SIPA Alumna pens open letter to her students COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

SIPA Alumna pens open letter to her students COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog SIPA alumna  Zaina Arafat, MIA 09, shares an op-ed on Vice.com, What I Should Have Said to My Students as Their Muslim American Teacher. Here are the first two paragraphs: You dont look Muslim. You hardly even look Arab. You pass for nearly everything and anything else. People ask if youre Italian or Spanish or Greek. Israeli. Sometimes Mexican, occasionally Argentine. For four years, you taught a class in the Midwest, in a swing state. You loved and respected your students, and they loved and respected youâ€"they worked hard for you and for one another, they valued your feedback, they hugged you before Thanksgiving and Christmas, they came to you after breakups and family deaths and roommate quarrels. On the third to last class each semesterâ€"far enough in so they couldnt drop, but still two classes away from course evaluationsâ€"youd tell them that youre Muslim. Many of them were surprised. You dont look Muslim. What does a Muslim look like? youd ask. They werent exactly sure, theyd say, but not like you. Theyd admit that when they first saw your name in the course directory, they werent sure what to expect. They thought youd have an indecipherable accent (they imply that theyre happy you dont). They thought youd be wearing a headscarf. Youd smile, youd laugh a little. You wouldnt mention that while you may not look like a Muslim, you are one. Y ou carry your Quran from city to city, for years you fasted during Ramadan, you love your religion, youre heartbroken over the way its been hijacked by extremists. You travel to predominately Muslim countries once or twice a year to see your family. You wouldnt mention these things. Instead youd ask if they had ever met another Muslim. We had one in our town, an earnest, young, male student offered. Read the rest of Arafats powerful letter  on Vice.com. [Photo by Hernán Piñera/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)]