Bullied For Its Faith, Muslim Family Fights Back Through Education
It started with a sign pinned to Sana Afzal's backpack after the election in 2016. "I like Trump, you're fired."
At the 16-year-old's new high school in Gilroy, Calif., just outside San Jose, kids whispered in her Spanish class: "Allahu Akbar" — "God is great" in Arabic — in a derogatory way.
And then there was the English class assignment involving a Fox News opinion piece that linked Islam, her religion as a whole to a horrific stoning in Afghanistan. The article was accompanied by a picture of a young woman in a headscarf — a lot like the one that Sana chooses to wear as a Muslim.
"One guy ... like saw the picture and saw me and was like 'it's the same thing,' " she said.
He was linking her to this terrible act in a country she had never been to and knew little about.
