I am muslim, I am american
and I am a reporter

Portrait by David Barreda, Sara Fajardo & Jessie Turner

By Duaa Eldeib
Adelante staff writer

A few weeks ago I found myself in front of the Boone County Court House. I was there to cover Columbia’s first rally in support of the troops since the talk on attacking Iraq began. But as I struggled to parallel park my car, I also struggled to breathe. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was scared.
A pickup truck with the U.S. flag fluttering out the window passed me, and the memory of another pickup truck and U.S. flag jumped into my mind. “Towelhead,” the man from the truck had yelled out his window.
“Excuse me?” I replied. “What did you just say?”
Silence. I don’t think he had expected me to respond.
“Sir, if you have a problem, we can discuss it in a civilized manner. Otherwise, please don’t be ignorant.” A few more seconds passed.
“Why don’t you go screw Osama?”
Needless to say, I was more than agitated. But as I sat in the courthouse parking lot, I told myself that was just one man in one truck. Realizing I was feeding a stereotype, I quickly dismissed the equation that pickup truck plus U.S. flag equals intolerant person.
In retrospect, I think it all a bit ironic. I never asked to cover the war on Iraq; it just happened. And even when I was assigned a story on the politics of war, I hesitated. I remember thinking to myself that no matter how objective my writing was, people would hear my name and see my hijab and assume I was biased.
All I had to do was recall the second story I wrote at the Columbia Missourian. It was a forum on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. When I entered the room, one of the ladies thanked me for coming.
“I’m a reporter, not a participant,” I said.
She eyed me up and down and said, “Well, I’m sure you already have your mind made up.”
I was enraged. I stormed back to the newsroom, determined to write the most objective piece ever written in the history of journalism. I am a reporter. Leaving all those thoughts behind, I stepped out of my car and walked toward the rally, refocused on my job for the day. But as soon as I walked into the crowd, all eyes were on me. One man burst out laughing when he saw me. That was my cue.
“Hello, sir. My name is Duaa Eldeib, and I’m a reporter with the Columbia Missourian. May I ask you a few questions?”
I was able to extract some useable quotes in between his fits of laughter. He thought it hilarious that I was a Muslim reporter.
The next man I interviewed was a random pick. His glare was so intense, I thought it would burn a hole into my hijab, but it was too late. I opened my mouth to ask him questions before I opened my eyes enough to read his sign: “Nuke’m all.”
When I asked him about the sign, the towering, hefty man said that’s exactly what he meant. Nuke them, every single last one of them. And if I wanted, he said in a threatening voice, I could take the sign home because “we should nuke all of them.”
For the first time, I was afraid for my life. I hurried to end that interview and began interviewing the organizers of the event, who, without exception, were extremely gracious.
After I started working as a reporter this semester, the battle to be seen for who I was, not what religion I follow or what clothes I chose to wear, was magnified. This was both for the good and the bad.
Walking to the corner of Providence and Broadway to cover a peace demonstration, I was greeted with open arms.
“Thank you so much for coming,” one of the protesters exclaimed, as I was engulfed by her hug. “It’s so nice to have you here. Would you like a sign?” With a light chuckle, I broke it to her. “Actually, I’m a reporter.”
Surprised, she gave me a half-smile and resumed her protesting. A part of me felt kind of bad, as if I were letting her down in some way, but I knew I wasn’t. I am a reporter.
A few minutes later I had my pen and paper in hand and was hurriedly scribbling down some notes when a man rolled down his car window and spouted his soliloquy.
“What are you doing out here? You (bad word I can’t say) idiot. Don’t you know we’re going to bomb that (bad word I can’t say) country you came from? You and your people deserve what you got coming.”
Immediately, I reminded myself. I am a reporter. So, as much as I wanted to tell this gentleman that my country is the United States, I was born in Memphis, Tenn., and hence, he basically just said he wanted to blow up the United States, I couldn’t. I’ve been dealing with this kind of ignorance my entire life, but today I was a reporter.
If I let my emotions get the best of me, then I would cross the line between observer and participant. As much as it was tearing me up inside that I couldn’t defend myself or my religion or my life choices, I knew that the greatest good would come if I simply took it all in. More than ever, I couldn’t get upset.
But I also couldn’t control the tears that formed in my eyes. I turned away so my interviewee wouldn’t see them.
Deep inside, I wished that when that man, or any other person for that matter, saw me, the first picture that came to their minds would not be of Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but instead, of a college student sitting through a lecture, a daughter enjoying a picnic at a park, or a friend helping another friend move into a new apartment.
I wished he would realize that the hijab on my head was no more a towel than a nun’s habit. More than anything, I wished he saw me for who I was and what I could bring to this country, my country.
And that’s when I made my decision. I don’t care what assumptions people make about my writing when they see me. I know what I can bring to this world. I know who I am and what I believe in. I am a reporter.