Reflective Essay: Moving To Palestine

When she moved over to Palestine the first time, she said that was the hardest transition for her because she had never been there before and was not used to being surrounded by a whole community of people who were Arabic and shared the same beliefs and values. With this move, she felt like her role culturally was more implemented because she was around ten years old her parents were teaching her how to clean, cook, wash the laundry, pick up the house, and take care of the children. She felt like her parent’s values and rules were stricter than most Muslim American families because her parents were both born and raised in Palestine so they had more of the traditional values. For example, if she wanted to go play at a friend’s house as a kid, her dad had to know the other child’s father or her mother would go sit with the child’s mother while they played. While Raya was in Islamic school, she was able to learn more about the fundamentals of prayer, how words were pronounced, what she was supposed to say. In class, the girls sat on one side of the room while the boys were on the other. The same goes for lunch time. She was shocked when she moved to public school and realized that physical education was co-ed
She said that she was never not given an opportunity because of her faith, but she has received stares and nasty remarks said towards her. One thing that she said was the most stereotypical about her religion, is that everyone thinks that women have to wear the Hijab because it is what women do. She actually did not start wearing her Hijab until after high school when she made the choice to do so. Her reasoning behind why she wanted to wear a Hijab because she felt like she was going to gain more respect from people in her life because they would be looking at her to have a conversation, they would not be looking at her for her physical