Mothership and The Birthday Collective are in collaboration to share a selection of essays from the 2017 edition of The Birthday Book.

The Birthday Book (which you can buy here) is a collection of essays about Singapore by 52 authors from various walks of life. These essays reflect on the narratives of their lives, that define them as well as Singapore's collective future.

"A Singaporean Malay Muslim mother living/leaving Trump’s America" is an essay contributed by Iva Aminuddin.

Iva has spent over 10 years in the leadership and development, and organization development space in the Singapore Public Service in various capacities. She is currently working at the Civil Service College.

Iva's essay is reproduced in full here:

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By Iva Aminuddin

I remember it like it was yesterday: the chills running down my back when two young boys in a San Francisco bus yelled to the bus driver, “Run her down!”

They were referring to a lady crossing the street, dressed in an all-black burqa. You could only see her eyes. I sat completely still: silent, relieved that there was nothing that would identify me, the girl sitting just a row behind them, as a Muslim.

That incident in 2005 would change me completely, except I didn’t realise at that point, by how much. It planted seeds of intense fear that would surface again and again.

In 2015, when I learned that I had been awarded a graduate scholarship, I was thrilled at the prospect of fulfilling a lifelong dream of studying in America.

But I was also instantly transported to that summer’s day. The fear that washed over me had an almost crippling effect.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but more than once, I secretly wished I hadn’t made the decision to start wearing the hijab just a few years earlier. I believed that moving to America would have been so much easier if my religious identity wasn’t so easily identifiable.

I lived in the U.S. during a time when Trump was elected as President

It’s been almost two years since my husband, twin boys and I moved to Evanston, Illinois. Looking back, it seems foolish for me to have thought myself paranoid.

Then, Donald Trump was merely a presidential candidate no one took seriously. Today, he has been elected as the 45th President of the United States and his hateful rhetoric has become policy.

Policy that has directly impacted me, even if I am not a Muslim from any of the seven countries whom he temporarily banned from entering the United States—even permanent residents and legal visa holders.

I will never forget how I struggled to contain my emotions when my then five-year old son asked me, after watching the news, why Muslims were not being allowed into America.

He asked, “President Trump doesn’t like Muslims?”

I couldn’t find any words—not just the right ones—to reply.

Experiencing fear, uncertainty, but also support

A fellow Singaporean Muslim mother living in New Haven advised me to talk to my children about what was going on. She said it was better that they learned about it from me than from other children at school.

I nodded in absolute agreement but never plucked up the courage to have that conversation.

I told myself it was because I believed that my five-year olds deserved an unburdened childhood. But the truth is, I didn’t know how to speak to them about it.

How could I, when I myself was struggling emotionally to come to terms with what was happening, and what it meant for our future?

But as loud as the calls to remove Muslims from American society have been in recent months, equally loud are the voices that support diversity and inclusion, that advocate love, not hate.

The upside of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and racism existing out in the open in the United States is that language and action that condemns the racism, bigotry and hatred can rise in support of minority and disadvantaged communities.

My family and I have had the privilege of experiencing first-hand what that support, often from strangers, feels like.

A fellow customer stepped in to defend my husband from verbal abuse at our local supermarket.

The day after the 2016 Presidential elections, our mosque received a bouquet of flowers and a message of assurance that the election of Donald Trump did not reflect how much the Muslim community was welcomed and appreciated in Evanston.

Several friends, almost all of whom participated in the Women’s March on Jan. 21, 2017, reached out to us at one point or another during our stay here, to personally affirm their friendship and voice their support for our family and our religious beliefs.

What would it be like if my children grew up in Trump's America?

As our stay in the U.S. comes to an end, I often wonder about the kind of childhood my children would have had if we chose to stay in the U.S.: perhaps a less innocent childhood, forced to confront the realities of growing up as Muslims in America.

But perhaps they might also grow to be more resilient, confident that they will always find others who are willing to strive alongside them for the freedom to live their lives and practise their religion.

Can they expect the same, if not more, growing up in Singapore?

Over the last few months, I’ve read several comments about race and religion on social media posts in Singapore that concerned me.

It led me to wonder whether there was growing anti-Islam/Muslim sentiments in Singapore, suppressed only by policies that have criminalised hate speech.

I wondered what people would actually say, if Singaporeans had the freedom of speech that Americans enjoy? Would the words online and offline be just as racist, xenophobic and hateful as some that have been expressed here in the U.S.?

Racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia is part of an everyday reality

Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were growing anti-Islamic sentiments brewing at home. After all, Singapore can hardly expect to isolate itself from the world and the rising anti-Islamic rhetoric seen in many countries today.

What worries me is not whether these sentiments are growing among Singaporeans, but my inability to gauge how quickly these sentiments are growing.

Have the same policies that protected us from hate speech also worked against us as Singaporeans?

Have they sheltered Muslims like myself from the realities of what being a Muslim really means today?

Have these policies inadvertently robbed us of the opportunity to learn how to dialogue about these issues, which we hold so close to our hearts, in a meaningful and constructive manner?

I believe that our experiences here in the U.S. would have all been for nothing if my family returned to Singapore, only to be lulled into a false sense of security that our safety and rights as Muslims are forever guaranteed.

Instead, I must remember that the laws that protect my children from hate-speech and hate-crimes in Singapore, are laws that cannot prevent racism, xenophobia or Islamophobia.

Whether we like it or not, elements of these are going to be part of our everyday reality, at least in this generation.

Still optimistic for my children's future

As a parent, regardless of whether I live in America or in Singapore, it is my responsibility to ready my children for the reality they will face.

The only way to do so is to teach them to always expect the best from people, but to never be disappointed when they show you their worst. That the only response to unkindness must always be kindness.

And, as we have learned first-hand in America, that the only thing to do when someone is being abused is to intervene.

Don’t misunderstand me. I have not lost complete faith in my family’s future or in Singapore.

How could I, given the groundswell of support our family received while living in America, from people of all walks of life—not just in America and Singapore— but from all over the world?

In fact, I’ve grown more hopeful.

As Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “When there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”

If you happen to be in the education space and think this essay may be suitable as a resource (e.g. for English Language, General Paper or Social Studies lessons), The Birthday Collective has an initiative, "The Birthday Workbook", that includes discussion questions and learning activities based on The Birthday Book essays. You can sign up for its newsletter at bit.ly/TBBeduresource.

Top photo via & whitehouse.gov