I was twelve the year the disaster occurred. Until then, I had lived in a happy-go-lucky little bubble, safely cushioned from the events of the world until September 11, 2001 brought the events of the world to my doorstep.
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I was twelve the year the disaster occurred. Until then, I had lived in a happy-go-lucky little bubble, safely cushioned from the events of the world until September 11, 2001 brought the events of the world to my doorstep.
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Al-Talib speaks with Sabrina Syed, a 2nd year student at UCLA majoring in Biology, on her experience traveling back from Pakistan to the U.S. the day of the September 11 attacks. Syed was 8 years old at that time and was traveling with her sister and mother.
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September 2001. For me, it marked turning ten, my family’s move from New York to California and my first time attending a public school after spending my childhood in a private Islamic school. It also happened to be the month where the actions of a few extremist individuals changed the lives of Muslim Americans forever.
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“Come on…get up…get up….HURRRYYY!” my dad was yelling at all of us, probably because we had all slept in again. I still wasn’t back on track with my schedule, getting over the jetlag from our summer travels, and really wasn’t looking forward to lugging my tired body over to school that day.
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200 demonstrators gather outside of the Los Angeles Federal Building, dozens of flags floating in the air, each piece of cloth boldly declaring support for movements in Iran and Libya. As protests go, the one held on February 20th was small compared to one’s held in previous weeks for Egypt and Tunisia, yet it’s sometimes the smallest of events, the moments people tend to overlook, that can impact a community in ground-breaking ways. That is, if its people have enough [...]
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Relieved by the end of my first round of midterms, I open the web browser, instinctively navigating to the CNN homepage. There it is: a painful, daunting headline. Come on, this can’t be happening. Please tell me it isn’t true, but I guess disappointment is my forte. “Teenage suicide bomber kills at least 27 in Pakistan” Powerless. Perplexed. Disgusted. I cannot even imagine a fourteen year old being capable of carrying out such a heinous act. Isn’t this the age [...]
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Religion plays a major role in the life of a prisoner. After being thrown into prison, many inmates turn to religion for faith, guidance, and support to help them get through their incarceration. The largest convert populations in prison are Muslims. Although the numbers of Muslims in United States prisoners are unknown, it is estimated that between 9 to 15 percent of incarcerated prisoners are Muslim. The majority of those who convert to Islam behind bars are of African American [...]
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Muslim-Americans go through grueling tests of faith and tolerance in a variety of situations including “random” security searches at airports and threats of desecration to our holy book. As devastating as these difficulties are, there is another nerve-wracking situation that nearly every Muslim encounters. It happens daily in classrooms, café shops, and sporting events, and it is ignited by a single question: “What’s your name?” Something so rudimentary as our name, our identity, can even be difficult for Muslim to [...]
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