SAFETY CONCERNS
The day Mariam Nouser was spat on while riding the subway, she no longer felt safe wearing the hijab. A woman started yelling at her to go back home. “If you’re telling me to go home, I can go right back to Etobicoke,” said Nouser. “I was born and raised in Toronto; this is the only home I’d known.” After that, she kept quiet. She didn’t tell anybody — not even her mother — and started contemplating whether she should discontinue wearing the hijab. “I had to think about it,” she said. “I thought maybe I should focus on my faith first and truly know my religion before I blatantly show that I’m a Muslim.” But when she decided to take it off, she knew the move wouldn’t be permanent. “I just didn’t feel safe in my own home, which is really sad.” Nouser, a third-year engineering student at Ryerson University, spent nine hijab-less months before deciding to put it back on. But one thing Nouser noticed when she didn’t wear the hijab was that more people sat next to her on the subway. “It was so strange to notice,” she said. “I’m still the same person. “My faith is now much stronger and I became much more confident. And as a result, I know I should stand up for my values no matter what.”