Fatima
Fatima was a junior at Oakton High School in Vienna, Virginia when she created art for I am the Night Sky. She likes many different things, like drawing, taekwondo, graphic design, math, chemistry, psychology, reading… The list goes on. Basically, she tries to keep herself occupied with learning as many new skills as she can, so that she can make the most of the time she has as a teenager.
She is the first in her family to have been born in the U.S. Both of her parents are from Iran, and she is the first of their four children. Despite their physical detachment from Iran, Fatima and her siblings have been able to learn a lot about their culture and traditions, in some cases even more than about American culture. In fact, she and her first sister didn’t even speak English until they started pre-school.
But there was one thing that set their family apart from most of their American neighbors: Islam. Her whole life Fatima had heard the West say negative things about her faith, but in her experience, it had taught her nothing but how to live a peaceful and humble life. Fatima wants to do exactly that.
“I decided to join the NWMI x Shout Mouse team -- to dispel negative perceptions of Islam that have been fueled by fear and ignorance. And to let it be known that Islam is neither a race nor an ethnicity, it is a religion, a way of life that welcomes all who wish to experience it, regardless of their background.”