How Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008)

Yasmin is a brave and audacious young woman of Egyptian and Filipino descent who is also a devout, hijab-wearing Muslim. The chapter opens on a scene where, while riding the bus, Yasmin observes a white couple’s anxiety toward a fellow hijab-wearing Muslim woman. The couple—paranoid about terrorist activity after 9/11—insists that the hijab-wearing woman is holding a bomb under her blanket. The woman then lifts her blanket to reveal that she is holding a baby. 

In high school, Yasmin confronts similar anti-Islamic prejudice in her pursuit of a role in student government. After Yasmin is elected to serve as the school secretary, school administrators tell her that her duties include attending all school dances. When Yasmin tells them that attending the dances is against her religion, the school informs her that she must step down from her position. 

Yasmin then goes through a long process of fighting against the school’s discrimination. This process includes detailed research, documentation of her interactions with school administrators (including their inconsistent enforcement of policies relating to students’ religion), and repeated campaigning—and successful election—to increasingly high-level positions in student government. Eventually, in her fight for representation, Yasmin discovers a pro-bono lawyer who takes (and ultimately wins) her case.