leaving the nest by safa

leaving the nest by safa - November 2016 Scholarship Essay

Community ties entail not only the relationships within the group, but the perspectives held by those looking in from the outside. My journey towards finding my community began at the age of nine when I arrived in the United States from Syria as a refugee. I was thrown into a society that was petrified of people that looked like me. My hijab turned the heads of many and the tongues of my culture raised red flags to most. The outside backlash pushed me to seek refuge from within and I sought to defy the odds against me. I branched my thinking, I lived as my religion preached, I pushed to break the bounds of stereotypes. I am a feminist Muslim Arab-American woman. I cherish the place in which I came and hold pride in the perspective I have. I’m an advocate for Black Lives Matter and support gay marriage. How is that for stereotypes?
Living in Dearborn, Michigan, we are isolated. We allow the media to make false assumption about what it really means to be Muslim. Most Westerners are not aware that they are being brainwashed. Rhetoric like "Arabs love dictators" and "Obama is a Muslim” instigate a belief that being Arab or a Muslim disqualifies one from humanity. Those who control the media control the mental attitudes of the population. The chains of bias and discrimination must be broken and rebound by knowledge and understanding. At the root of this knowledge and understanding is an open-mind. I take an active role in dismantling these bounds and push for others to do the same. If you only have love for your race, then you leave room for others to discriminate.
Going to college and getting a higher education is one thing. But going Away to college and living on campus in a dorm, meeting new people from all over the country and world, experiencing a new city or new state, now That is what the college experience is really all about and That is an unmatched education in life that beats anything you'll learn in the classroom.
It is said: "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." Living away from home as a lowly 17- or 18-year-old gives the chance to really learn about oneself without being influenced by the comforts that have always been around.