Life Experience

July 27, 2011

by Denise Peralta

When I was in my English and history class during my sophomore year, I was introduced to the religion Islam. It was the beginning of the second semester, which was not exciting at least not until I walked into my 5th period, it being my history class. That day my teacher, Ms. Orr had not been present and left our sub with a movie to show. The movie’s name was “My Name is Khan”.  It was about a Muslim man by the name of Rizwan Khan who suffered from Asperger’s syndrome. When Khan was a child he had been under the care of his loving aunt, that with time sadly passed away and Khan was sent to go live with his younger brother in San Francisco. There Khan met Mandira, a beautiful Hindu single mother, which later he married. When the incident of 9/11 happened all Muslims were discriminated, their shops were closed, and some were destroyed. Khan and Mandira suffered a lot because of this horrid turn out and he found himself on a quest to talk to the president of the United States, where he encountered horrible things as well as pleasant throughout his journey.

All it took was for the sub to show that movie and I was eager to learn all there was behind the discrimination towards Muslims. The next day in English class we were given the assignment to read a book called Persepolis, which took place during the Islamic Revolution. I learned many things from the initiation of the veil to why they did not like communists. Then on July 15, 2011 I really got to experience a day at a mosque in South Central Los Angeles with my team Pink Ladies in GlobalGirl Media and got the chance to meet an Imam. He was one of my teammates’, Yasmeen, grandfather. I also got the chance to interview a man that wrote a book which he considered his ‘masterpiece’ as well as these two teenage girls who gave me an insight on what they do in the mosque and how they are happy with their religion.

When it was time to interview Yasmeen’s grandfather I was very nervous and feared that I might say or ask something wrong. Sadly I did end up messing up with the pronunciation of Imam but luckily he was very nice about it.  I learned that he was not born a Muslim, which was interesting to me because ever since I saw the movie “My Name is Khan” I wondered why people changed their religion. I am grateful that G.G.M gave my teammates and I the opportunity to do this project where we also learned a few phrases in Arabic and even got treated as if we were one of them which was awesome!