NADIA NAQVI
36, science teacher at Beaconsfield High School
On why she wears the hijab:
“That’s actually the one question we as hijabis get asked the most. And if we don’t have, what we call a quote-unquote stock answer, I don’t think it’s doing our hijab justice. So when I first started wearing it I was 15. And my idea for wearing it when I was 15 was different than it is today, which is 20 years later. I wear it Number 1, first and foremost, because it is part of my religion … The second reason that I wear it, it’s a code for me. It makes me measure the way I walk, the way I talk, the way I think, the way I spend my money, the way I form my relationships — everything. Modesty is very important for me because it encompasses a lot of my life. Thirdly, and this is the reason I first started wearing it when I was a teenager, is I want people to look at me and really hear me and really see me, rather than the colour of my skin, which is the first thing that people see or the shape of my body or the length of my hair. I take a three-pronged approach, really.”
On the reactions she gets
as a teacher who wears the hijab:
“People, to this day, do double takes when they see me. At our convocation, the dignitaries that come and they present awards, one of the dignitaries saw me and did a double take and they were mumbling to each other in the line, wearing their robes, with our kids around them. And I turned around to my colleagues and I said, 'Those are our dignitaries, how dignified of them to do a double take when they see me.’ Have they never seen a Muslim woman in a hijab that’s an authority figure? That’s the problem in Quebec. They don’t see them enough.”
On how students see her:
"I used have a motto when I first started teaching: kill them with kindness ... Children see people and don’t see religion. My students, when they walk in, they have an idea. They’re coming straight out of Grade 8, they’re 14. Some of them are still 13. They are still very young. And so the most they know about Muslims is probably some of the negative stuff that they’ve heard, or their daycare providers, or friends in their neighbourhood. Because in the English system, there are very few Muslims. So they don’t do that double take, because in my school, my reputation kind of precedes me. Particularly because of the assemblies (on combating hate) I did last year, all the kids in the building know who I am. And I really like that because it humanizes me.”
On misconceptions about why Muslim women wear the hijab:
“I have a one-liner that I’ve actually been quoted on and I have actually been saying since I was in CEGEP. We’re not stupid. We don’t take our decisions lightly. It is very rarely forced on us. People who say that Muslim women wear a hijab because they’re forced to, well I’m forced by myself. I would hopefully, God willing, knock on wood, never take it off, because I don’t see that as an option for myself. It’s a decision that I made for myself. And the second thing I say is get to know me. This is not a woman who is easily pushed around — just ask my husband. I’m not a woman who is easily pushed around, I’m not an easily oppressed person, I’m one of the most outspoken people, even on my staff.”
I want people to look at me and really hear me and really see me.