Tanya Cushman Reviewer:"Presenter's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Is Now, if someone could say what the ideal American citizen looked like, hopefully most people would identify the things that one cannot physically see. They define them as someone involved in civic duties, aware of their rights and liberties, and pledging their allegiance for the United States. There is no physical face on the American citizen because our country was created, built, and has flourished on immigration from around the world as a place of refuge, opportunity, and a second chance. And second chances are very important. It's what brought my parents here, so my dad could take his medical schooling to the American Ivy League standard. It's only taken him up since then, and from there he and my mother raised three children in California. Three first-generation American Pakistani Muslim children. That is what my identity is labeled as to most people. Most boxes I have to check, most importantly, the government. Now, a lot of people in this room can go as far as to say, you've been through an identity crisis, or are currently going through one. It's a part of life, and in our generation, there's a much broader spectrum of all types of things to define our being with. Some people's identity crises can be altered by their surroundings, especially in younger generations. Well, what if you were a part of the most feared? and arguably the most hated population of your generation. And you had to alter your personality, nationalism, name pronunciation, your identity, in order to be safe and somewhat accepted to avoid possible hate crimes or unjust persecution. That is something that I have to face directly. As many of you probably guessed, most of this started for me after 9-11. My life changed for my family and I, because not only was my country attacked that day, but it wasn't really my country anymore. Even being a Muslim felt like I was less of an American. I was very young when my family started receiving harassment that was deeper than just pinpointing the common stereotype of a South Asian or a Muslim. It all stemmed from the word terrorist. This is where the alteration of my identity slowly began. It was as if this harassment was aimed at making us less Muslim and therefore more American, and if not, exiled. For example, I saw my mom change from a hijabi, a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, to a non-hijabi in one instance. She was ready to pick me up from school, and in the parking lot, a man yelled, Go home, terrorist! and flipped a lit cigarette at my mother in her car. It flew onto her flammable headscarf, which slowly started to light up until she jumped out of the car and threw her hijab off, right in front of me and all the other children and parents at the school. And everyone just stood there and stared at the victim of an immediate hate crime. It was an emotionally heavy time. A lot of people didn't know how to react because maybe some people felt justified, like that was a vigilante act defending their homeland, my homeland, by birth. Now because of this, despite my parents being religious Muslims, to this day my dad does not allow me or my sister to wear a hijab for our own safety. I like to call this an immigrant Muslim parent trend that obstructs a lot of first-generation social plows. Our parents don't think we're wrong. However, they'd feel more comfortable if we were quiet. See, they were born in countries outside the U.S. with different standards on speech, action, and religion. They saw brutal repercussions on those who spoke out, both back home and in the States. They're just happy to have been given the opportunities that they have in the United States. And most are semi-content with just not looking how... Not looking into how society perceives them and just living their lives. It's their own version of the American dream. In other words, mom and dad, I understand where you're coming from and I love you for it, but I'm still going to talk about racism. Yes, it's a scary topic to discuss for anyone of any color. I'm just trying to make it easier to talk about by making it easier to understand. Because if one doesn't understand racism, they may be a part of the problem. Now the older I got in American society, the more I tried to appease those around me. Why? Because I was in school and I desperately wanted friends. So in middle school to high school, whenever I'd walk down the halls, my friends would greet me by saying, Hey, Osama, or something of the like. And what did I do? I responded with, Hey guys, just me, the terrorist, right? I just thought it was a rite of passage for the Muslim American. I didn't know it was racist. Well, most of my friends... didn't consider it racist. But the fact of the matter is, all of us are racist. If someone would think of the ideal American, hardly anyone would think of an Indian person, a Chinese woman, heaven forbid, a man of Arab descent. No one would think of these minorities mentioned unless they themselves were one of the minorities and were indeed an ideal American, if they had the guts to say so. However, my identity crisis didn't stop at just accepting racist jokes in high school. It went as far as to illegal activity. Not doing drugs or anything like that. like that, but prayer in school, which is by several statutes and constitutionally illegal, but it still happens. However, most Supreme Court cases dealing with prayer in school always have someone filing as, usually have someone filing as John Doe. Why? Because they're making themselves a social target by fighting against the norm, just like it's terrifying to talk about race when you're the minority for the fear of being accused of reverse racism. It's a circular argument. I sat through so many Christian prayers in school without suggesting the fact that it was unfair, but Allah forbid, when I would whisper a prayer to myself before a test, the looks I'd get and people scooting away was almost absolute every time. I couldn't be the Muslim Pakistani Mashal at my school. I had to adapt in order for my classmates to feel secure in a fear-heightened society. However, I also noticed adaption in my identity when I visited the country of Pakistan. Whenever I'd go to the... the beautiful motherland, I was treated like a celebrity. I would be dressed authentically in Pakistani attire, speaking Pashto and Urdu with my relatives and then talking in a West Side American accent to my cousins about adventures in the U.S. I had embraced every aspect of my being a first-generation American Pakistani to the fullest extent. With that being said, the minute I'd step into an airport, I was as American as an American can get. I even worked on mispronouncing the country of Pakistan by calling it Pakistan to try and avoid my nationalism and hide it as much as possible to avoid any unnecessary suspicion. See, that's where my parents weren't so lucky. Their accents made it way too obvious. But we dealt with it and we understood because we can't deny that this is the fate of our people today. I mean, to define them, media is... overall influence on our country's current fracture with us, we are the bad guys in spy movies today. But we, my family dealt with it when my parents had to go to the airport three hours earlier for extra questioning and searching. I dealt with it when my friends stopped hanging out with me because their parents felt insecure. We disregarded the abnormally suspicious looks in most public places. I was taught to abide completely even if something was blatantly unjust. so that my innocence was striking. Therefore, no one can falsely accuse me of something because of my ethnicity or religion. That was until I got older, irritable, I fell in love with political and social sciences, and realized that your country is also my country. We are a melting pot, what I consider the perfect adjective for the United States. I am just as American as you, and I'm very proud of it. But I'm also proudly Pashtun in ethnic communities. from the northwestern province of Pakistan. I'm a member of one of the largest religions in the world, and most importantly, I am not a terrorist, nor do I condone anything close to that. I identify as all these things regardless of the repercussions. I wasn't going to let my cultural identification be altered by any more safety concerns surrounded by racism. Now, it's no question that one's cultural identification is affected by presupposed stereotypes and or... or racism. How do I know this? Because 99% of the time, I'm culturally ambiguous. I can pass for a lot of things. So to illustrate this covert test that I had, I like to attend several discussions that my university has to offer. Now surprisingly, whenever I voice my opinion and there's a discussion afterward amongst participants, I realize from the feedback that context of my opinion changes based on what the person thinks my ethnicity is. So for those who thought I was Hispanic, I'm not. When I was on a women's equality panel for women of color, those who thought I was Spanish guessed that my platform was based on Hispanic women's equal pay. Those who guessed that I was Arab thought that my platform was based on social equality in Arab countries. If I was Indian, my platform was based on rape in my supposed homeland. Now, there's also the less educated feedback from those who incite what I am as a result of my opinion. So, for example, For example, someone who listened to my radio shows and watched my panels Say, so what, are you some kind of refugee now? I'm not kidding, I've gotten that before. Or, when I broadcast my two-part show about Islamophobia, someone congratulated me, but then went on to say, but come on, is Islamophobia a real thing? Or is it just one of those made-up concepts? Or even, wow, for someone who is Muslim and female to do what you do, I would be surprised if your parents haven't already disowned you. I really wish I was making all of this up. But after these harsh realizations, I still kept in mind who I was through my mixed culture, interests, and experiences. I was doing well with that until last winter break when I took a flight from L.A. to Salt Lake. The day I was almost kicked off a flight for reasons that still haven't been fully explained. When I was asked to leave the flight for possible suspicions of my physical features or my name or something unknown, I didn't defend myself like I thought I would. When I did ask why, the flight attendants aggressively said, Ma'am, please stop arguing, grab your things and leave, right before takeoff. I was so shocked that I just abided and proceeded to grab my things without saying a word. And it was at that moment... When I was rushing to grab my things, looking at my siblings with stunned looks on their faces, begging my sister not to argue and create a scene, walking down the narrow runway with all these people sitting and whispering and staring at me, the flight attendants at the end of the walkway with angry looks on their faces, right before takeoff, that I felt as if my American citizenship and humanity had been temporarily stripped from me. It was like the ultimate walk of shame. I felt like a true threat despite having nothing on my conscience to feel guilty for. It was apparently my own blood that had made me guilty. Now eventually the pilot overlooked the situation and allowed me to stay on the flight and without asking what had happened to create the scene, I went back to my seat silently and we took off. Now who was I then? Was it my parents'fault? My Arabic name? My Pashtun heritage? Was I raised, born and raised, for 20 years in the United States of America for this? Now the answer is simple. I was still me, the American Pakistani Muslim Mashal. That is, after I'd been reinstated, that humanity isn't dead. Because after my story had spread, the response was so much stronger than I would have ever imagined. It was not only people of color, but white Americans who were standing by my side. Screaming about the small inch of injustice that I had a glimpse of. Yelling amendments of the Constitution that can defend me. It was my university respecting my opinion along with my heritage. It's my beautiful hometown of San Francisco. It's my pride and my friends who chose the military to fight for their country. It's the instinctive tears developing in my eyes whenever I hear the national anthem. And it's my love for the beautiful country of Pakistan. Yes, I have a mixed identity that makes certain things inconvenient, but it also makes life very interesting. But what I'm working to make aware is that racism doesn't just stop at abridging someone's rights because of their race. The hate and ignorance has deeper, longer-lasting effects, where one either builds tolerance towards it, like my parents, or one realizes that as an American, and as humans in general, we don't need to tolerate it. Because we're all equals under natural law, like myself. Like famous TED speaker Bryan Stevenson once said, quote, there is power in identity, close quote. Citizenship aside, we are not defined by one thing. We are not completely defined by our profession, by our sexuality, by our ethnicity, by our disability. We are collectively defined. But most importantly, We are defined by our influence, by our actions, and by our words. So use them wisely. Thank you.