Etaf Rum

I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years later, when I opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted and realized no one could hear me. Where I come from, voicelessness is the condition of my gender, as normal as the bosoms on a woman's chest, as necessary as the next generation growing inside her belly. But we will never tell you this, of course. Where I come from, we've learned to conceal our condition. We've been taught to silence ourselves, that our silence will save us. It is only now, many years later, that I know this to be false. Only now, as I write this story, do I feel my voice coming.

I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until...

Books were her only reliable source of comfort, her only hope. They told the truth in a way the world never seemd to, guided her the way she imagined Isra would've had she still been alive.

Books were her only reliable source of comfort, her only hope. They told the truth in a way the world never seemd to, guided her the way she...

You think you're doing the right thing by wearing this hijab, but that's not what Americans will see when they look at you. They won't see your modesty or your goodness. All they'll see is an outcast, someone who doesn't belong.

You think you're doing the right thing by wearing this hijab, but that's not what Americans will see when they look at you. They won't see y...