Reema, a Pakistani Muslim American and mother, started wearing the hijab after she traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform a religious pilgrimage called "Umrah." Reema lives in an affluent suburb of Chicago and works in the financial industry. She told me that after the pilgrimage, something clicked with her. She just felt the desire to start covering her hair. I asked her if she noticed any changes in her experiences when she returned to the United States. She told me that because of her skin tone, prior to 9/11 people thought she was either Latina or Indian. She never passed for white and was rarely identified as Pakistani. But after she started wearing the hijab, her experiences did change.

XREF: Connects to broader research on religious dress, racialization, and how visible markers alter social perception and treatment. Builds on: "Post-9/11 hijabs function like skin color in racializing Muslims as non-white."

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 275