What It's Like To Be Egyptian-American At A Catholic University
At Boston College, a Jesuit Catholic university where 70 percent of students identify as Catholic, Fatmah Berikaa says she is the only student who lives on campus and wears a hijab.
Berikaa, an Egyptian-American who grew up in Massachusetts, says she chose BC for its academic programs, its friendly campus and its financial aid. She lives in a dorm on the Upper Campus with other first-years. Berikaa hopes to teach and is studying secondary education and English, with a focus in English as a second language, and minoring in Arabic.
Berikaa talked to The Huffington Post about her experiences on campus — what she worried about before starting at the school, how strangers approach her with questions, and how she manages living in a dorm and squeezing in prayers between classes. Here’s her story, as told to Alexandra Svokos:
I was super worried about attending a Catholic university. I thought I would be the only Muslim on campus. We have a Facebook page for every class here, and I’d scan it looking for names that sounded Muslim, just to get an idea of what to expect. I met a few on Facebook before coming, but I met a bunch more once I got involved with the campus’ Muslim Student Association [MSA].
I’m one of five hijabi students on campus — women who wear the headscarf — and I’m the only one who actually lives on campus. Islam is a big part of who I am — it’s kind of, inside and out, part of my identity — so I always feel pressure, like I’m essentially representing my religion all the time. It’s hard sometimes, because that’s 1.6 billion people who can be judged based on how I’m seen. I don’t want people to see me having a bad day and generalize that to the entire population.
On campus, people are really open and friendly. People walk up to me and start asking questions. Sometimes people are really offensive without even meaning it, but I’d rather have them ask me outrageous questions and get the right information than go on believing something that’s not true.
A lot of people start off by commenting on the headscarf. They’ll talk about the color, or ask to feel it. And then every once in a while you’ll get ridiculous questions, like “Can you ever take it off?” I don’t shower with it. For the record, that’s not how it works.
I teach ESL in Boston as part of a volunteer program, and a lot of the students there are recent immigrants from El Salvador or Colombia, and they don’t have big Muslim populations in those countries. They’ve never seen a Muslim, so they ask me a lot of crazy questions, like “I heard that men can have four wives…” It’s really sweet that they make the effort.
I love when people ask questions, because it shows that they’re making the effort. So I want to reciprocate and make the same effort.
Once I got here, I found that a majority of the people that I was meeting came from really diverse backgrounds, and that’s great. But it’s also nice spending some time with people who are on the same page as you.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com