Hijab Butch Blues

Adult memoir 

     A few weeks ago I was having one of my potentially running out of books crises.  Although I much prefer the selection at Orono Public Library, my schedule and the bus schedule (still no Saturday runs) were making it temporarily a non option.  So I grabbed a few volumes from UMaine's Fogler.  The crisis never happened.  I returned half the volumes unread.  But I am very glad that I got my hands on Lamya H's memoir Hijab Butch Blues.  It's a real eye opener.  

     Lamya was born in South Asia.  When she was young, but old enough to have memories of her native land, her parents moved the family to a wealthy Middle Eastern country to get better opportunities for their children.  Only the move essentially isolated the children.  They were too dark skinned to be accepted by the much lighter pigmented natives.  They had no extended family in their new nation.  Lamya remembered the sense of belonging she felt in her native land with her grandmother next door and her cousins around the corner.

     In a poignant episode that I believe that most of us who have ever been kids will be able to relate to Lamya and her brother have made friends with a girl willing to share her pogo stick.  One day the girl's mother sees the children together and freaks out.  The next day the formerly friendly girl avoids Lamya and her brother.  The girl's brother tells them:

     "Because our mother told us not to [play with them], stupid.  It's because you're curry people.  You smell nasty and you sound nasty and you're dirty.  Stop making trouble for us.  If we play with you, we'll become like you."

     And then something happens when Lamya is fourteen.  She gets a crush on one of her teachers.  She yearns to be seen as special by this woman.  She feels new sensations in parts of her body.  She knows that her feelings are like those other girls have for boys.  But in her mind boys are stupid smelly beings who obnoxiously think they're better than girls and don't have to help out with household chores.

     Dealing with racism and reconciling her religion (Islam) and sexual orientatiown are challenges that continue to dog Lamya when she moves to America to have access to higher education.  But she is gradually able to find her tribe.  With honesty and vulnerability she takes readers along on her journey from childhood through college and graduate school and into her first professional years.

     In the narrative Lamya shares surahs from the Quran.  I think that's one of the aspects I found most enthralling.  I'd known that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity have the same roots.  But the stories she shares in this context are, except for slight name differences, the same ones from the Old Testament I learned in Sunday School.  Where we share so much of our origins, why are so many Christians intent on othering and demonizing Muslims?  I just can't understand.

On a purrrsonal note, it's the day after Clean Sweep clean up and I'm exhausted.  Only it isn't a physical tiredness.  I've done a lot more challenging things like 14 hour days keeping up with teenagers in a serious heat wave while lugging around a very symptomatic kidney stone without these burnt out feelings.  I think I feel overwhelmed by all that piled up during my spring semester through Clean Sweep marathon.  As in OH MY GAWD!!!  Where do I even start???  The house looks like it barely survived a category 5 hurricane.  But that's the easy part.  I also have to plan and organize my whole summer after my original plan totally fell through.  Well we have a long weekend coming up.  I can work on the cleaning part now and put the planning part off til next week.  (Jules)

We'll figure it out.  No doubt in my mind.  (Tobago)

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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