Decades later, listening to the poem again has brought home just how much that brief moment of connection is in the past. This is the everyday reality of shame-based upbringing. I grew up within a huge extended family surrounded by so many people. Today, I feel that I have no one. 

I was forced into a marriage through physical and psychological coercion. My extended family members, all “approved” of the marriage. My partner kept me alienated from my family, and when I did meet them, I would be emotionally abused by him to leave the gathering. I showed obvious signs of visible distress. Yet, I lacked the support and care I craved for from the tens of people around me. 

Starting a new life required me to pave a path around new connections. Doing this was not easy. Apart from government officials that refused to understand my PTSD, I had to navigate finding housing for me and my 4 year old son. We were evicted from a place without cause. Without proper status in the country, finding work became more difficult even with my Masters’ degree.  Next, we were forced to seek shelter in a roach infested place. The living room had water dripping from the ceiling I had to slowly become used to, until one day the whole bath tub from the upper flow actually made its way in my unit, shattering the ceiling between us. My job hours are still limited because of my status in the country. Through this time, I met several people who blamed the hijab on my head for my circumstances. 

I yearned for connection and community throughout this process. Recently meeting my sister, I so desperately wanted to link this song to her in a Whatsapp message, I still felt anxiety, frustration, resentment and sadness around her. In order to be safe, I had to hide and lie about almost everything regarding my new life. This attempt at connection would only take the blindfold off. 

This whole ordeal has been alienating to say the least. I still question my narrative multiple times before releasing my words and thoughts, questioning whether I am portraying my religion or culture or ethnicity in a negative light.  I only reached out to organizations that worked within my community. 

I have had to rake out many “friends” from my life and the rest are spread around the world. Sadly, despite the work of various organizations, “honour”-based abuse is not widely understood. I still worry about my experience being dismissed or misunderstood by my interlopers. It can be very isolating. And so, sometimes, when I am washing up or just sitting on my bed, listening to this song, the weight of my loneliness will come down in full force and the stream will start flowing. 

The post The weight of my loneliness first appeared on CASSA.

However, this journey has taken me three decades to cultivate. As a child, life was different.

If I tell you my parents were unaware of my neurodivergent brain – often resorting to anger at my inability
to create a schedule for myself or asking them last minute for help with school projects – you will ask

about my background, my birthplace, and my parents’ skin color.

If I say my parents were forceful in impacting the way I lived, cultivating my values and wanting me to
adhere to their norms, you would likely ask about my religion, my culture, and my ethnicity.
Narrating stories of being told what to wear, and what not to wear – you will call it abusive behavior and

suggest I cut ties with them.

But what if I also tell you about my father, who drove me to numerous stationery stores late at night to find
supplies for my school project, or my mother who stayed up helping me craft a basketball field out of
cardboard?
Or about the time she stayed awake for 48 hours, placing wet towels on my forehead during a severe
fever, while my father, juggling two jobs, cried and prayed all night?

Will you see my mom’s culture and the God my father prayed to then?

I have many stories of izzat, sexual violence, displacement, and complex trauma, but more than that, I
have stories of community, healing, and resistance.
Whether it was my nani, bedridden from a stroke, trying to stand upon seeing me cry from anxiety, or my
dadi who simply embraced me when I confronted my uncle about his sexist comment – I have witnessed
resistance, resilience, and care.

In my 20s, as I strove to create a life on my own terms, I often found myself distraught by the outside
world’s perceptions of my background. The developed world’s structures, lauded for their organization
and discipline, have repeatedly failed me.
They have been rigid, unyielding, inaccessible, and unreliable.
In classrooms where I needed accommodations for managing deadlines, I faced the arduous task of
navigating office after office to prove my disability.
I endured lectures riddled with stereotypes associated with my religion, ethnicity, history, or culture.
I witnessed the unwillingness and inefficiency of the school’s administration to address sexual violence on
campus, often shifting blame, even as case after case emerged.

Yet, when systems have failed me, people have always been there.

My community has been there, even when their ways of understanding reality have hurt me.
By telling me to ostracize my community, to villainize them, and to hold them responsible for all that has happened in my life, these systems have only caused more injustice.

Systems always fail me – but I, stubborn as ever, continue to rebuild them, with my people, and for my people.

The post Tasnuva’s Story first appeared on CASSA.

Four years on, the hope has dimmed. War in Ghana has claimed their assets, and their asylum status remains uncertain. Joseph’s mother, burdened by her limited English, unfamiliarity with western education, and no formal status in Canada, faces challenges in securing a stable job. In her determination, she manages two part-time roles, constantly battling obstacles in housing, employment, and accessing healthcare. 

Basketball is Joseph’s passion. Despite lacking equipment and formal coaching because of financial constraints, he’s earned a spot on his school’s team and spends his afternoons after school practicing. He even shares his skills with his younger sister. But when he was chosen for a provincial tournament, the participation fees were too steep, making it impossible for him to join.

At the age of 14, Joseph is now considering an after-school job, potentially sacrificing the hours he devotes to basketball and his position on the school team. With the Canada Child Benefit, Joseph could have pursued both his education and his basketball aspirations. Instead, he’s caught in a system that does not extend equal opportunities to children without status, perpetuating cycles of poverty and racism. All children within Canada’s borders deserve equal opportunities to access their full potential

Disclaimer: This story is based on real events. Identifying information has been altered to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. 

The post Joseph’s Story first appeared on CASSA.

my most important identity is my faith.

It comes above anything else

to me, hijab is my way of being Muslim in the world.

how we feel about things fluctuates and changes over time

And the reality is

some days I wear it because I love being a Muslim and I want people to know that I’m a Muslim and other days [I wear it out of habit and other days I wear it because that’s just what I do in the morning]. [i would only keep one of the 2 (habit and morning), they both mean the same thing so whichever you feel flows better]

and sometimes I wear it because it is an active expression of faith. 

and that ebbs and flows.

 it’s part of who I am.

 it will keep being part of who I am. 

And that’s just it for me. 

For you, as someone looking at me 

hijab should just be a piece of clothing that’s on my head

–  you don’t have to put any meaning on it. 

The meaning comes from me. 

*francophone, muslim, hijabi

The post What does Hijab mean to me? first appeared on CASSA.

―R. Ellison, Invisible Man (1952, p. xxvi) 

I attended a prestigious university in Quebec for my undergraduate degree, which hosted students and professors from all over the world. Yet, they belonged more than I did, despite being brought up in Canada. 

Strayhorn et al. (2012) describe the sense of belonging as “students’ perceived social support on campus, a feeling of connectedness, the experience of mattering or feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by, and important to the group (e.g., campus community) or others on campus (e.g., faculty and peers)” (p. 3). This was overwhelmingly not my experience, as for the four years I grappled with feeling excluded, different, invisible, and disliked because of my hijab.

The silent exclusion began mainly in the form of social events I could not attend as a result of my faith. Firstly, the vast majority of events that the university, faculties and programs officially held were centered around alcohol. To name a few: wine and cheese, club crawls, pub nights, start/end of the year get together, and midterm relaxation events all centered alcohol or took place in spaces that were mainly for the consumption of alcohol.  To keep it short, the dominant social campus culture was drinking culture. As research shows, (Chavous 2000) dominant norms, practices, and implicit and explicit ideologies of universities can materialize classism, racism and patriarchy on campus and in classrooms. I would argue from my own experience, it can also materialize islamophobia, by excluding practicing Muslims from spaces of advancement and wider connection.

People around me made connections and friend groups through these events, something which I could not be a part of. This was a time, now I see was short, but then felt very long and lonely, where I felt like everyone had friends, and I didn’t. It hurt my self-esteem and made me feel like there was something wrong with me, and that is why people did not want to be friends. 

Exclusion from big university events impacted more than just my social circles. It impacted my university extracurricular aspirations and hence my post-graduate resume.First year students often found mentors in older students during these social events. Without getting into student politics too much, I saw first hand how new students were able to take executive positions in student run organizations through the support of these mentors. My access to these supports was limited because of the social events felt inaccessible to me.  

The expectation was to assimilate and attend to the dominant environment I entered if I wanted to reap the same opportunities and advantages as my peers. “Universal dominant norms and culture define—and in some cases easily distort—what (and who) is considered normative” (Jackson et al., p. 256) which made me feel like I am too different, and therefore do not belong in this space and should stop trying. 

This was exacerbated by my slow realization that I would be the only hijabi and visible Muslim in most of the spaces I entered. Whether that be in a seminar room of 10 people, lecture room of 100 or a residence hall of 700. I became socially isolated as I felt like I needed to always try harder and was hyper-aware of myself and everyone around me. I felt I should bury my differences in opinions, to shield myself from more attention. I did not even feel like I was Canadian.  At times I thought about how easy and comfortable my life would be if I just did not wear the hijab—a thought I have never had before I began or after finishing my undergrad.  It was mentally exhausting always trying to find ways to fit in, which normally meant, blending in—something I physically could not do because of my hijab. 

As my hijab made me stand out, it became the only thing people saw. They reduced me, as a person, to just the hijab— erasing my individuality and instead perceiving me as their essentialized and orientalist understanding of hijab.  As a result of modern-day Orientalism, Muslim women who wear the hijab are objectified and otherized as oppressed, weak, passive, voiceless victims but also potentially dangerous (Afshar 2008). They are depicted to lack the intellectual caliber to fight or speak for themselves and are in desperate need to be guided, saved and civilized from their barbaric religion from the enlightened west (Afshar 2008). Hence, on numerous occasions I felt disliked and stereotyped, immediately, before I said or did anything, both on and off campus. I, as a person, became the symbol of my religion and my thoughts, opinions and behaviour were all automatically assumed based on people’s preconceived beliefs. 

 One instance from my third year, that still moves me, simply because it was in a gender studies class, and the professor was a Women of Colour. She would hurryingly brush me off when I asked questions and made me feel like what I asked was simple and unintelligent. Whenever I spoke, she would rudely tell me to speak louder. I thought maybe she’s just having a bad day. However, I noticed she was not like that with others. I told my classmate jokingly that “I think she hates me” and my classmate immediately agreed, and said she noticed her rudeness. This was the first time someone else noticed what I felt. 

I ended up getting the best grades in class multiple times, when the rest of the class was severely struggling and frustrated with their marks. After that—after she saw my work, saw that I could critically think about patriarchy and express myself, and I wasn’t some passive, intellectually subservient or anything else she associated with a hijabi, her behaviour towards me completely changed. My voice, tone and types of questions never did. It was as if she cared about what I was going to say and had the patience to try to listen. 

Such microaggressions where I felt immediately disliked were not uncommon. Whether it be getting the cold shoulder or being completely ignored by students or café owners, while they were being extremely warm towards my white friend. On many occasions, even if I spoke, they would reply and mainly engage with just her. My presence made them uncomfortable, and hence they made me invisible. Perhaps that is why a policy like Bill-21 can exist in the province; to shut out Muslim women from the public— to erase us.

Trying to belong…

To combat the exclusion and invisibility I felt in university, I gravitated towards Muslim spaces as I knew my hijab was not a problem there. I ended up making some really great friends, who supported me and helped me navigate university life, and Montreal. I also moved away from the proximity of my university into a more diverse area of the city. Seeing students of colour, and hijabi’s, on a regular basis reduced my visibility and made me feel normal again. Walking to the subway and passing by the numerous POC owned businesses became therapeutic, while it was anxiety inducing living near campus. I became more engaged in the local community, by volunteering at schools and taking up more positions of education on campus to normalize my presence. This included leading workshops for mainly new students, where I always made it a point to describe my experience so people would be aware of the someone their cohort could be experiencing. I went to the festivals the city held, deeply engaged with its café culture and tried the many new things it had to offer with my friends.

 Finding Belonging Elsewhere:

This was enough to get through four years of university, but I knew there was no way I was staying here for post-graduate studies. I had good grades and connections with professors but I craved belonging, and I did not find it in Quebec or my university the way I knew people who had elsewhere. As I left, I noticed things were beginning to change, as there were more hijabis on campus and some organizations were discussing alternatives to drinking events. Nonetheless, I wanted to go somewhere where I could be myself, and not people’s perception of me.  Despite the university’s great reputation, I knew I could not work freely in Quebec as I want to be a lawyer. I saw no point staying in a province that did not want me. For some time I wanted to stay exactly for that reason, and help minorities like myself— after four years, I had no energy left in me to battle the multiple barriers I faced while trying to get an education. There was no university worth sacrificing my mental and physical well-being for. I hence chose a university for my master’s in the heart of downtown Toronto, whose diversity I was certain about.

My own struggles to find belonging made me reflect on the profound significance of representation, especially in educational spaces. As I grappled with my own quest for a sense of belonging, it compelled me to ponder the profound significance of representation. Now, as an increasing number of educators also contemplate the weight of representation,  I worry for the future of other children, teenagers, and youth from my communities who will never see representation in authority figures in their classroom because of Bill 21.

Cultural theorist Stuart Hall (2005: 18-20) defines representation as the ability to depict or imagine. Hall’s insight emphasizes the significance of representation because culture is fundamentally shaped by meaning and language. In schools, representation holds the power to not only inspire students’ motivation to learn but also to foster a sense of belonging and safety within them (TATP Teaching Toolkit). Representation also proves pivotal in tailoring personalized instruction based on a teacher’s understanding of students’ challenges outside of school, an advantage seen when teachers share the same social positionality as their students.Ultimately, children’s visions of their future are deeply influenced by their daily surroundings. In classrooms where students can see educators who resemble them and share similar backgrounds, they gain the ability to envision their own possibilities. This, in turn, can significantly enhance their educational outcomes as well as their own personal growth. 

However, a lack of representation, particularly in positions of authority or among individuals from diverse backgrounds, transforms authority into a passive process—one that occurs to individuals rather than with them (source: American University). Numerous studies emphasize the adverse effects of a lack of representation in positions of authority, whether within classrooms or the legal justice system. These consequences include feelings of alienation, reduced motivation, and isolation (sources: Justice Canada, Mount Royal University, Doughty Street Chambers, Diverse Education). 

Works Cited:

Afshar, H. (2008). Can I see your hair? choice, agency and attitudes: The dilemma of faith 

and feminism for Muslim women who cover. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(2), 411–427. 

Chavous, T. M. (2000). The relationships among racial identity, perceived ethnic fit, and 

organizational  involvement for African American students at a predominantly white university. Journal of Black Psychology, 26(1), 79–100.

Ellison, R. (1995). Invisible man. Vintage International. 

Jackson, A., Colson-Fearon, B., & Versey, H. S. (2022). Managing intersectional invisibility and 

hypervisibility during the transition to college among first-generation women of color. 

Psychology of Women Quarterly, 46(3), 354–371. 

Strayhorn, T. L., Hurtado, S., & Harris, Q. (2012). College students’ sense of belonging: A key to 

educational success for all students (1st ed.). Routledge.

https://fotografiaeteoria.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/the_work_of_representation__stuart_hall.pdf Hall

The post Being Invisible While Being Hyper-visible in Quebec: The Experience of a Hijabi Student first appeared on CASSA.