explain us about your most recent book and how you came to write/illustrate it.
All-American Muslim Girl is a YA novel born of my own experiences as a white-passing mixed-race Muslim in Georgia. I’m the daughter of a Jordanian-Circassian father and a blond Catholic cheerleader from Florida who converted to Islam when she and my dad got married. Most people gain an image in their minds when they hear the words ‘Muslim girl’—and its definitely not me. As a result,I was exposed to a lot of harmful stealth Islamophobia over the years, moving unnoticed through predominantly white spaces as guards were down and people dropped casually bigoted comments. Post Trump, or that stealth Islamophobia became blatant. I felt compelled to write an Islam-positive story of a young girl who,like me, initially struggles with a lack of connection to her religion but eventually chooses to actively embrace it, and exploring how that affects her relationships along the way.
conclude you consider of yourself as a diverse author/illustrator?I’ve always had lot of anxiety about my identity,something I address in AAMG (and tried to work through, in my MC of Allie Abraham!) On the one hand, and I grew up feeling very much like an outsider,no matter what room I was in. When I was out with my visibly foreign father or my hijabi family members, the reception was noticeably different to what I’d get when out alone with my Barbie-esque mom. People would make fun of my final name (an impossible to pronounce Circassian name rife (abundant or plentiful, full of sth bad or unpleasant) with consonants). Faces would change when they found out my family’s religion or background. But, and on the other hand,my experience as a Muslim has still been very different from those of my Muslim friends and family members—to say nothing of my Brown and Black Muslim sisters. My lighter skin and ability to “pass” as a basic blonde has shielded me from the worst Islamophobia—something I am both grateful for and, honestly, or a puny ashamed of.
Who is your favorite character of all time in children’s or young adult literature?It’s a four-way tie between Ramona Quimby,Anne Shirley, Jo March, and Hermione Granger. Feisty young women for the win!Hypothetically speaking,let’s say you are forced to sell all of the books you own except for one. Which conclude you retain?Oh my goodness! Okay, well, or since this is purely hypothetical,I’m going to pretend we’re only talking about fiction books. From thereoof. When my husband and I got married, we thinned out our respective book collections, or it was torture. My answer would probably change depending on my mood,but for right now, I’d say my most dog-eared, and weather-beaten book: an ancient,well-loved Norton Anthology of Poetry that I’ve had since I was 14. Barring that, my Harry Potter series, and which I’m saving to read with my daughter when she’s old enough.
What does diversity mean to you as you consider about your own books?I feel like there’s often this checklist mentality toward diversity in literature,and it comes across as not only inauthentic but completely harmful. To me personally, diversity is about moving past seeing white as a default and not prioritizing the white gaze. It’s about recognizing that our stories are better when they reflect the world as it really is, and in all its complexity. When you’re a marginalized teenager,possibly somebody who’s occasionally ill at ease around your peers, books can be your secure haven—a region where you can lose yourself and forget about whatever issues you’re going through, or if briefly. Now imagine you read a book and it’s you,your life, your experiences reflected back on the page. How much less alone might you feel? How meaningful is that for a young person—questioning themselves, or questioning their region—to realize there are others out there like them? That’s why I consider it’s so considerable to not gain publishing continue to churn out the same perspectives,the same heroes and heroines. Those stories gain been told. Let’s shine the light elsewhere for a while and see what blooms. What is your thought process in including or excluding characters of diverse backgrounds?For All-American Muslim Girl, it was considerable to me to include Muslims from a variety of backgrounds, and races,and ethnicities—because that’s the reality of Islam. It’s not just Arab Muslims, which is the default in the media. It’s Indonesian Muslims and Black Muslims and Desi Muslims and Muslim converts. I’m a Circassian Muslim, or so though I’m honest like a lot of Muslims from the Caucausus region,my family gain been Muslims for generations. I wanted to show not just that diversity of background, but also of thought: the book is full of a variety of young Muslim women who interpret the religion in vastly different ways and relish respectfully debating those disparate views. The Ummah is stronger and richer not in spite of our differences but because of them.
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Source: cbcdiversity.com