Target of hate words

Freshman Sehrish Shauka stands in a Target as a male her age starts to approach her. As he gets closer to her, he asks, “Are your parents in ISIS?” Quickly, Shauka snaps a comment back to protect herself from harsher words.

Welcome to the life of a Pakistani girl.

According to Shauka, exchanges like this are common occurrences for members of her culture, especially women, and usually happen once every two months to her. “Sometimes I’ll be at the grocery store just picking up some stuff and people will just walk up to me and say rude things to me,” Shauka said.

Shauka believes that the hijab, or headscarf, makes the women stand out and causes them to receive more backlash than Pakistani men do. According to Arabs in America, the hijab, which means “cover” in Arabic, is worn because “they believe that God has instructed women to wear it as a means of fulfilling His
commandment of modesty.”

Although it says in the Quran, the Islam book of scripture, that women should wear the hijab, they do not wear it as often in order to avoid this backlash. According to Shauka, other people in her culture criticize her for wearing the hijab and assume that her mom forces her to wear it.

According to Shauka, the Muslim culture worries more about the career and background of the person they are marrying instead of their physical appearance. “I feel like America is more ‘be thin, be pretty, be fit’ and that kind of stuff,” Shauka said. If anything, the idea of having a paler skin tone might be considered to be more appealing than darker skin.

Although she has never had a problem at school, she believes that people can embrace her culture by “not judging us before they look at us and think ‘oh they’re a part of this country.’”

“The scarf is kind of like an identity – it shows that you are different you are this person. It identifies you,” Shauka said.

Caroline Cooney is an In-Focus Editor from The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.