00:00You know when people are like, do Muslim women like have hair on their hair?
00:05I'm like, no, you don't.
00:08Plot twist, look at them are secret.
00:09There's actually no hair.
00:11Oh my god.
00:17I don't know how I'm going to start this.
00:19I just wanted to come on here and speak because I felt like I had to.
00:22Let me just address, yes, my head is covered.
00:24I am Muslim if you guys didn't know that, but my channel is for everyone.
00:28We're in for a ride and we just have to stay strong.
00:33Bye guys.
00:39I feel like people just refuse to believe that I'm a normal girl.
00:44I started wearing the hijab almost two years ago and I was going through a lot.
00:48I was really confused at the time and I really turned to my religion.
00:53Before I started wearing the hijab, I was actually a natural hair blogger.
00:57Even prior to wearing the hijab, I was always a bit hesitant because I knew a lot of my followers
01:03weren't Muslim.
01:04And now I'm like, it's like a part of me, so why would I hide that?
01:09Today I just want to share how I maneuver as a black Muslim woman in Los Angeles.
01:15I'm going to meet with my good friend Neelam and we're going to chat about our shared experiences being Muslim
01:21women and we're going to do it over a manicure.
01:26These ones are halal. Halal means that it's breathable and it's vegan.
01:29I'm going to do white.
01:30Okay.
01:31Let's go before I change my line.
01:32Cheers.
01:33Cheers.
01:36So how are you living in LA?
01:38I am obsessed with LA.
01:40I feel like I turned into a Cali girl so fast.
01:43I mean, it's obviously different from Minnesota.
01:45Like I came here and it was such a culture shock.
01:48Speaking of Minnesota, like I was just there.
01:50You were just there, yeah.
01:51And one of the number one things that was shocking to me is to go any place and see a
01:56hijabi, a group of hijabis.
01:58And I was just like, whoa, like coming from LA, you don't see that.
02:02So I understand the culture shock.
02:05Like, I don't know if I ever told you this story, but I was sitting at Earth Cafe with a
02:09couple of my friends and we were, it was like we were caged animals.
02:14It was the wildest thing ever.
02:16Like we were just sitting, you know, enjoying my avocado toast like always.
02:19And like this girl is staring at me from one side and then I see this other girl staring.
02:24I see firefighters in uniform just completely staring at us.
02:29You know, I just recently started wearing the hijab just only what, like a year ago?
02:33Like the transition to like, okay, I'm going into modest fashion and wearing my hijab.
02:39You know, I feel like it's been positive.
02:41LA is like a melting pot of people from everywhere.
02:43I feel like they're really open out here.
02:47Um, so it's not like I haven't really gotten any like backlash, but I have, you know, seen the stairs.
02:52Yeah, it's not like hate.
02:53It's not hate. There's no hate.
02:55I don't, thank God I haven't experienced that like pure Islam phobia and just like pure hatred or anything like
03:03that.
03:03Nothing like that.
03:04I remember being in this restaurant and this guy like brought me my food and he was like, Bismillah.
03:09And then after he was like, Alhamdulillah.
03:11And I was just like, that's cute that you like just, you know, like went out of your way to
03:15just like, oh, no, no, I love it.
03:18It's nice that you like went out of your way to be like, hey, like I see you and I
03:20respect you and I appreciate it.
03:22And it was the sweetest thing ever.
03:24Now that I have my head on manicure, I thought it could be fun to chat about the art of
03:29hinna.
03:30Nadia is a makeup and hinna artist.
03:33We're going to chat about Muslim women as well as getting my hinna done.
03:38I love hinna so much. I've always, I've always really, really loved it. And I've always been so proud of
03:44it.
03:44All right.
03:45So do you like examine people's hands before you start?
03:49I do, I do.
03:49I have to like, I have to figure out what's the best way to make your hand look attractive.
03:53So I think we're, with your hand, we're going to concentrate on the majority of the design traveling from this
03:59end down your index finger and like basically covering this part and giving you some like drapes down here.
04:05So right now we're doing black hinna because I know for me, it's culturally what Sudanese people do.
04:11The color of this hinna is black because it's mixed with jagua. Jagua on its own will color, like the
04:18stain looks like a tattoo.
04:19For a lot of Indians and Pakistanis, there is a, um, there's a thing that a bride has to hide
04:27her groom's name in her hinna.
04:30Back in the day, brides didn't know their grooms. And so like here you're married to a stranger and it's
04:37your wedding night.
04:37So as an icebreaker, he has to find his name in your hinna. But what brides are doing nowadays is
04:43they're not hiding the name.
04:44They're making it like very prominent.
04:47Henna has cooling agents in it. In Africa, henna is not used as much for decoration purposes.
04:53You know, women tend to do it on their bellies too when they're pregnant because it helps cool their bodies.
04:58I love that.
04:59I think I'm done.
05:01I love it. Thank you so much.
05:02You're welcome.
05:03I really appreciate it.
05:04It felt really wonderful to get my hinna done. And I love the design. But now it's time to talk
05:09about something really dear to my heart. The hijab.
05:11I think a lot of the stigma surrounding the hijab stems from a lack of understanding about Islam.
05:19I'm headed over to see my friend Maria who runs a hijab company.
05:26It's so cool to me how there's so many different ways to wear the hijab. How does your family typically
05:30wear it?
05:30Well, what's interesting is because you know my mom is Mexican.
05:32Yeah.
05:33And she's a convert to Islam born and raised in America.
05:36So she never had like a culture that practices the concept of hijab.
05:40She would wear like the one pieces.
05:42And so when I became ready to wear the hijab, I could not relate to that.
05:46So what my mom told me to do, she inspired me, she said, let's go to Joann's, get fabric, and
05:51sew your own scarves.
05:52It's hard when people only talk about the negative aspects of it because of course, like, because of course, like
05:59that comes with it inevitably.
06:01But like, they focus so much on that.
06:03So when you think about like the future, do you get nervous at all?
06:06I'm nervous but I'm more optimistic and more excited than anything.
06:10That my fear, I'll be honest with you, stems from the fact that I'm, you know, Mexican, Arab, Muslim.
06:15No.
06:15I was in liberal Santa Monica.
06:17Yeah.
06:17Sitting outside of a very well-known cafe reading a book.
06:20And a guy comes over, passes by me, and just stops in his place and goes, how could you let
06:25her sit here?
06:26Does anybody see this?
06:27Nobody go over there.
06:28Don't you see that there's a dumb Arab bitch?
06:30I literally said a prayer.
06:31And he threw the table that I was on towards me.
06:35Thankfully, it didn't hit me.
06:36But I'll be honest with you, like, aside from that being really scary, and he like kind of ran off
06:41after that,
06:41the scarier thing was that there were two elderly white women who were sitting next to me, and they didn't
06:47say anything.
06:48You know?
06:48But it was things like that that made me realize, like, this is 2018.
06:51I'm an educated, you know, self-sufficient working woman.
06:57Yeah.
06:57You know, I happen to be of mixed background and outwardly Muslim.
07:00But, like, why is this happening?
07:02You know what I'm saying?
07:03It should never happen.
07:04So that's why I say, like, I do have a bit of fear.
07:06And the fear kind of gets channeled into, like, an engine running for me to, like, make sure that the
07:13future is better for my children.
07:16I'm a first-generation American.
07:18So for me, it's really important that my kids are able to take the best of their Sudanese culture and
07:23the best of their American culture,
07:25and obviously have Islam, and they are able to shape their narrative and what it really truly means to be,
07:31you know, American Muslim.
07:34A lot of the Muslim women that we see in social media have to do with beauty and fashion, and
07:39I think that's great.
07:40That's a step.
07:41But there's also Muslim women who are doing other things that are so incredible that aren't getting the recognition.
07:46So when I think about the future, I want them to get the recognition as well, you know.
07:51And I think right now we're shaping it.
07:53There's so much representation.
07:55Yeah.
07:55But I'm just so excited.
07:57There's so much stigma and negativity surrounded around how people perceive the hijab because that's what's in the media.
08:05And you can't necessarily blame people for what they've been fed,
08:08but you can blame people for not wanting to understand.
08:15It's really sad to know that people might judge me because of my religion,
08:18and I think that comes from a lack of knowledge and a lack of empathy.
08:22But at the end of the day, I'm really proud of my religion, and I'm not afraid to show it.
08:27I am truly hopeful that if we make the effort to share our stories,
08:31we can break stereotypes and focus on living in a world where we can all belong.
08:36Thank you so much for watching.
08:38For more videos, click here.
08:40And to subscribe, click here.
Comments