It began with a feeling of isolation. A feeling of not fitting in, of being an outsider. I was different, and different wasn’t always accepted.

Coming to America as a Brit, I expected people to fawn over my accent and obsessively ask me questions like I was their field of study. But when I arrived at Columbia in the largest city in America, I was met with a huge culture shock. Left and right, I began to see people forming their designated cliques and completely ignoring me. I had never felt this way before. I was becoming trivial. I was becoming unimportant. I was being ignored.

This was a completely new experience to me. Back in London, I flourished. I was a bright student, had many friends, and got along with everyone. I was the football star. I had confidence in everything I did. I had never second-guessed anything until now.

Arriving in America has been like a slap across the face to me. Reality set in and fear enveloped me. It occurred to me that here, I may not be the smartest student, I may not be the best at football, or soccer, as they call the sport here. But most frightening of all, I may not socially thrive as much as I thought I would.
America is supposed to be the land of the free and accepting. I used to dream of coming to this country and creating a picture perfect life. I soon realized dreams are much harder to achieve than I had originally thought. The recent shootings in Denver have put the United States even more on edge. It has poisoned even more people’s minds with the notion that Muslims are evil. In many minds, the word Muslim has become synonymous with bad. In addition, the Syrian refugees entering the country are further instigating fear of foreigners in the citizens. Being a Muslim and a foreigner, I most certainly did not have an upper hand coming to America.

Though I do not consider myself extremely religious, I do feel a connection with Islam and therefore I do pray on auspicious days. In the very beginning of my college career, not long after I had landed in New York, one so auspicious day arrived. It was the first day of Haji, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Since both of my parents had already completed the journey, I decided to pray for whenever my time came. I had located a small mosque not far from campus and planned to go early in the morning. After all, it was only the second day of school.

I do not wear a hijab on a daily basis, but I make a point to wear one whenever I visit a mosque. It makes me feel further linked with my religion. I found out wearing a hijab in New York City did not go unnoticed. As I was leaving the mosque after finishing my prayer, I passed two white boys. They were the types of people I expected to see at an Ivy League school. Average grades, rich parents who are alumni that just so happen to be on the board at the school, never worked a day in their life kind of people. I had expected that. What I didn’t expect was for them for address me.

“Oh look, there goes the Taliban,” one of them drunkenly slurred as I walked past.

“No, no,” the other said, “She’s ISIS’s wife.”

The two boys broke out into endless laughter. Being the realistic person I am, I assumed I would get dirty and questionable looks just because of the color of my skin. But I did not anticipate blunt remarks spat in my face. It felt as if a sword had cut though my skin and impaled me so deeply that any dreams that were holding on were cut loose.

I became isolated from the rest of my classmates because of the damaging stigma against my religion. Not in a very noticeable way, but in a subtle manner that seemed to show the uneasiness and anxiousness one felt when around me. I became an outlier solely because of the God I pray to. What I didn’t know was that this was only one aspect of the combination that would ultimately push me over the edge.