Afra Sumeir-Zmolek
Grand Prairie, TX
People see me without a head scarf, holding my American husband hand and my “white” son, normally people address my white 6 foot tall husband, or if I’m with my son only, they do small talk addressing my son!
Immediately people try to put me in a pigeon hole when they meet us as a family. Is she half black? Half Mexican? But for sure half white, not sure why.
If the conversation passes our looks, the conversation direction always lead us to where I’m from. I say, from the Middle Eastern, they say, oh you don’t wear a head scarf, or they will say you are so “Americanized” that you don’t wear a scarf, or worse, you are so liberal you don’t wear a scarf.
It seems we are judged on our intellectual thinking and believes based on our clothes.
So unfair.
When I went to the university day care center, and I asked if university employees get a discount, she asked me when my husband teaching assistant ship will start, and I answered, I’m the employee not my husband.
