February 1st marks the 11th annual celebration of World Hijab Day created by Nazma Khan in 2013. Khan wanted to encourage people to learn about the purpose and importance of wearing a hijab.
“I want to tell people who don’t know about hijabs and who were not born in the same culture as us more about them. They can just come up to me and ask, I’ll always explain. I want to do this so girls like me can go through less problems facing racism like what happened to me,” Olentangy Liberty student Zain Aldamen said.
Most people are not knowledgeable about hijabs and have many misconceptions about why people wear them and the culture behind it. World Hijab Day is meant to spread awareness about these misconceptions to teach people the true meaning behind it.
“Some people think my hijab is glued to my head, like I was born with it. They also think that I was born bald and I’m going to be bald for the rest of my life, but I do have hair, you can see a bit of it. People think we wear it 24/7 and we sleep with it, shower with it, do everything with it, which isn’t true. Every girl can see my hair, it just always comes to be a bit difficult around the boys because boys that are not related to me cannot see my hair and neither can kids over the age of puberty,” said Aldamen.
Without the proper education, stereotypes and racism can spread. Celebrating World Hijab Day is the first step in informing people about hijab culture.
“This is the first American school that I’ve ever been to, I moved from Jordan around three years ago. My first day I got on the bus, out of nowhere someone screamed 9/11. The moment I heard that I left the bus and went inside, I decided I’m not going on the bus anymore. For the whole first semester I didn’t go on the bus at all because of what happened, but the teachers and assistant principals all helped me a lot,” Aldamen said.
By learning about other people’s cultures, acceptance and respect can form. This can help to diminish the discrimination people face.
“The moment my history teacher said 9/11 the majority of the students in the class all looked at me and I was like why did you look at me? Why do you need to connect every Muslim and every person who’s wearing something different to 9/11?” Aldamen said.
