Hijab butch blues. Be Muslim, migrant and queer in the American dream

Dialogue byKatya ParenteWith Lamya H.

Today is our guest Lamya H., author of the Memoir "Hijab butch blues"Recently published byLe Plurali publishing.
The book, very profound and engaging, tells the author's life from childhood to maturity - a life marked by important stages: the discovery of his own nameness, the in -depth reading of the Koran, the transfer to the United States to continue his studies, l 'activism and a new approach to watching reality.

The writing, heard and engaging, earned the volume and its author The Stonewall Book Awards, a prize awarded to the best book LGBTQIA+ by the American Library Association.
After this short presentation, we leave the word to Lamya.

First of all, why did you feel the need to write this Memoir?

Honestly, I had not sensed that I had written a Memoir before I put a black part of it on white. In the past I had written essays that were published on online newspapers; Essays that were born from a deep sense of anger and injustice. To my friends I often told stories about things that had happened to me, things that made me angry: racist "accidents", work colleagues who said homophobic phrases, things like that.

One day, a friend I respected a lot, he told me that telling stories was not enough, the anger is useless and that leads nothing to write to it. This thing overwhelmed me - this idea that writing was a political act.

I started like this - at the beginning wise, and then I found myself writing one that, in fact, is a chapter of my book: the one on Hajar, which I wrote because I needed to elaborate as it was to make my partner meet And the (my) family pretend to be only friends.

And the Memoir was born from here: the need to elaborate the things that happened to me, even before thinking about writing as a political act.

The title of your book is a clear tribute to Leslie Feinberg. Why did you choose it?

"Stone Butch blues"It was one of the first books I read when, around the age of twenty, I became aware of my Queeness. He is a wonderful mix of staff and political, who uses the story of the narrator to make incisive considerations, among other things, on the queerness, the genre, the race, the class, the fatigue, the brutality of the police.

I remember reading it I thought that this is what I wanted to do by writing, this is the way I wanted to write too. When the time has come to find a title for my book, I wanted to pay homage to this fundamental text of queer literature and all the queer and trans writers who wrote before me and who have paved the way to see a book like mine saw the light.

Is it exactly to say that religion and spirituality have played a fundamental role in the awareness of your queerness? How?

Absolutely yes. I don't know what it means to be a queer person without being religious, just as I don't know what it means to be a religious person without being a queer. These identities, for me, have always gone hand in hand. I came to my political convictions thanks to religion, thanks to ideas of justice, resistance and the importance of kindness.

When I realized my being queer, and I found the words for these sensations that had always been within me and I met the LGBTQ+community, I found myself returning to these principles again - principles that I had embraced thanks to the religion.

How is it to be Muslim, migrant, queer and a non -white woman in a country that, like America, on paper is (or was) the "land of opportunities" par excellence? Being able to go abroad to study and remain there by creating your future is a great opportunity. Do you feel lucky?

I think a lot about this idea of ​​being "lucky". In some respects they are very, very, very lucky: what would have been my life if I had not gone to a college in the United States, if I had not had a scholarship, if I had not had a credit card and so on.

I believe that many experiences I did would not have been possible without living away from my parents, without the possibility of meeting the type of people and ideas in which I came across college, without going to a country where I didn't know anyone and I could start From the head. But I think that feeling lucky and the guilt and gratitude that followed, fundamental, define my relationship with America.

It should not be a matter of luck: everyone should have these opportunities regardless of the country where we live, from wealth, from privileges.

In your opinion, how can the different forms of culture and the exchange of information change the society in which we live?

One of the things that Queeness, in particular, taught me is the importance of differences: to embrace them and listen to people who want to live in different ways from the norm.

I think that the downside is the importance of really listening to those who are marginalized, empathize with them and support them.

In these days I am thinking a lot about those who fight for the rights of the disabled who imagines a world where everyone - regardless of their (dis) skills - can grow, and how this simple principle leads us to question the ways in which We participate in the absence. I am also thinking a lot about Palestine - as you can not do it, given the horrible stories that come both from Gaza and from the West Bank.

I think a lot about how important it is to look for independent reports and resist the normalization of the genocide, and that this deep listening and this resistance are the way we change the society in which we live.

We thank Lamya for sharing his ideas with us, and we refer those who want to deepen his knowledge and his inner world to read "hijab butch blues" (the plurals, 2023).