California: In the days after the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino, when pictures of the hijab-wearing suspect filled television screens and newspapers, Zarifeh Shalabi’s mother and aunts stayed at home.
With their home just a few miles away from the scene of the attack that left 14 dead, they worried about an anti-Muslim backlash. When they went shopping, Zarifeh said, other mothers pulled their children away when they saw the women wearing headscarves.
“We were more afraid that someone was going to hurt us,” Zarifeh, 17, said.
But this month, Zarifeh received the ultimate symbol of teenage acceptance: She was crowned prom queen after her non-Muslim friends campaigned for her by wearing hijabs in solidarity.
“We saw it as a chance to do something good, to represent something good,” said a friend, Sarahi Sanchez, who like Zarifeh is one of a few dozen peer mentors at Summit High School. “This was a way to prove we don’t have problems with bullying or racism.”
Zarifeh said her win “proved that not all Muslims are something to worry about.”
“They don’t see me as a threat,” she said, “they see me as their friend.”
Merely making it to the prom was a challenge for Zarifeh. The daughter of observant Muslims, she has always been expected to stay close to home and limit her socialising with boys. All through high school, she turned down invitations to parties and sleepovers and had never been allowed to attend a school dance.
When the high school senior found out that she had been nominated for prom queen, she was more worried about getting permission to attend than wondering about winning.
Prom queens, she reasoned, are usually the most popular girls in school, the cheerleaders, the student government officials, the kids who go to the parties.
But her friends were determined to get her the crown.
They each wore a hijab to show their support for Zarifeh, who has covered her hair throughout her high school years. On the morning of the school vote, they huddled together to pass out dozens of colourful scarves. A few held balloons printed with “Don’t be a baddie, vote for the hijabi.” Among the more than 2,000 students at the school, just four girls typically wear the head covering.
Before her friends told her about the nomination, Zarifeh had fantasised about making it to her senior prom, imagining herself in a flowing beaded dress she had once spied in the closet of a family friend, a traditional Muslim gown usually reserved for weddings.
Weeks before the dance, she pressed her mother by showing her a flier with school rules: no dirty dancing, no strapless dresses, transportation by bus. Her mother, still not convinced, spoke with aunts, uncles and friends from the local mosque before finally giving in.
“She was begging me, but we are very old style,” her mother, Manal Haifa, said. “I’ve never given in to something like this.”
“I had no idea how much she is really respected and loved at the school,” her mother said.
Haifa suggested they go to the local department store to find a dress. Zarifeh said no.
“I knew if I went and bought a dress it would be tight, or I would have to change things,” she said, standing in a local park one recent afternoon, wearing her prom dress — the beaded one she saw in the closet. She raised her arms to show off the flowing sleeves of the white, floor-length dress. “This was perfect, like a butterfly.”
Then came the next fashion question: What hijab? Nothing she found felt special enough, so she asked her grandmother if she could look through her collection.
When she spotted a gold scarf with strings of beads hanging from the end, it was too glamorous to ignore.
On the night of the prom, Zarifeh and a large group of female friends rode a school bus to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, where they danced through the night.
While Zarifeh stood on stage with the rest of the prom court, her younger sister checked Snapchat to see the latest updates. A few minutes later, she saw the news: Her sister was Summit High’s prom queen.
“Everyone was screaming, and I was just shocked,” Zarifeh said.
With the flowing fabric of her hijab, the crown would not stay put, and Zarifeh spent much of the night letting her friends wear it.
“We all felt like we had won,” said Savanna Smith, who called herself Zarifeh’s campaign manager. “It was so exciting because she is so covered up and she doesn’t show what every girl at prom shows and she still won. It was like she can still go out there and represent a fine, elegant woman.”
Her friend Sarahi said, “I feel like we have something to teach the rest of the country, it makes me really proud.”
While her friends went to a nearby diner, Zarifeh knew her mother was expecting her home. The next morning, she celebrated with friends at the Ar-Rahman mosque, where she teaches children each week.
“People there were proud, too, it was something exciting, something different,” she said. “I’m not what someone thinks of when they think of prom queen.”
