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“You’re not from here,” a phrase that has been said to me so many times, I can’t count. Simple tasks such as running to the bank, filled with stares. Stares that say more than words—expressing emotions and passing judgment. Much like that kid in the playground that gets chosen last to be part of a team, I felt as though no one would ever choose me. So I look in the mirror, trying to figure out what it is about me that scares people in my hometown, the place I was born, the place I have lived in for the past 21 years. Is it my tan skin? Is it my crooked smile? Is it my brown eyes? Am I an intimidating woman because I’m slightly taller than most? Is it my intelligence that scares them?
No, it’s my hijab. It’s my hijab. A realization that caused a stir within me.
I have watched my parents deal with racism in this city. I have watched them be questioned as to why they came to a land that was “not theirs.” We’ve been told to go home so many times. Why don’t they realize the only home I know is here, Halifax? The racism my parents dealt with had never hit me until I faced it. At that moment, my father couldn’t protect me and my mother couldn’t defend me. I had to become the adult in the situation and defend my right to be here in Canada as a proud Scotian. It forced me to grow up quick, but most of all I got used to the rhetoric causing a struggle within me. I started to question my identity. Who am I?
As far as ethnicity goes I’m Afghani, my roots from a war torn land that has struggled for decades. My grandparents came here in attempts for a better life for their kids and future generations. They had no idea this was the stigma we would face. As immigrants, you might imagine, my parent’s work ethic is like none other. My father is a reputable business owner and my mother is a woman so driven about education she received a master’s in it. As a child I had worked with my father to gain experience with the family business, referring to me as his big Boss, he encouraged me to become quite the little sales lady.
When I was 17, I decided it was time for me to venture into to the real world and get a job at the mall. Every day after school I would hand out resumes and fill out job applications. I was determined to be the next teeny bopper working at the most popular denim store for my people—the teenagers. To my surprise I got the job, but it didn’t feel like it. I was working at the store, but every shift I was sent to the back to clean the washroom because “no one else does it like you.”
This was the first but not the last of this. Countless interviews being perfect for the job, yet not being selected. So I started to second guess myself. Years passed and I couldn’t find a job so I chose to settle for whatever came my way: a fast food chain, everyone’s worst nightmare. At the interview I was asked, “Where did you learn English? You don’t even have a thick accent.” Yes that’s right. Did I take the job? Yes, I did. As a student at Dalhousie with tuition that could cripple any able body I had no choice. But I made sure that during my time there I taught my employers and fellow staff members more about their unknown ignorance. Why? Because I decided who I was when an older lady on Spring Garden asked me where I was from, and when a gentleman welcomed me to Canada. Or when a group of teenagers yelled “terrorist” as my mother and I walked down the street and then asked us where we were hiding Osama. I was an advocate.
As an advocate I started to make my voice echo throughout the city—holding Islamophobia seminars, doing outreach, appearing on TV, taking every chance to educate everyone in my path because how else was I to change my reality? And then they found me. A place where diversity and inclusion is its main goal. A place where I wouldn’t be questioned about where I learnt English or why I came to Canada. A place where I was welcomed in as family and will remain as such. A place that actively listened to my thoughts and allowed me to spread my knowledge. A young Muslim woman’s dream work place: the reachAbility Association. A place that hired me because they were impressed by my intelligence, not intimidated by it. A place where I was treated just as everyone else.
Originally they hired me to be part of their Diversity Awareness Program that covers all spectrums of diversity—mental health, disabilities, LGBTQ+, POCs (people of color), Islamophobia, immigrants and more. A program that preaches a word so decadent it’s like chocolate covered strawberries, or even better imagine your first bite into that perfectly gooey s’more, where the chocolate and marshmallow have melted in divine unison; the word is inclusion.
What surprised me the most was at reachAbility they practiced what they preached. As a summer student working with reachAbility and battling the woes of Ramadan during summer, they gave me every sort of support I needed. They provided me with a place to pray, which is the first time any employer has done so. They gave me time allotted off on Friday so that I could make Jummah, the Friday sermon. They gave me Eid off without question, which is again the first time any employer has done so. I can’t even get Eid off at university. They made it easy for me to be myself in the work place. They included me. This had never happened before. I was always chosen last in this so called employment playground. It was the first time that I was chosen first, alongside all my colleagues.
Six months ago I had given up on finding a job that would take me as I am and appreciate me. Because of reachAbility my outlook on employment has changed. I was viewed as an asset. For the first time people didn’t look at our differences, but saw our similarities.
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This article appears in Back to School.
I would never stop a person cold and ask where he or she is from. That said, if I happened to get in to conversation with someone and detect an accent, I will often ask “Where are you from originally?”. I lived in Toronto for 16 years before I came back home and am convinced that I learned more from talking to taxi drivers than I could ever have learned sitting in a university classroom. I would love to meet this woman’s parents and have a chance to talk to them. I know so little about Afghanistan and would like to learn.
Ironically your present employer is like the rest, they hired you for your “ethnicity”. Except this time it was an asset, not a liability.
May all of us learn to leverage our assets…
May all of us learn to not complain about our liabilities…real or imagined…
I take a lot of cabs, many of which are driven people-from-away, if I feel like making conversation that day, typically where they original from will come up. No one has ever seemed the least bit upset by it and most are more than happy to tell you where they came from and when. I’ve met a driver from Libya who told me it was like being a farm animal under Gaddafi, a driver from Somalia who educated me on the differences between Somalia and Somaliland and the groups living therein, a driver who recently came from the Ukraine who told me about the education system difference between here and Canada for his son. I’ve met a lot of Afghans here in Nova Scotia, I ask them what part they are from and they are happy to tell me. If I guess if they are Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik or Hazara they will either say “Wow, how did you know” or correct me and tell me about themselves. How did I know, because I talked to a ton of people and asked them about themselves!
So just curious, when you say your ethnicity is Afghani are you using that as a general term for Pashtuns? Love to know more!
Until someone actually flips their shit on me I’ll keep asking questions and trying to get to know as much as I can about them, their culture, their traditions and interests. I’m not probing people to judge them, just to know them. I think the way you get asked the question will certainly let you know what sort of thing they are thinking, but simply asking where you are from (or saying in a more roundabout way “You’re not from here are you?”) shouldn’t be viewed with suspicion itself.
I’m reading this with tears running down my face. I am sorry for the way you have been treated. And, I am sorry that this rhetoric has seemed to increase and be more loud as of late. I wish there was something I could do as a cis white female to share some of my privilege. I try not to ask ignorant questions and volunteer with ISANS (which doesn’t apply to you at all, obviously). I allow my students to miss class without penalty for Eid or other religious observances. And, when I pass people with religious head coverings I try to makes sure I smile my biggest and most welcoming smile to counter the ignorance they will undoubtedly encounter. Is there anything else I can do?
Way to grovel Wendy…
Miasma Khan wrote: “As a student at Dalhousie with tuition that could cripple any able body I had no choice”
An equity rep actually said this? Are my eyes playing tricks on me?
If Masuma Khan thinks it’s ok to actually publish “cripple any able body”
then what is she doing working as an “equity adviser”?
If I may make a comment about what Joe Mac said.. it’s very unfortunate that in a country like Canada where people are educated and where every single of us is somehow an immagrant. ( If you know anything about the Iranian history for example and how far back it goes.. you wouldn’t even question that. At least I hope) do you really want to strive to become like Iran where the country is so oppressed that those who disagree wih the government are doing everything that they can to leave the country. Some of these people who have to cover up for example.. are more open minded and less religious than you may even be. So let’s figure out the real problem here and don’t compare ourselves to a country that was destined to have this faith. Unfortunately change in the middle East is not as easy as you think as the majority of the people are poor and uneducated and therefore are so easily manupulated and brain washed and can’t make the same decisions that you can make. I am a Muslim who chooses not to wear the hijab for example but respect those who do. I can do that without anyone judging me because it is a choice. so when countries like Iran abuse this simple choice by making it a law then it becomes a problem. So it’s good to be thankful that you live in a democratic country and to be understanding and inclusive to show that appreciation of having the choice to be whatever you want to be..
I dare say, Joe Mac, that if you walked down Spring Garden Road in your jock strap, people would wonder what planet you came from.
I get it, there are stupid people out there that hate for a multitude of equally stupid reasons. If it wasn’t Muslim it would be because you’re Christian, too tall, too short, you have tattoos, have body jewellery, eyes too far apart, head too big, ass too big, hair colour, sexual orientation, gender, colour of your skin, etc…
Do you get it? Stupid people gonna hate, what did you expect? If you look at yourself through other people’s eyes, there will always be a reason to be a “victim”, so stop giving a fuck what people you don’t know think of you.
Hijabs are a very new thing in Halifax. To many people it’s a striking image they’ve seen only on TV and usually in some bad-news story. It should be no surprise that wearing one would make the wearer feel like they stand out as ‘different’. Halifax has been a fairly white European heritage type city for a very long time just by the nature of immigration patterns, but it’s changing a little at a time. Some day maybe hijabs will be less of an anomaly here but for now they appear foreign. That’s just human nature.
This is now an old article, but I’d like to respond.
First, Ms Khan, there is value in treating people with the kind of dignity and respect one would seek for oneself.
Being young, you are still apt to consider your experience as somehow specific to you. It is true that when it comes to apportioning labour, supervisors ought to fairly delegate those jobs deemed less pleasant than others, such as cleaning the shop toilet. But merely because your supervisor held it to be so, does not make the job itself, demeaning. Nor does what your father does for a living – business or anything else – make him ‘respectable’, any more than what any of us does for a living, defines us. Meanwhile, hundreds of people daily scrub and clean toilets everywhere, from the university you are fortunate enough to attend, to the fast food outlets you hyperbolically dismiss as ‘everyone’s worst nightmare’, to medical clinics and hospitals. First, we can all be grateful those people do that job. Second, during your short tenure, you were one of those many. If you want to foster inclusiveness, yo can’t just take the self-serving route of promoting inclusion of yourself, your special group. Take time to remember that if it is hard to be a visible minority, it is even harder to be an invisible anything, like those legions of cleaners. Many of whom, unlike you, aren’t just in it for a temporary casual job before heading back to university.
Next: we can’t always choose those with whom we must converse or contact each day. I suspect in many instances people say what they do, not out of malice but because they aren’t very good conversationalists. But even if they intend to be condescending, we can still choose whether we want to take offense. Consider: This province raises a lot of tax revenue off the shellfish industry; many Canadians, including African Canadians, are involved in raising and processing pork; yet as you know, both conservative Islam and Judaism continues to treat these products as ‘unclean’ (and distinct from beef, even though all biochemical evidence shows the same constituent amino acids to be involved, just in different proportions.) Should I, as a non-Muslim and non-Jew, stiffen in resentment because if I look hard enough, there is an implied insult in such beliefs?
How about ‘Wear a Hijab’ Day, which was held at the publicly funded HRM library? If you think this was an innocent ‘education’ campaign, designed to promote community harmony,consider how you’d feel if you encountered a cadre of smiling people urging you to participate in “Eat Pork and Shellfish day” – “You’ll love the way ham makes you feel!” You see, Ms Khan, plenty of people put a foot wrong, all whilst ostensibly trying to be helpful. Including those behind that obnoxious campaign, with its implication that something must be tried to be understood, even if not trying it – be it eating pork, or wearing a hijab, might be the whole point for a given individual. Including people like those given the generic category of ‘mainstream’, who are routinely dismissed as not having any beliefs worth considering.
Time to realize that to err is human, to forgive, even better.