Caught between two worlds
Billi Solis
|
The first thing you notice about Ariana Hakim is her long dark hair. Curling gently, it tumbles down her back.
For most 21-year-old women, wearing their hair long and free is no big deal. But Ariana Hakim is a Muslim student, and if her parents knew she was being seen in public without her hijab, she could jeopardize her relationship with them.
Hakim's conflict with how she appears and what she wears in public is one of the many difficulties she faces as a young Muslim woman going to school in the heart of Boston. She takes great pride in her family's faith, but is often fearful to share it because of what she feels to be strong anti-Islamic tendencies in America.
She is an independent young woman who feels pressured by her family to follow the rules and expectations of their religion. As a daughter of an immigrant father from Indonesia and an American Muslim mother, she is stuck on the cusp of two very different cultures, and often is emotionally exhausted from her efforts to embrace both.
Hakim is a busy person, and in many ways lives out the ideal of the strong American woman. She is a Writing, Literature and Publishing major and an intern for the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin. She works at Marshall's and is also as a resident assistant in Piano Row. She takes her job as a RA seriously and cares deeply for the students of her floor.
But Hakim does not like to wear her hijab when she is meeting students. She doesn't want to be pegged as the Muslim RA. She says she also is sensitive to the fact that many students first coming to Emerson may not have lived in diverse towns or cities and may never before have met a Muslim. She worries, she says, that her very religion could make them fear her because of the prejudice she believes many Americans hold toward Islam.
"I don't want to intimidate them or have them be afraid to come to me," she said.
Hakim does practice some aspects of the religion. She does wear her hijab on occasion, and her RA photo at the front desk shows her with a hijab on. She celebrates major Islamic holidays, such as Eid-Ul-Fitr (which marks the end of Ramadan) and Eid-Ul-Adha (the celebration of Ibrahim sacrificing his son as he was asked to by God). Her schedule does not allow her to go to mosque often, she said, but if she has the opportunity she does.
Rabbi Albert Axelrad, who teaches at Emerson and has served as the head of its Center for Spiritual Life, said he understands the contradictions of Hakim's world.