To Hijab or not Hijab

So I have a precious interview tomorrow morning.  Precious because they are a rare thing these days, yet they are the biggest necessity in order to get a job to pay the bills.  Only the second one that I have had since I was laid off in April 2009.  So the biggest question that I am facing is not what outfit I should wear or how to do my hair, but whether I should wear the hijab or not.

Ramadan is ending this week and I have made a conserted effort to wear the hijab, to get used to wearing it on a regular basis.  But the political environment has been getting truely horrific for the Islamic brothern here in the States.  It is being exsaserbated by the renovation of the Mosjid near the World Trade Center.

Yes, this was one of the major reasons that I started this blog.  By the same token, it is a very difficult subject with many facets that have to be examined and polished for clarity on the subject.  Way too many to start looking at them now.  But I want to look more at the effects of what is happening with this situation.

One major effect is the amount of stares I have been getting for wearing the Hijab.  I get stares anyway -- well you would to if you saw a very fair, blonde hair, & blue eyed woman wearing a hijab too.  I even get stares when I go into the Mosjid.  But the stares have been increasing and getting more astringent of late.

Not only from the white Anglo-Saxon descendants, but also from the Persian and other people from Muslim majority countries.  In the past, the white people have been more rude about it.  Imagine eating dinner with your niece, who is sitting across from you, in a restaurant having a really good time laughing until your crying and generally having a blast.  Only to have the family that sat down behind your niece and stare at you.  And I'm not talking the occasional glance from the child, I'm talking the uncomfortable hard stare that you feel into your soul from the father of the family.  I'm talking seeing him always looking at you when you're looking at your niece, and every time you happen to glance over.  To me, it was beyond rude, and it really put a damper on the evening for me.

But it hasn't gotten any easier.

The overt showing of displeasure of the Mosjid being near ground zero has put the Islamic world back under attack.  Like I said, I will go into this further at a later time, but one of the major things is that the Mosjid has already been there for years.  They just want to remodel or gentrify the building and make it more useful.  They needed the proper permits to do this, and they applied accordingly.  It's just someone who dislikes the Islamic world that put the permit request out there and twisted it.

This dislike has quickly and readily spread to other states and Mosjid.  The one under construction in Tennessee is a very good example.  Someone torched it.  It is now an arson case, and has garnered national attention.  More locally, the Mosjid near San Jose has gotten attention and backlash for wanting to build a minaret on one corner.  The opposition was disguised by trying to put it under the "arcitecture doesn't fit with the neighborhood" school of thought.  The appeal of the approved permit was denied.

But all this goes internal with me.  I feel the stares stronger and I am used to them because of the cane that I walk with.  I feel the stares because of my hijab.

So tomorrow, I have my precious interview.  Despite my attempts to be more Muslim, I will not wear my hijab.  I only have myself to rely on to pay my bills, and unemployment will be ending soon.  If I can give them less of reason not to hire me, the better.  Allah forgive me, but I need to do what I can to become employed.