What is it like to dress in ways that make many Americans assume you’re an “other?”
This challenge offered non-Muslim students a way to step out of their own perspective and get a very small taste of how this feels. With the help of Professors Mona Hassan and Claudia Koonz, a group of students went to Southpointe Mall in Durham—with the female students in the group wearing headscarves. After the challenge, students reflected on their experiences—of having pretended to be something they were not; of the uncertainty of interpreting others’ glances; of how they think about how they display important parts of their identities for everyone to see.
The Hijab Challenge was Team Kenan’s second collaboration with Professors Hassan and Koonz, and it was an offshoot of the excellent iThink discussion we had with them in the spring of the 2011 semester.