How one woman used fashion to reclaim her Muslim-American identity

I idolized Chad Muska as a 13-year-old.
I wore the whole getup, you know, with my skater pants and my skater sweaters.
I dropped into my first half pipe at 14, it was the most remarkable day of my life
and I was like, "Yo, look guys, I dropped in!
I’m a vert skater now!"
Other people describe me as fearless, curious, energetic, probably against the grain.
I grew up in a very "girl power" type of family where my parents had 6 children
and my father and mother had the same exact expectations for my sister and I
as they did my brothers.
(laughing)
While I was a very proud young Muslim-American woman,
I didn’t have role models to point to.
Princess Jasmine, from "Aladdin" by Disney, that might have been my only option.
The mainstream view is so misrepresentative of so many young Muslim-Americans across the nation.
They were generally represented in one way
instead of an amalgamation of many identities like myself.
I definitely consider myself an artist and a skater girl.
Somebody in tech, but also a faithful Muslim.
Not being willing or able to accept these stereotypes,
my friends and I decided to take our favorite parts of ourselves
and turn it into a music video.
To Jay Z's "Somewhere in America".
I called up my friends and said, "Hey Humna, you have a motorcycle,"
"bring it, let's get some footage."
"Hey Ibtihaj, you're a fencer for Team USA, let's shoot you fencing."
"You have dope style and you're an attorney, come and look really cool."
I happen to really like fashion, so I got really dressed up.
I like skateboards as well, so I threw that into the mix.
We had no idea that the video would get such a wide reception.
I get on my social media and I just have a zillion notifications.
The opinions ranged from "this doesn't represent me" to "this is awesome."
And we were kinda happy to see the whole "this doesn't represent me" piece,
we're like, "Yeah, nothing represents you right now which is why you have to take control
of our narrative and make something that represents you, 'cause this sure as hell represents me."
And the next thing I knew, I was in the pages of Glamour and Marie Claire, even GQ.
At some point, I had a French girl walk up to me and say, "You're the girl from the Mipsterz video,"
"you guys are a big deal in France" and I'm like, "That's cool!"
Mipsterz ended up turning into a huge community of young Muslim-Americans across the nation.
The most important things and the best things that I saw were
the tons of notes from young girls like,
"I used to be so self-conscious about my identity,"
"It's so awesome to know that we have role models that we can look to"
"and are a more accurate representation of who we are."
The most unexpected outcome of this video was probably this.
I actually, um, met my husband because he saw the video
and decided that he absolutely had to meet me.
By the third date he told me, "I'm gonna marry you."
My husband is definitely a Mipster, and we hope to have very Mipster babies one day.
I had no idea that those Wednesday afternoons in the skate park would be so critical
in shaping the Muslim-American narrative that my children will ultimately be raised in.

How one woman used fashion to reclaim her Muslim-American identity

Latest Posts