The night before my first day of sixth grade, I studied the piece of fabric laid out on my bed with uncharacteristic placidity. It was no work of art; plain cotton fabric, dyed black, with a single strip of black lace for adornment. No, I wasn’t looking owlishly at my first bra: the object that held my fascination was the first hijab I would wear to school full-time.
wisps of hair escape
as innumerable as stars
as infinite as ignorance
On the totem-pole of hijabi excellence, full-timers received the most respect, but even they had their own hierarchy. At the top were high school and college girls that could take a 12 by 72-inch shawl and wrap it into a masterpiece of rippling fabric on their heads. At the bottom were lowly grunts like me—sixth graders with acne, neon-colored braces, and the cat’s eye glasses you realize are lame halfway through seventh grade—who wore plain, one-piece slip on hijabs made in Bangladeshi sweatshops. This latter form of hijab was popular among young children and the inexperienced, and thus, I dubbed it the kiddie hijab.
little girl, big blink
no, I can’t show you my hair.
“why?”
violent silence.
who knows? not I
I had taken my kiddie hijab out for test runs on elementary school Crazy Hat Days, during which I had to patiently explain to my classmates that no, I didn’t need to take my hijab off for the pledge of allegiance. Those days couldn’t hold a candle—nay, a tea light!—to my first day of sixth grade, because now I could join all the cool girls at the mosque as a “full-timer.”
tongue in knots, heart in spasms
how do I explain?
“Say it’s religious. Like, modesty.”
not enough words, never enough words
Now, after achieving scarf-master level, I look back upon my kiddie hijab days with embarrassment. The kiddie hijab was as much a mindset as it was a scarf, and we who donned it did so for the sake of finally getting accepted into the hush-hush hijabi sisterhood we once watched jealously from afar. At seventeen, I am more cognizant of the divine purpose, and the danger, that lies in the sacred commandment to cover, and this epiphany occurred through my very own trial by fire.
As an eleven-year-old, I failed to realize that she who donned the hijab opened herself up not only to a barrage of asinine questions (I do not shower in it), but, as I discovered throughout middle school, harassment. I was subjected to the classic racist jokes about Osama Bin Laden and camels, the brilliant epithet of Towelhead, and, at worst, particularly irreverent kids who pulled off my hijab on the school bus. To these kids, who thought seeing my hair was akin to pantsing someone, the hijab was just a piece of fabric. To the girl I was before this harassment, the hijab was just a piece of fabric.
“we just wanted to see your hair.”
my hair, my property
Six years later, the utter humiliation I felt at being violated so carelessly before my peers still blindsides me. That emotion helped me realize that the decision to wear a hijab is one full of gravity. Now, I wear my religion proudly on my head. My hijab says, look at me—not as an object to be valued for its beauty, but as a person with intellect and passion. My hijab removes the rose-colored glasses that obscured my ability to see discrimination and resist it. My hijab is a badge of sisterhood, faith, and honor that I wear despite knowing it makes me a target. My hijab closes the door on the innocence of childhood, and invites me to open my eyes and see the world in all its glory, and all its dishonor.
rose-tinted glasses with broken lenses
this is the world--
it is the wound and the salve