Background

I am no stranger to being the one who stood out in most of my life - I was always the only one who looked like me in a classroom, a lot of people had trouble pronouncing and spelling my name growing up, and there were certain parts of my life that were much stricter for me than they were for my peers. There was always a clash of American culture and strict Muslim-South Asian culture in my life. I would go to gatherings at peoples houses who were in the Muslim community in our area, and have the pressure of always trying to look perfect and proper. In those settings, I always aimed to be quiet and sweet - I didn’t even make eye contact with any of the men. Then, at school, my interactions were so different - I interacted with the opposite sex, other girls were much louer and rowdier than me. My mom still had high standards for me and my brother though, and had a very “Tiger Mom” mentality.

Despite growing up with a Muslim and South Asian background, and partly being in a culture with strict gender roles as a result of that, my mom tried to instill ideas of feminism in me from a pretty young age. When it came to politics, she’s always been progressive, but would leave different political shows on with varying views, to see how I would react. We didn’t have the most traditional family, so she, along with my brother and I, had to traverse this strange area between a culture that is far more closed and restricted and a society where we needed to break those restrictions to survive. America post-9/11 also added on additional pressures.  Questions, confrontations, in school, work, and the grocery store.

As a result of this, I am no stranger to being around people who have vastly different views than me, and even people who view me as secondary or flawed in some way. I was “strange” no matter what group I was in. This is partly why I don’t feel the need to isolate myself within my political circle - if I’ve lived my life this long without doing it, why would I do it online?

I have been pro LGBTQ rights, and have been campaigning and advocating for their rights since I was in high school. . I was president of the LGBTQ-alliance in high school, I have always been interested in politics, and have a history of going to protests and rallies throughout high school and college for various movements.

In high school, I helped fill a petition that we mailed to the newly elected president on his first day of office, to encourage him to pass laws that were pro-LGBTQ rights. In college and beyond, I have participated in multiple non-profit organizations, as a volunteer, as well as an intern, that helped serve underprivileged communities.

I am interested in talking to people from all sorts of ideologies because I don’t think sequestering them does any good to the world. We’ve all been exposed to, and have grown up with people in our lives, who have incredibly distasteful views. But we don’t disown them just because of that. We have neighbors, family members, friends, who all are susceptible to flawed beliefs. I refuse to cut connections and isolate people just because of distasteful views, when I can have conversations with them instead.