Dear President of the United States.

I am an immigrant from Uzbekistan. I moved to New York in 2011 when I was 10 years old. Now I'm 17 years old and a student at Brooklyn International High School. Since I came to this city I have been learning a lot about racism, discrimination, and stereotype, which is somethingI've never heard of before. From my perspective, the main problem that is happening in all states that I would like to talk about is how Muslim students are being treated unfairly at school and outside by teachers, students, and even police. Most of the people when they see Muslims, like girls with hijab or boys with beard, they start panicking. I am Muslim too, but not really religious. We don't wear hijab but we do pray. I see a lot of people think that Muslims are scary or dangerous. I want to tell them that Muslims are not terrorist or dangerous. They are people like everybody, they have heart, they living and breathing the same air that we breathing. The Unites States was created for religious freedom. I think that you should help stop discrimination against Muslims because this abuse is hurting people and taking away freedom in the United States.

Discrimination against Muslims is making an unfair situation throughout the whole country. “Many Muslim American students have said they are treated unfairly at school. They are bullied by other students because of their religion.” This evidence shows the student who are Muslim, especially Muslim girls with hijab, are treated in a bad way. Also, students call them a terrorist. Why won't they think about it before calling them terrorist? That's a stereotype, judging them without knowing how innocent Muslims are. From that I see there's no respect for Muslims. Moreover, "Where is your bomb?" It is hurtful to the students. Most Muslims are peaceful. They are making fun of them with telling them “where is your bomb?” They don’t care about their feelings when they say that to them. We all know there is equality between people but why they treat Muslim people unfairly?

Here is an example of a Muslim girl who was discriminated against. “Zahra is 17 years old. She goes to middle school near Dallas, Texas. In the seventh grade, she started wearing the hijab”. But here friends stop talking to her because she had her hijab on. Also, her bus driver called her "terrorist." Then she stopped wearing her hijab because she is afraid of people going to call her terrorist or asking her where's the bomb. There is freedom in the United States and each person has the right to choose their own religion. Muslim peoples respect all the religions but most of the other religious people don't respect Muslims and they keep hurting their feelings.

I want you to give Muslim people their rights because each person has their own tradition and can follow any religion they want. It’s not fair to not treating Muslims equal as other religions. You should meet with Muslim people like Obama did. So, if you meet them you can how Muslim people are really innocent. People from the legislative branch have to make some laws about not all Muslims are terrorist. Also, President has to make announcements or make a hijab women one of the law makers.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Student

References

https://newsela.com/articles/discrimination-muslim-students/id/21553/

https://newsela.com/articles/hijab-boxing/id/13534/

https://newsela.com/articles/chicago-muslimyouth/id/14920/