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<\/a><\/p>\nBut Yasmin\u2019s parents were poor, too. At one point, there was no money for a notebook, which meant the then eight-year-old missed jotting down homework assignments. When it came time for the teacher to check on her progress, Yasmin simply stood there empty handed.<\/p>\n
What came next would make most pedagogues shudder. The teacher ordered the primary school pupil to remove her shoes. Then, she asked two classmates to mete out the punishment\u2014caning the back of Yasmin\u2019s bare feet with a bamboo stick before a class of about 60 kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was traumatizing,\u201d says the now 29-year-old. After the incident, she kept mum at school, trying to become invisible. When her family immigrated to the United States three years later, the experience kept her from raising her hand in class. \u201cI was always afraid to say the wrong answer, afraid of getting yelled at,\u201d she remembers.<\/p>\n
Being the only Muslim family in their new neighborhood in Bristol, Connecticut, did not help either\u2014especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, barely two years after the family\u2019s immigration.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, she found herself apologizing to non-Muslims, as she and her sister began to understand that some members of their community associated their faith with the attackers. It felt \u201cas if we were the ones to have done something,\u201d Yasmin recalls.<\/p>\n
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