"Dude, it’s 100 degrees outside, why don’t you lose a layer or two?" one of the girls said to Raheemah, who was fully covered in her long abaya and hijaab.
"Oh, I wear this for religious reasons," Raheemah said, smiling at the girl. "I’m Muslim."
"Yeah? Well maybe you should’ve left your religion where you came from," the girl sneered at Raheemah.
Raheema felt blood rushing to her face. "Excuse me?" she said.
Everyone in the shop stopped to stare at the girls.
"You heard me. We don’t need terrorists in this country," the girl said as she flipped a blond curl off her face.
"Why don’t you and the rest of your terrorist friends go bomb your own countries and get out of mine," the girl yelled, glaring at her Raheemah through squinted eyes.
Raheemah’s heart started pounding, and her knees felt weak. Somehow, she mustered up the energy to run out of the shop and to her car.
With tears streaming down her face, her hands shook as she put the keys in the ignition. She drove toward Ana’s house.
Raheemah was born and raised in Walnut, Calif. She had always felt like America was her country. She had never felt this humiliated in her life.
Raheemah pulled up to Ana’s driveway and got out of her car, still shaken from the incident. She wiped her eyes and rang the doorbell.
"Hey, how’s it going?" Ana asked with a big grin on her face. "Where’s my smoothie? Ana looked at Raheemah’s red eyes. "Have you been crying?" Ana’s face filled with concern.
Raheemah’s lower lip started quivering, so she bit it. "I just…am having a bad day."
Ana gave Raheemah a big hug. "Come on. Let’s sit inside, and you can tell me what happened."
Ana guided Raheemah to the kitchen and sat her down at the dining table with a glass of water. With a little bit of coaxing, Raheemah gushed out with her story.
Ana’s jaw dropped. "I can’t believe she said that! No one said anything to her?"
Raheemah shook her head.
"Man, that’s horrible! People like that just want to bring you down. You know you belong here, and you know you’re a great person, so don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s forget about this. We’ll go to the backyard and get some air. It’ll make you feel better."
Raheemah sniffled and nodded her head. "I need to use the restroom first," she said.
"OK, just meet me outside," Ana said as she opened the sliding door.
Raheemah walked back toward the backyard, and just as she was about to step outside, she heard a familiar voice, "Dude, you won’t believe what I saw today! I was at the smoothie joint, and I saw this girl all covered up, like from head to toe! I mean, look at you and me; we’re in shorts like normal people. I told the weirdo to get out of my country," the girl laughed.
Raheemah froze.
"That was YOU?" said Ana, with her face full of shock.
"I can’t believe you would say something like that? That was one of my friends, and for your information, this IS her country! Just because she doesn’t dress like us doesn’t make her any less American! That’s part of her religion! In fact, NOT believing in freedom of religion is un-American!"
Raheemah walked out of the house and into the backyard.
"I’m sorry Raheemah, I didn’t realize my neighbor, Cynthia, was the racist person you saw at the shop! Let’s go," Ana said.
Cynthia’s face became red with embarrassment when she saw Raheemah.
"No, wait! I’m sorry. I have to apologize. Ana’s right; what I did was horrible, and I’m really sorry. I can’t believe how terrible I was. I just hope you can forgive me," Cynthia said, her face full of regret.
Raheemah smiled, "OK, you’re forgiven as long as you buy me a smoothie, because today was the first day I left school and didn’t get one."
"That’s simple enough," Cynthia laughed.
Cynthia, Ana and Raheemah sat and talked for hours at the smoothie joint, and they realized that they had a lot more in common than they thought, even though they looked so different.
