Young Muslims caught between two worlds

[PsychoDad]

Young Muslims caught between two worlds
Fellow Americans' ideas about their faith often based on misperceptions

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/236605_youngmuslims15.html

By CHRISTINA ASAVAREUNGCHAI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

High school, with its pressures to fit in and be cool, can be brutal for anyone.

But try wearing a Muslim head scarf, and you'll really see who your friends are.

"Nothing had changed, except I just had this piece of cloth on my head," says Zakiya Qadir, now a 19-year-old student at the University of Washington. "When some people saw that, the friendship ended right then."
....

People have stopped Qadir to ask if she's sheltered and if her father forces her to wear the scarf. Once, a man told her that Saddam Hussein has been caught, so "you're free now."

"I'm like, 'I choose to do this,' " Qadir said.

"People have these glaring misconceptions, these falsehoods, these lies, that are magnified and reflected on the entire Muslim population," said Hanady Kader, 20, president of the UW's Arab Students Organization.