This Powerful Poet is Not Your Muslim Poster Child
One determined educator is changing Chicago's poetry scene.
written by Tyra Bosnic
edited by Anam Sadick
At a cafe in Skokie, a Chicago suburb, Ainee Fatima gazes at the snow drifting in the cold wind outside. The usual sounds of coffee brewing, espresso machines steaming milk and patrons conversing over their orders fills the small cafe as Fatima pauses during her detailed accounts of experiencing racism and sexism.
Between sips of her hot chocolate, she voices her desire to use her feminism to educate. Fatima, 26, believes poetry is a powerful tool for knowledge.
“All pieces of poetry are like memories,” she says.
When she was a young girl, Fatima became used to seeing the same bird perched on a branch outside the window of her home. One day she stopped seeing the bird and asked her mother what happened to it. Fatima remembers her mother struggling to explain the bird’s disappearance, realizing it was a small moment in life capturing the struggles of explaining death to a child.
Memories like these are what Fatima turned to for inspiration as a budding poet. As a teenager, she revisited memories of being a young Muslim girl on the Louder Than a Bomb stage.
In 2009, Fatima performed “Ramadan Reflections,” her story of falling for a boy while being entangled with the traditions of family, in Chicago’s Louder Than a Bomb poetry festival. Fatima and her high school’s team continued on to the final rounds of the competition, and her poem won.
Fatima’s rise to prominence was unexpected. She was featured in Seventeen magazine as the first hijabi (a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf) and was invited to the White House by Hillary Clinton to attend an initiative focusing on young and innovative Muslims. But all this sudden fame made Fatima feel tokenized, and she instead chose to focus on her unceasing desire to educate and felt empowered by her identity.
Fatima’s foray into poetry began with reading. Books became “a way to escape the patriarchal environment” around her, she says.
Fatima’s connection to Islam faltered when she was forced to don the hijab at an all-Muslim girls’ school she attended. Fatima began to internalize many Western beauty standards and battled inner conflicts with her religion because of the embarrassment she felt from her race and Indian culture. As a student at the mostly white Niles West High School, Fatima tried to make her name sound “less foreign,” and told classmates to call her “Annie.” She regrets trying to erase the parts of her identity that she now takes pride in, but it was part of a journey to where she is now.
Fatima’s relationship with poetry began with her freshman English teacher Paul Bellwoar, who urged Fatima to use poetry to explore her sense of self, and who would later become her poetry coach.
“She spent a good deal of time taking care of her outward appearances,” Bellwoar says. “You can tell that whatever she was trying to prove was coming across in the way that she dressed, [and] in the way that she carried herself.”
He distinctly remembers a pair of shoes Fatima wore to his class—a pair of Converse high-tops with wings printed on them—that he took as a message to mentor her through poetry. First, though, Fatima had to convince her parents to let her stay after school late.
Fatima’s family’s culture often affected her early poetry. As an Indian-American from a Muslim family, her parents had traditional expectations from Fatima, but her brother was given free rein. She argued with them about the double standards she lived under.
But that wasn’t all she faced. Fatima often faced racism and Islamophobia from non-Muslim and, usually, white people.
Louder Than a Bomb gave Fatima an outlet to express herself, one she didn’t have before. Her poetry, once just scribbled in a journal covered with pictures of her favorite musicians, became her way to connect with other young poets.
“With Louder Than a Bomb, I didn’t feel that I had to be that ideal Muslim woman,” Fatima says.
For Fatima, no feminist space provided the same inclusivity Louder Than a Bomb did. While performing in the festival, she felt like she was part of a community.
When she started performing, stage fright sometimes took over. She stood on the stage, attempting to recite her poem, but froze, embarrassed. However, the crowd of students and mentors roared, snapping their fingers and applauding. In that small moment, Fatima felt a rush of acceptance from her peers.
“The hope is that we are trying, collectively, to create a space where young people can be themselves unabashedly and unapologetically,” Kevin Coval, the founder of Louder Than A Bomb, says while explaining the goal of the festival from its inception.
The Louder Than a Bomb stage is where Fatima was introduced to intersectionality, where she heard young poets confront racism, gun violence, homophobia and sexism.
“A lot of black youth who wrote poems about history—this idea of all men being treated equal but not really—made me look at [intersectionality] more,” Fatima says.
White feminists often look at the movement through a Eurocentric view that silences women of color, Fatima explains. She refers to certain radical feminist groups that have gone topless in order to “free” Muslim women, but that’s not what Muslim women need.
“For us, it’s making sure that we have a place to live. Can I wear this hijab and not get discriminated for it? Muslim women have so many strikes against us,” Fatima says, explaining that breaking the glass ceiling and closing the wage gap aren’t always top priorities.
When Seventeen magazine reached out to Fatima, she was elated to have a platform to reach young hijabi women on a large scale. But in the months after her interview, Fatima wondered if if she had become a token for the magazine as the first hijabi to be featured.
These doubts grew when she found herself mostly being known for being featured in Seventeen magazine. Instead of her own accomplishments, the magazine had chosen to fill its diversity quota, and that’s all that Fatima was. She realized being the “first” in something was not always something to strive for.
When she was invited to the White House at just 19, members of the Muslim community openly criticized her decision to go. Fatima remembers one person in the community telling her, “How can you support the people bombing our countries?” She couldn’t help but believe her presence there was only for the politicians’ gain.
The politics that intertwined with her identity as a Muslim woman constantly appeared in her personal life, and eventually became a subject she chose to study. At DePaul University, Fatima chose to major in Islamic Studies to push against the sexism that is heavily present in her community.
But studying Islam became a way for her to build a stronger relationship with her faith. She learned to accept her identity and the hijab. In colors matching her outfits or printed with striking patterns, the scarf that was once forced upon her now became her style of boldly being herself. That’s how Fatima truly feels empowered.
As she finishes graduate school, Fatima dreams of educating future generations and instilling the same desire for independent thought that led her to form her unique view of the world.
“Kids are so aware of who they are despite adults telling them ‘You’re too young to worry about this stuff,’” Fatima says. “A lot of these kids in Chicago Public Schools are adults before they even reach eighteen.”
She hopes to mentor these kids by becoming an English teacher and teaching them the importance of their voice.
Years after reciting her own poetry on the stage, Fatima is still a voice at Louder Than a Bomb. She works with Bellwoar at Niles West to help budding poets find their words.
“It’s a bit of an ongoing joke between she and I, and I keep telling her, ‘Look, hurry up with your damn degree, get back here, so I can turn the keys over to you now,’” Bellwoar chuckles.
At Poetry Pals, a non-profit interfaith organization that works to build community among youth through poetry, Fatima teaches Jewish, Muslim and Christian youth the importance of embracing different religions and cultures using the creative medium. With her work in the organization and as a Louder Than A Bomb poetry coach, Fatima is striving for what she wants to achieve as a teacher: Giving a voice to youth through education.
“I see it as a huge responsibility—as a woman, as a Muslim, as a feminist—to be constantly educating, and constantly being a mouthpiece, but not a poster child.”
"Can I wear this hijab and not get discriminated for it?"
Photos by: Hamza Quadri @hq_fotos