Monica Morales goes by "Noor" her Muslim name, which means “light from God.” Her family is from Mexico, but she was born and raised in Houston. Noor is a insurance agent and caregiver for her son. She was interviewed by Thresa Skeslien-Jenkins. A full transcript of their conversation can be found here. Okay, could you talk a little bit about your relationship to Islam, and just how you interpret it today? I was raised as a Catholic but there were a lot of things I would not agree with and I was kind of confused so I was in search for something to fulfill my soul and my understanding of my relationship with the higher power, with the creator. So, I used to study different types of religions and I used to be very mystical, very spiritual and I found Islam at an insurance company where I was working. A lady who came into my office, was wearing the hijab which is a scarf. She was from Guatemala, so when she started talking to me in Spanish and I was like wow how did you learn Spanish, so she's like “I'm from Guatemala” and I'm like oh wow, like, at the same time she was like glowing so I was really attracted to the appearance so I asked her questions and she told me “I'm a Muslim, my religion is Islam,” and she started talking to me about prophets that I had already known about growing up. So I was really curious, so we started a, like, a friendship at that time, she gave me her number and a few days later I met another man who ended up being my teacher in insurance policy, and he asked if I had heard of Islam and have I ever come across a Quran, and I told him no so he was the first person to bring me a Quran...I studied Islam for a year and half before I took you know, before I said this is what is for me. One of the things, one of the reasons why I took so long was because of the scarves, there's certain people that’s like once you take your shahada like that’s it, you know, you cover because this is part of our religion and I wasn't ready for that, that transformation appearance wise. But I was so, like, agreeing with everything, with the teachings of Islam and how we view God as one, and the angels, the hereafter, the day of judgement, like everything just made so much sense but I personally wasn't ready for this [points to hijab]. So until like a year and a half later, I met a lady from Palestine and she was like you know what, this [hijab] comes in time, no one can force you to put on anything, if you're not ready for it, then that's not what God is going to judge you based on. He judges based on, he knows the heart, the intentions of us, this will come on your own. Which it did.
Okay and, I guess, you talked about how you decided to cover, but I guess like how do you interpret the Quran and how closely do you follow it? I interpret the Quran as the way of life, at least how I should, like a manual...before when I was non-Muslim I didn't have any regulation, structure or regulation, because I grew up in a really tough time, you know the early, late 80s early 90s here in Houston it was nothing but gangs and all this and I was in that environment when I was a kid so I never really had any structure, any regulation, or anyone telling me what to do. So I kind of lived my life in a rebel kind of way, so finding Islam for me it gave me structure, it gave me like principles, how to live and act in certain ways. How does your specific Hispanic culture impact your religious practices and I guess how you understand Islam day to day? We don't mix culture and religion, but I do find a lot of words in Arabic, we have same certain words in Spanish, and I guess that's because Islam...Muslims ruled Spain for 800 and something years back...I'm really a proud Mexican-American Muslim. I wear my scarf for my identity. For me, it also helps me, as a person, to kind of keep me in a check in this crazy world...Just a reminder, like my shield even against myself if that makes any sense. Yeah, the only other thought I want to add, is are there any other women in your family who are Muslim or do cover? No, no just me. Was that difficult interacting with family members who don't understand? When I first became Muslim in 2001, my mom was upset with me at first. She was devastated. She was going up and down the house crying like “oh my God, what's wrong with you? You're not Indian, you’re not Arab, you're Mexican!” She didn't understand this whole thing. I think after time she started to understand, I told her our beliefs, and then she met more Latina Muslims that were my friends and she like “okay, wow, well as long as you believe in God I'm going to be happy for you.” And now how she sees me because I'm a single mother, and she told me not long ago, she told me like “you know one thing I feel, I don't feel scared about you too much because I feel like in a sense you protect yourself when you go out there, you cover, you don't have…,” the danger is less for me is what she said. And I said “okay, that's nice.” I'm good with my family. There was a time where I went through a tough time in my life and I made the decision to take my scarf off...So during that time my life became really depressed and it was a really dark time so when I started coming back to the community and I felt that connection again with our Creator I started feeling like “wow this is the reason I've been so lost is because I disconnected myself” so for me as soon as I came back like a month later it just happened to be Election Day and you know how Trump, he campaigned, having a sense of hatred against Muslims, for me that was the time to put my scarf back on, it was more like kind of like I'm Muslim, I'm right here, come at me, and then tell me something, you know maybe because I have that personality, no one’s gonna come and punk me around, you know, like in a sense it was like this pride thing, you know, and I started putting on my scarf but at the same time it gave me a sense of protection and confidence of myself...I'm a Muslim so I gotta behave like a Muslim. How do you feel when you hear people say covering is a sign of oppression? I'm kind of person that I don't allow no-one to tell me what to do, especially if I don't want to do it, so, I guess that's just me being born and raised in Houston, but I don't know how other cultures are. There could be some women that from other countries where it’s like kind of embedded in their culture in a sense, so they just feel like they have to, or somebody like their father says they have to, but me personally, you know, it's no oppression for me, or even for people that I've been around, we're American Muslims you know- we're not forced to do anything so that's a blessing that we have. I was also curious as to your perspective of um, men and women being separated, because this worship area is a lot more open in allowing men and women to be in the same room, but I guess how do you feel about that separation or not allowing women to lead prayer? I have no comment about a woman leading prayer because I've never seen that, I'm just used to the man leading the prayer, but you know we do stand behind the man when we pray, and I think it would make sense because of how you've seen us praying, if you can imagine you're feeling like “oh my gosh there's a guy back there looking at me, prostrate is very uncomfortable,” so I think our setup is wonderful and the time of a prophet they didn't have a divider, or like a woman behind a wall. So for me, personally, I have my son who's about to be 21 years old he has, he's a person with disabilities, so for me, having him get bigger, when I would go to musjeds that did have the separation, I would have some differences with people who were like “you can't have your son here”, and I'm like- “have common sense- he's special- what do you want me to do?- I'm a single mother- you want me to ask just any random person to watch my son for me to make you feel better?”- like for that reason I also was kind of like away- wherever I go I bring my son- but here I don't have to worry about it, for me, it's a big blessing for me-- something that during my dark times I would pray for, like Oh God, first that was an excuse for why I'm not around but once I came here it’s like oh, that worry no longer exists, because I no longer have to ask someone to watch my son for me while I pray, I can watch my son praying in front of- which is something I never had- I didn't have before. So that part is really emotional for me because it makes a big difference in my life to bring my son in this journey with me instead of leaving him behind at a babysitters for example....the community, the setup, is what I had always wished for, and now I'm so blessed and grateful and thankful to our Creator that we finally have it, and for it to be Spanish Muslim that's even better, we feel empowered, we feel like we have our own community, you know, which is, we no longer have to try to fit in somewhere we are who we are. It makes me more confident about my identity. I'm a Muslim but I'm a Latina too, I'm a Houstonian, with roots of Mexican, Mexican American. And even before I was Muslim, we believed in the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin Mary she has her own chapter in the Quran, and for me it's like “wow, God, gives her as an example of a woman, she's covered,? you know so- now I don't see it as a foreign thing I see it as something respectful. Like you know, you respect yourself and you try to be modest and humble. So when people say that like being Muslim and being American don't go together, or being Muslim in Hispanic don't go together, or even being Mexican and American don't go together, I guess how do you respond? I really don't respond too much because I know that's just a lack of their knowledge. Like they don't know about Islam and how Islam is for everyone, I went to China before and I seen a lot of China Muslims, and same thing, even us as Muslims, when I first became Muslim I thought the majority was Arab, and it's not, it's Indonesians, they're the majority and it's just, like, whenever you have lack of knowledge you just don't know- I was there at one time, I didn't know Islam was for everyone at one point, so everything is like I have no response, God give knowledge to those who seek...hopefully God will put somebody that they will be open to, let's say like a Muslim person that they can know and be open to, asking questions, and hopefully they will be curious to read and I just hope based on what the media tells you what Islam is about and Muslims are about but they kind of have their own sense of education of who we are we are Muslims could be from any part of the world, even being Latino Muslim we could have a Columbian, we could have a Mexican, we could a Salvadorian, you know from all parts of Latin America, you know, we're all a little different, in the end what makes us the same is we are all Muslims, we believe in one God, we pray the same way we pray the same time, like that's just what brings us together is our shahada which is declaration of faith. Did you ever face difficulty growing up being a Mexican American, a minority, did you face difficulty and did it affect your journey? I guess maybe in the beginning, when I first took my shahada, it was on a Tuesday night, and Friday came and I was so excited to go to jummah prayer- our Friday prayer- and I was nervous and scared to go to my first thing, and I ended up going to a musjed close to me and I remember walking in and I remember I was excited, nervous, and I said Saalam Alaikum to them and they just turned around and they didn't answer me, they just looked at me up and down, and I felt so odd and and weird, I felt like an outcast. What was different about me and them is they were Pakistani and they could tell that I'm not, so I think that's the only time I felt a sense of like, bad, I guess, you know, trying to fit in somewhere and I don't belong but after that I started meeting more Latino-American-Muslims so I was okay, it didn't affect me. That was just sad for your first time going, you were so excited! Yeah it really was, they bust my bubble, but it's okay, now that I know more about different cultures, because I'm around a lot of different people now I'm like, that's just their culture. They're not too opened minded about other people and that's their loss, not mine, because I’m going to know about their culture, and the Arab culture, and the Indonesian culture, because I have my open mind and I'm going to embrace anyone and maybe try the food, I like to know different cultures, it's a beautiful thing, and if they can't be open then that's their lost. When the mainstream media attacks Islam, do you feel then need to defend it, and if so, how do you defend it? Now in my older time in my life I don't like to get into much in politics because that's one thing- when somebody has their mind made up it's really hard to change it, until they have their experience of actually reading or getting information from the right source instead of being allowed to be brainwashed, so it's hard to kind of convince someone, so I try to stay away from it, because I know myself, I don't want to cave into that argumentative type of approach with anyone, or even allow anyone to make my blood boil to that point of getting upset... I just show in an indirect way, maybe post a video about Islam, for example. If they see it let it marinate in their brains however they want, but I don't try to convince anyone overall in my social media world. You said you became a Muslim in 2001- was that before or after 9/11? Before, March 27, 2001. I just remember the beginning of 2002, the U.S. had already gone to war with Afghanistan and it was the beginning of all that craziness, I remember driving down Beltway 8 and there was this man trying to run me off and I stood my ground. I've always been a rebel, I've never really been afraid of anyone. Now I'm afraid only of God, that's it, so it was kind of like he was trying to get me to be scared but because I'm not a scared person. So as this is happening, I could tell he was trying to intimidate me and I saw a cop coming up so I pulled over and I said “hey this guy tried to run me out, the truck,” I told him the information and the cop -Boom- zoomed over and pulled that truck over and I honked "haha" but that was the only time where I had something happen to me personally. MM: I laugh about this but I'm really thankful like God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. If someone is to come at me like this, disrespectful, we're supposed to be humble, at the end it's the deeds we are collecting. I don't want someone to push my button in the wrong way that's going to make me get a bad deed because of this person. I'm just so thankful that I haven't had these bad experiences with people, I've had good experiences, but I know there are people out there who don't have it so good maybe depending on the geographic area where they live. There could be people that's less tolerant but here living in Houston I've always seen it that it's a very friendly city.
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