Here’s the real reason why the hijab makes me nervous
Whenever I encounter a woman who wears the hijab, my pulse quickens. This subconscious reaction worsened after the 2016 presidential election — though not for the reasons you may think. I practice Islam, and I was born and raised in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population. Per tradition, the first words I heard as a newborn baby were the adhan call to prayer, which my grandfather recited, pressing his lips to my tiny ear.
But when I roam the streets of New York City — the place I now call home — and draw level with a stranger wearing the hijab, suddenly I don’t know what to do with myself. Upon encountering strangers we typically avert our eyes, but when I see her I wonder if people do nothing but avert their eyes — perhaps out of nervousness, outright fear, or to conceal their curiosity.
I see her and I feel obligated to tell her she’s welcome in the United States—notwithstanding the Muslim travel ban, escalating hate crimes against Muslims and furtive stares wherever she goes.
I want her to know that I admire the shawl on her head even more in light of proliferating anti-Muslim rhetoric spurned from a White House that perceives her as a “national security threat.” I want her to know that we’re the same.
I want her to know that I, as a Muslim, would never be brave enough to wear the veil in the United States even if I wanted to — not necessarily for fear of my life but that it might cost me social capital, a job opportunity, a potential romantic partner, or even just a commute on the subway free from sidelong glances and wide berths.
Recently, I watched a performance of a poem penned by two female Rutgers University students titled ‘Still, I Rise,’ a riff on the eponymous poem by African-American author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. My skin crawled as one of the performers, her lips crimson red and her hijab a flowing lilac, recited the following lines:
“You hate this scarf on my head because you hate the idea of being different
You hate that I’m so comfortable in my skin and that I dare to be other than them
That I’m changing the perception of what it means to be an American
You hate that I’m changing the status quo.”
Yes, I’m a coward and a conformist and a biracial, ethnically ambiguous kid who wants to finally belong somewhere, and that is why I struggle to meet the eyes of the veiled woman on the street. Her hijab is not a defiant political statement nor a symbol of oppression but an expression of faith, the way one would wear a cross around one’s neck. She is beautiful and comfortable in her own skin without needing to show skin. She believes in a religion that encourages one to kiss the soles of one’s mother’s feet at least once in her lifetime, for she is one’s bushel of light from the moment one enters this world as a helpless, cold and confused invalid.
But I know she already knows these things, and she needs no tribute or special treatment to validate her existence. So I walk on, unsmiling, gaze averted, and try my darnedest to let her be.
