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Meet Sahar A Hyphen with Holes in It . . . Allowing Her to Sometimes Fall Through Sahar is fourteen, in the seventh grade in Clifton, New Jersey, a predominantly white working-class town with a history of hostility to immigrants. Even though the schools have had an English-only policy, many immigrant families—predominantly of Dominican, Palestinian, and Colombian origin—tolerate the tense conditions because the school system’s reputation is relatively better than that of the surrounding urban districts. The fourth child in a family of six children, Sahar was born in the United States to parents from Rammallah. Her father finished elementary school, and her mother either graduated from high school or received a G.E.D. Her parents own a single-family home in a residential neighborhood, and Sahar lives with her siblings (all born in the United States), her parents, and sometimes a cousin or an aunt. She identifies as Arab American and Palestinian, receives grades between 60 and 94, studies for one or two hours a week, wears ħijāb, prays often, and never goes to mosque. Sahar is more of a working-class child than most of our other interviewees, and she struggles academically. Held back in the second, sixth, and seventh grades, she is quite old for her grade and is now reading a book entitled A Child Called It, about a boy whose “mom abuses him for fun and doesn’t let him do anything.” Sahar is very self-conscious about her weight and spends a great deal of time chatting online with her cousins and some friends. She tells us she is stressed at home by family members and at school by “kids who make fun of how I look.” Her self-portrait includes poses of herself shopping , playing baseball, with the book A Child Called It over her head, and then a box with question marks. Although Sahar circled many items as “Moderately stressful,” those that she marked as “Very stressful” are revealing: I have more barriers to overcome than most of my non-Muslim friends. I often feel ignored by people who are supposed to assist me. People look down upon me if I practice customs of my culture. ❙ 55 She describes herself as “nice, friendly . . . I’m kind of athletic.” On the survey she indicated that she is “afraid of certain animals, situations, or places” and described herself as “secretive, keep[ing] things to myself.” She was one of the few respondents who said “Very true” to the item “I feel that no one loves me.” Sahar remembers being on safety patrol in fifth grade . . . it was like after 9/11 and stuff. I’m standing on my post and then this kid walks past me and he called me a terrorist. And like I didn’t like that so I told him I wasn’t a terrorist or anything like that . . . he just kept walking . . . he knew that wasn’t true . . . he couldn’t say anything else about that. Because they can’t just . . . see a Muslim person walking on the street . . . and accuse them of being a terrorist or a bad person, or anything like that. Sahar tells us she has “Arabic friends, Spanish friends, Polish friends. I’ve got friends from Serbia and I’ve got friends from a lot of countries—from America, and they don’t care what I am or anything. They just want to be your friend.” When asked, “Who are the people that you consider your friends?” She answered , “People that I trust. People that don’t care what religion I’m from or where my parents are from or how I act or,” thereby demonstrating her understanding of the kind of support she needs and deserves from her peers, her teachers, and her family. Sahar wears a head scarf and seeks friends who“don’t care”about her religion. She is bruised, often and easily, by those who focus on her “difference.” She’s frustrated when her family allows “my brothers . . . to go out with their friends and go to the movies . . . but us as girls, we are not allowed to go out like that.” She related a time when she was most distressed: Sahar: The other day, we were in math class and we’re on the board. And this kid is standing next to me and he’s like, “Oh, my God. It smells in here.” And everything like that. And that offended me, so I went and I...

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