I could write a whole other article on being a Muslim-American surrounded by post-9/11 Islamophobia and the implications it’s had on how I view myself, but for now, I’m going to write about a young brown girl trying to be as "normal" as possible while pressed between two very different identities.

I’ve always owned more Bengali clothes than American. The kitchen at my house always smells like cardamom and rosewater and I don't trust our yogurt containers because they’ve probably been reused for something that definitely isn't yogurt. Every closet in my house contains prayer mats and it’s expected for guests to take their shoes off before entering. These are just a few of the things about my home that make my parents feel a little closer to their own home.

My parents have granted me more privileges than I could ever thank them for. My Ma and Baba (they’ve always wanted me to call them that but I never got accustomed to it) are two of the kindest and most giving people I know.

In middle school I attended Islamic school classes every day and had about three friends. I’m not sure how many bullies I had but let’s just say I didn’t trust anyone except those three friends. Those days, everything my parents and my Islamic school teacher told me were the law. My least favorite place in the world was the girl’s locker room. Whenever I stepped into it I was positive that everyone could hear the sound of my heart beating, and my head would not stop spinning with questions. What would I say back if someone made fun of how I covered myself up in this 80 degree heat? Was I gonna get pushed into a locker again for
being in someone’s way? Were they gonna make fun of my arms? (Side note: my mom made me wax my legs and arms because she didn’t think body hair was very feminine, so as a result I had weirdly hairless arms that Nash Grier would’ve been proud of.) I also wore leggings under my very baggy gym shorts because showing my legs was considered immodest. Eventually I started changing in the bathroom to avoid being called out. If my clothes weren't enough to ruin my social standing, there was also the fact that I was extremely unathletic. I didn’t play any sports growing up because my parents were more concerned with my struggle to learn English for most of elementary school (which was strange considering I was literally born and raised in Oakland). It’s safe to say that kids thought I was a weirdo. I had no idea how to interact with the opposite sex and I was always anxious about bullies. Coming home crying because of what someone said or did to me became normal, but I eventually got used to it. I couldn’t understand why kids picked on me about everything that I did to try to be a good Muslim.

Cut to high school, and I’m still the same awkward girl, just a little bit taller and without the braces and glasses. I made a lot of good friends my first year because, surprisingly, the concept of popularity had been left behind in middle school. It wasn’t until boys started calling me so "innocent" or "awkward but, you know, in a good way" that I started to feel isolated again. There were boys I liked that I knew would never give me a chance. That was when I realized I needed more confidence and I really needed to have the same small freedoms my friends had.

It’s funny how, now, I wear shorts so often that I don't even really think about it, especially since I go to school in LA. This definitely wasn’t the case six years ago. One day, I checked the temperature and saw that it was going be 90 degrees. By that point, I was so tired of being the only girl wearing jeans everyday and the Islamic school lessons I’d had seemed so irrelevant. I was so desperate to be able to wear shorts that I asked my friend to bring a pair for me to school. Putting on shorts in a cramped bathroom stall was enough to get my heart racing uncontrollably and to temporarily lose hearing in one of ears (BTW— is that a normal thing? It still happens to me whenever I get anxious.) I felt like I was in that girl’s locker room again and I kept thinking that people were going to notice that I was wearing shorts for the first time or that my legs were a lot whiter than my very brown face and arms. I eventually stepped out of the stall and went on with my day, surprised to see that no one noticed anything.

As I went through high school, I began lying to my parents about a lot more than shorts. I lied the most I’ve ever lied when I had a boyfriend. Everything was fine until one day my mom caught me holding hands with him and made me come home. To this day, I’ve never been so afraid as I was then. My mom took away my phone and wouldn’t let me see my friends for a month. At one point, she even looked through my phone bill and made me call the phone number I contacted the most in front of her (which was my boyfriend’s, but I quickly Facebook messaged him to not pick up). Eventually my mom gave me my phone back and I kept lying about my boyfriend. All of the secrets put a strain on my relationships with both him and my mom. No boyfriend wants to be kept a secret from your parents forever. So when I had my heart broken for the first time, my mom, who had been there for me all the times I’d cried before, was silent.

There are a lot of other times in high school where I silently rebelled, but the shorts and the boyfriend are the most memorable. By the end of high school I wanted nothing to do with my religion because I only saw at it as a set of rules that made life more difficult for me.

I was wildly unprepared for quite a few things when I got to college. I didn’t really drink in high school (my family obviously hated alcohol), I rarely went to parties, and my good friends didn’t really drink either. I never had the safe drinking talk (and I can’t help but think that if I had, a few nights of my life in college could have gone more smoothly). I never had a talk on hookup culture either because why would my parents ever talk to me about premarital sex? #Haram.

Nonetheless, I was happy that I could leave home and do whatever I wanted. When I came home for the summer, I realized I couldn’t talk with my parents about my best memories at school, because they all involved me being in a situation they wouldn’t have liked. My relationship with them my first summer home was horrible. When I told them about my sorority, which is full of the most inspiring women I have ever met, my dad started posting sorority horror stories on my wall (he was immediately blocked). Whenever I went out I would stress over my mom texting me all night asking when I was coming home. Eventually my "curfew" became 8 p.m. Anytime my parents yelled at me about something I did wrong, I would yell back at them saying that they didn’t know what I did in college or that I didn't consider myself a Muslim anymore so it shouldn’t matter what I did anyway. I started sleeping over at friends’ houses almost every weekend so I wouldn’t have to hear them discussing how they were disappointed that they hadn't raised me well. After that summer, I’d become numb to the guilt I used to get from lying.

My sophomore year, I was losing a lot of confidence and began thinking that a lot of my relationships were not as strong as they used to be. After a year of self-reflection I realized if I wanted to be able to maintain relationships with anyone, I needed to start with my parents. One thing that really stuck with me from that first summer was my mom telling me I never open up to anyone. The thing is, if you know me now, you know that I do open up about myself... I actually open up too much (I mean clearly, look how long you've been reading this). In middle school and part of high school, I kept to myself only because I felt like an outcast. Now, I often forget I was like that until I run into someone from middle school at BART and suddenly am completely aware of my breathing. I already was the same open person I am now, I was just being forced to hold back because of all the rules. So hearing that from my mom made me realize that she had absolutely no idea who I was anymore.

I’ve grown up in a lot of ways in college, and it was sad to think my parents couldn’t see that. I began talking to them about safe topics: what was going on in the world, the amazing things my friends were doing, and random internet trends. Once in awhile, I would accidentally leave the house in a dress or shorts. The first few times it happened my mom blew up but it’s happened so much by now that she doesn’t even notice anymore. Our relationship in the past year and a half has gotten much better since I started easing her into my shocking lifestyle. I’m definitely not ready to tell my parents everything, but I’m at a point where I don’t mind being yelled at for something I did. It’s a lot better than growing up into a person my parents will never know. Maybe one day I’ll read this post to them, or maybe I won’t have to seeing as many of my relatives that I’ve blocked on fb google me to see what I'm up to.

I’m never going to have the same relationship with my parents that a lot of my friends have with theirs, but I’m content with that now. Testing my relationship with them is hard to look back on, but everything I've done up until now has put me on track to becoming more confident in myself and what I want. As for my relationship with Islam— if I were to say that I’m a good Muslim, I would be completely lying and would definitely be offending many actual good Muslims. All of the rules I’ve broken, my rejection of it throughout high school and college, and the fact that whenever my mom tells me I have to marry a Muslim boy I respond with “we’ll see,” do make it seem like it has deteriorated. But this just isn’t true. I still consider my Muslim upbringing a big contributor to the person I am today. If you know how I am, you'll see that how I treat everyone comes from my respectful upbringing. Even if I disagree that some aspects of Islam are for me, I will always be respectful of customs in front of family members, I will always look forward to Eid celebrations, and most of all, I will always remember the importance of keeping my intentions pure.