allahu akbar.” We say “Allahu akbar” quite a few times in each prayer, and when you translate it to English it means, "God is greater."
 
Every single time I say it, it really hits a point with me because we're not saying, "God is great" and we're not saying, "God is greatest." He's both. Really what we're saying multiple times a day is, "God is greater than everything else on this planet, every other distractor that you have." I think the fact that I just say that so many times a day, and every time I say “Allahu Akbar,” it reconnects me to, "Yes, God is greater, and I have a purpose in this life above just me studying for that exam, or for me to just go to work." It's very much like, "Okay, long-term, why am I here?" It really helps me to think back.

My name is Tesnime. I am currently a graduate student in speech-language pathology. I'm graduating very soon. I decided to go into this field just because I was very interested in it, and also there aren't a lot of Muslims or Arabs in this field. I was a cake decorator for a couple years, so that's something that I still try to do as much as possible. Definitely a type of person who tries to be as creative as possible, in different aspects of my life. I try to be as positive as possible. I'm really trying to look at life as glass half full. Just try to be as positive about everything as possible, don't let too much get to me.

I am American
I have three other sisters, and my parents. My parents and 2 younger sisters live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and my oldest sister lives in Boston. She got her master’s there, and decided to stay, because she loves Boston so much. I was born in Canada. I lived in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Quebec. I did a lot of moving as a kid. Ontario and Michigan were very similar, so it was not like a big change when we moved to Ann Arbor when I was in seventh grade.
 
I have a very large family. My dad comes from ten children, and my mom comes from seven. They all have their own kids who now have their own kids. I have one uncle who moved to Ann Arbor with us. We have one uncle and aunt who live in Montreal, Canada, and then everyone else is in Algeria.
 
My mom goes to Algeria pretty regularly, like every other year. My dad goes every two or three years. When we were kids, we went every year. Every time my mom went, we would go with her. I think now that I'm one of four kids, it's really expensive for all of us to go so we take turns. Three years ago I went, and then last year my other sister went.
 
I think the biggest culture shock I had going to Algeria was when I was in 7th grade. Both my parents are from smaller cities, but now the whole family just live in the bigger cities. In the bigger cities, a lot of people don't wear the scarf. That was very shocking for me. I think I always assumed that in Algeria, everyone would have the scarf and that I was not going to stand out because everyone's going to be like me. Not necessarily the case. The other aspect was when we were going to a wedding or some sort of celebration. Here, whenever we have any kind of celebration or wedding where there's supposed to be dancing, they always separate the girls and guys. It's just the way we've always done it. But there, it was just one big event, and there were girls and guys all together. It was just really shocking, because there were things that I saw there that I had always associated with the club scene. It was good for me to see, because I think I definitely have this idea that in Algeria, everything's going to be perfect. No country is, right?
 
My dad left Algeria, I don't even know what year. My parents got married in 1998, so that's when my mom came.  My dad had been here for at least four or five years before, to get his master’s. He was working on his PhD when he met my mom. They got married and then they were in Canada. Algeria has an interesting system. I don't know if they still do it anymore, but back in the 80s they used to take a top five or ten percent of students who were doing well in school, and they'd send them to either Canada or the US, or to different places in Europe to get their masters and PhDs, with the idea that they would come back and share that knowledge with the university that paid for you to go. My dad was getting his education, and when he went home for a summer, he met my mom. My dad actually never went back to Algeria. The reason why my dad decided not to go was because he got married and had children while a lot of his peers at that point hadn't. At the time, Algeria was going through civil war. My sister and I were born at this point, and my dad decided to wait until the war was over. The war lasted for like ten years. By the time it ended, I was 12. I had 2 younger sisters, and I didn't want to move. I was like, "No, I want to stay here.” I was born in Canada. This whole idea of, "You can go back home," doesn't really apply to me because I grew up here, and I 100% consider myself American-Canadian. Honestly I think I had a very typical childhood, I definitely appreciate the fact that I had older and younger sisters. We always had a lot of fun together. I think because we moved quite a bit with my dad’s career as a mechanical engineer, the one constant was my parents and my siblings. Even with that being said, I still have friends who live in Montreal and Ottawa, just because we got so close.
 
The one thing that my parents engrained in me since I was a kid is to take every experience that you have and do your best in it. I think that really helped me growing up. It made me take on a lot more experiences, and know what my resources were. Whenever I compare myself to my cousins back home, or even to my own parents, I see the experiences and the resources I have now, and what they had in Algeria, and I realize that I definitely have a lot more here. I make sure I do as much as I can, and I was just really involved, always doing things because I realize just how important it is to be part of the community. That's the other thing my parents emphasized. "You have to be part of the community." So, I always try to be a part of the community as much as possible. That's something that started when I was young.
 
My parents took a lot of time to think over what they wanted to do, and what options we had concerning citizenship. I think ultimately we decided to stay in the United States because we have so many options here, and also, there are really good education systems. On top of all that, I know part of it was also the religious aspect. Here, I am very aware that the fact that I'm Muslim; very, very aware of it. I understand why I wear the scarf. I understand why I pray five times a day. I understand the importance of fasting. I don't do these things because everyone around me are doing them, it's not really a cultural thing. I'm making the choice to do it, which is a little bit different than, I would say, my own cousins back home, where it's more like, "I'm fasting because everyone's fasting." But why are you really fasting? I think that really understanding why it's conditioned on us to fast or to pray or to wear the scarf was the other part. My parents saw that we were understanding why we were doing something, why we were practicing our faith. It wasn't just because everyone in our neighborhood did it.
 
My parents really pushed to be American citizens before I turned 18, because you already have to pay so much and take the exams and all that. Both my parents and my sister had to go through the whole process. The Canadian citizenship was a big deal for them, and the American system was very similar. We did a lot of studying together as a family, which was fun. We quizzed each other, and at the time I was taking history in high school, so I was able to help out as little as I did. At that point I had already identified as American.
 
I think honestly, being American means that we can have so many different types of people together. I think that's really what it is, which is different than other societies and other cultures, because I know in America we have all the rights and freedoms. Other countries have that as well. I love that America gives it to us, but also other countries have it. Canada has it as well. The one thing that I think sets America apart is just how diverse the country is as a whole. To the best of our abilities, and things are changing with the political climate, but we do work together. That's what makes up America and American society, I think that's really how define it to be a little bit different than other European and North American countries. That's something I really appreciate, I really like the fact that it really is a melting pot.
 
The other part is, in other countries where immigrants go, it’s almost like they lose their culture and they become whatever the majority culture is. Here it's not the case. Here if you're from Algeria, you have your Algerian-ness in you, but you're still American. If you're from Ghana, or you're from Australia, you get to keep your culture. But, it doesn't mean you're any more or less American, you know? Being European American is not synonymous to being American. You could still be Arab-American, African-American. These are all American, I think that's what really attracted me to America.
 
I don't want to be whatever the stereotypical white American is, what Hollywood or the media portrays that to be. I don't ever think that being Arab or being Muslim makes me any more or less American. I can be both at the same time, I identify as being American before I identify as being, for example, Algerian. I never grew up in Algeria, my parents did. For me, I'm just American. That's what I identify as my number one culture, but I'm still Muslim. It doesn't mean that I'm any less Muslim than my Algerian cousins or any more Muslim than my Algerian cousins, I'm just Muslim.

Hijab
I started wearing hijab in 7th grade. For us, you don't have to start wearing the scarf until you get your period. My parents very much were, "You wear it whenever you want to." It was never like, "You have to wear it now." My mom has worn it since she was early 20s or late teenager, and then my older sister also was wearing it. I had them to look up to. For me, the reason why I decided to was because we were moving at that point, and I thought at the time it's just easier for me to just present myself with the scarf from day one.
 
Looking back on it, I think now, being in my 20s, I can have that conversation. If today, I wasn't wearing the scarf, and tomorrow I will, I could explain it. At the time, I thought, "How am I going to tell people?" It was just easier for me to start the school year with it. My whole family started around 12, 13-ish, so I knew that was when I was going to start anyways. I thought, "This is a good time, let's do it." Mom was like, "You don't have to," but I wanted to. I think it also helped that during 3rd and 4th grade I was in private school, and part of the uniform was the scarf. I already kind of had a little bit of a feel, because I would wear it during the school day.
 
Surprisingly, I’ve never felt like taking it off. The reason I say surprisingly is because there was this other student who went to the same high school that I did, and we were always very, very close. One day, out of the blue, she was not wearing her scarf. I think for me it was very shocking, because I never even thought of not wearing it. At that point I was like, "No, I wear it, and I'm done, I'm happy that I'm wearing it." The idea of taking it off never occurred to me until that point, and when that happened, I went home, I talked to mom, and I was like, "Mom, I don't understand." We had a discussion and that's really when I truly understood why I was wearing it.
 
I wear it because there's a modesty aspect to it. Another reason is the idea that my self-worth and self-confidence is not connected to the way I look or to my beauty. God gave you beauty, so if you think yourself beautiful, that should humble you, not make you more arrogant. I don't need to flaunt my beauty to make other people listen to me, or to get what I want, or to feel that I'm somehow better than other people. Another aspect is when I'm speaking and presenting myself, after they take in my scarf, that they take in what I'm actually saying, the content behind my words. Ultimately the reason why I wear it is because God tells me to. That's my biggest reason. All the other factors definitely still play a role. In my opinion, and not everyone agrees with my opinion, we have very, very clear verses in the Qur’an that says that you must cover everything but your face and your hands. That means that I cover everything but my face and my hands. Just like God tells me to pray, and God tells me to fast, and God tells me not to lie and not to cheat, he also tells me to wear the scarf. That's what God wants me to do, I don't need to understand everything that God wants us to do. I know I never will, right? There are things beyond my own understanding. I'm okay with that.
 
As far as the dressing though, I would say that, for me, is more cultural. I know some people always wear dresses, and some people always wear abaya or the traditional clothing. Some people wear jeans and a shirt. For me that's more of the society you live in, the culture you live in. Islam didn't come to change your culture, so even during the time of the prophet, where they started to wear the scarf, they stuck with the clothes they were wearing. When Islam moved over to somewhere like Ethiopia, they didn't change the way they dress to look like the Saudi Arabians. They still stuck with their Ethiopian dress. For me, you dress modestly in the society that you live in. 

Cake Decorating
Throughout my undergrad at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I worked at an ice cream store on the weekends. They had cake decorating and I had taken my own cake decorating classes, just for fun. One random Saturday, the cake decorator didn't come in. My boss knew that I had some experience, though very limited in the ice cream medium. She was like, "Can you just throw something together?" I was like, "Yeah, I'll try it," and it worked out really well. Since then she let me practice a bit more, and the cake decorator taught me a few things. After that, I kept building up skills. It's a stress relief now. It has its own stresses, but it's very different than school stresses.
 
Through cake decorating, I got to meet people from all walks of life. The idea that the customer's always right was definitely something that we had in our store, but I think the movies and the media always make it seem like customers are going to be crazy and ask you ridiculous things. I have had the best memories of my customers, just interacting with them, talking with them, sharing stories.  They taught me a lot.
 
I worked there four years. When I told them I was moving, a few of them straight out said to me, "We're so happy we met a Muslim like you." I understand where they're coming from. A lot of the time you only see the things on the news. How are they going to go out of their way to even meet a Muslim, right?
 
One man came in every single day, and he ordered the same drink, same size, all the time. On the weekends he would come in with his wife. He is a retired engineer, and took it upon himself to be my life coach all through undergrad. When I was applying to grad school, he would give me advice, and always be like, "You can do it. I have faith in you." In discussions I've had with him, he was very blunt and say what's on his mind. His wife is a little bit more tactful. We had conversations ranging from fishing trips in Alaska to women's role are in the
religion and the kinds of things we see on the media.
 
"Is that true? Is that cultural?” I made sure to make a distinction, because there are a lot of things that are cultural that aren't religious. He would ask me things like "Why do I wear this scarf?" Silly questions of, "Do you wear the scarf when you're at home?" He was very open to asking any question, and he would share stories and pictures. We were just both so invested in each other's lives. When I was graduating and leaving, they completely surprised me with a bouquet of roses and a homemade quilt, and honestly, I started crying.
 
It was the sweetest, cutest thing in the world, and they just were like, "We appreciate the fact that whenever we come in, you always have a smile on your face. You always are excited to see us. We always have these conversations, and you answer all our questions. You make Islam very accessible, we don't feel like we're burdening you if we ask you questions." And vice versa. I asked them a lot of questions, how they're different, because they were also very devout Christians. Honestly, it touched my heart. It was the best last day of work ever.