It was the second day of second grade. I was on the school bus sitting next to my best friend when the bus suddenly halted, making a loud SCREECH. I looked out the window to see the reason why. There was a metro bus, green, long, and making me late to school. As I was staring at the bus and the line of people that seemed to stretch out for miles, one person, in particular, caught my eye. It was a woman she looked young, probably 19, but she looked foreign. Foreign to the average American, but not me. She reminded me of my aunt. She was wearing a lavish dark cloth carefully stitched with elegant embroidery that covered her whole body.
I didn’t continue to think much of it as I began to play patty cake with my friend, but a few moments passed and the bus was still there. I looked out the window to see the young woman still standing there. She was the last person in line and as she tried to step foot in the bus, the doors shut in her face, her beauteous Hijab caught in the door. I thought it was all an accident till the bus driver opened the doors again and yelled at her for making him late and that was all ‘her people’ were good at, that and blowing things up.
Confusion and fear were written on her face as she tried to get on the bus again, but this time, the bus just left, leaving her behind in the darkness that’s still morning. I came home from school later that day to see both my parents in front of the T. V. I stepped inside the living room to tell them about my day, but as soon as they heard the floor creak, the T. V. went black. I sat down in front of my mom and told her what had happened, but all she did was sob. I turned to my father; he mustered up a smile and told me “there are some bad people in the world who do bad things, bad things you don’t need to know right now.
I pushed him to tell me more but he wouldn’t, I stood up to throw a tantrum just like any seven-year-old would but something about this situation told me not to. It wasn’t until three years later I realized why. I was a curious child, always wanting the answer to things. I was ten when I found out why that lady was kicked off the bus, my mother had cried herself to bed that night, my aunt wasn’t her smiley self when she came over to visit, and it was also the reason why my father hadn’t answered. September 11th, 2001.
I had learned that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. It was an unexpected and horrible tragedy that will never be forgotten by my country or me because it follows me everywhere. I wore the ‘Hijab’ an article of cloth that became my symbol of faith but their target of hate. At school there was constant bullying, some mocked my scarf claiming that my bun was a bomb, but I would smile and ignore. I made my name sound more American and denied that I have any cultural background outside of the U. S. I was losing myself and I could feel it.
I was like a Martian, an alien unknown to everyone. Each day I would lock myself in my room and cry till I felt nothing but numbness, it had become a routine. My family would try to make me feel like a princess but each day I returned feeling like trash. That was until one day; these guys in the back of the class started yelling “Allahu Akbar” and played a bomb explosion right after. I asked them to turn it off but they refused claiming that they were just sharing some knowledge with their fellow classmates about how people like me were only good at blowing things up.
It was then that I realized that I was NOT good at blowing stuff up but at math. I was like every other person in the room and I didn’t have to take this anymore. I’m an American and I don’t need them to believe me. This delicate Hijab that lies on my head and covers my hair is what makes me, me, and I don’t have to apologize for it. They can judge, hate, criticize me forever but their opinions don’t matter, not anymore.
