Jabin Ahmed

Jabin Ahmed

When she came to Hudson: 23 years ago.

What she’s reading now: The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy

Family intervention specialist at Warren Street Academy, Hudson

Co-founder, Hudson Muslim Youth

 An Immigrant’s Journey

“My parents moved here literally overnight,” Jabin says, describing her transition. Her family moved from Sylhet, Bangladesh to a Bangladeshi community in New York City where Jabin was born. Then word spread that there were jobs available at a button factory outside Hudson. “When we moved here we were the only family in Hudson. Everyone else here, they were bachelors.”

Life as part of a minority in Hudson felt easy in those early years. “The atmosphere was just how I thought it should be. I had nothing to compare it to since I never lived anywhere else, but it felt safe, it felt good. I was about 8 turning 9 at 9/11. I was in Bangladesh at that moment so when everything was showing on TV I didn’t know what bombs were at the time and I didn’t really understand the tall buildings of New York City. So my first reaction was that the Bliss Towers were torn down.”

After 9/11 Jabin immediately felt a change in how she and people in her Bangladeshi community were perceived. “As soon as I came back it was like racial slurs being thrown out and I was confused because I’d never had to deal with that.” Fear and a sense of vulnerability spread in her community and at school, Jabin experienced so much bullying that she sometimes refused to go to school, which in turn caused her grades to slip. As the state of high alert after 9/11 subsided, the bullying at school gradually reduced and Jabin developed some coping skills. By middle school she found support from some of her teachers but there was always a feeling of isolation since there were still few other Bangladeshi kids in school.

 A Religious Awakening

Jabin chose to start wearing a head covering in 9th Grade and this made her more visible as a Muslim. “My mom and dad never told me to wear hijab, in fact they discouraged me from wearing it because they thought it would bring on more bullying or bring on more violence for me. Also they were fearful and concerned about the criticism I might face in the Muslim community.”

Jabin explains the contradictions regarding this choice among American Muslims. “It is very difficult to explain. Muslim women who wear hijab in America struggle to be accepted by American society, because now you are different, but they also struggle to fit in as regular Muslims…because when you put the hijab on people assume that you are more religious and spiritual and they have this communal expectation that you’re now the ambassador of the religion. So everything you do is heightened and hyper-criticized. So if I were to curse while wearing hijab it’s very different than if I am not wearing hijab. And so my parents, especially my mom, was scared that it might bring on more criticism, and make things more difficult for me.”

 As the family traveled back to Bangladesh for 12 to 18 months at a time, Jabin was able to maintain her fluency in Bengali language and culture. Each time she returned to Hudson the Muslim community had grown. There were many more Bangladeshi children but it was a challenge to maintain friendships with so much back and forth travel. Her town in Bangladesh was also changing as outsiders came to buy houses and plots of undeveloped land and just as in Hudson, some locals who were still living without electricity or generators or running water felt displaced. The sharp divide between cultures became clear every time Jabin traveled: in the United States she had a cell phone, but in Bangladesh many relatives did not have indoor bathrooms. And yet, when she returned to America and its 21st century comforts, the memories of playing outside and finding low-tech ways to self-entertain became beautiful memories.

As Jabin grew older, she felt a need to understand Islam in a deeper way. “This is a phenomenon in many Muslim communities, that you study the Koran but you don’t ‘embody’ it. I attended a summer program called ALIM, the American Learning Institute for Muslims, in Michigan, for a month before college. I begged my mom to go because it looked like an amazing program and there were Muslims from all over the country there. And that’s when I learned how to have discussions about faith, and I learned how to be passionate about faith. I understood the meaning behind what I did, the intention behind it. I felt like I was learning a new Islam.”

“My whole life I thought Islam was very strict and religion was very strict: do good or you get punished. I’d never learned the mercy part of religion or the spiritual aspect of it. I think that’s when I began to see myself as more of a social person, someone who needs to make change in the community. There are cultural practices that are preventing people from seeing the broader aspects of Islam. I’d learned an Islam where women walked behind men, I’d learned an Islam where women were supposed to listen to men and their lives were controlled by men, but when I went to ALIM I learned about women who fought in war, who were teachers and major scholars in Islam, who didn’t walk behind men, who actually led the men, and it was very eye-opening to see a different Islam outside of culture. And I think that transformed me and made it easier for me to accept my faith in an Islamophobic country.”

She felt more relaxed around her family and friends, and more open. But her new understanding of her faith also motivated a wish for independence as an adult woman.

“For most South Asian countries, your parents and your elders are put on a pedestal like they are God. And if God says that you have to love your parents no matter what and you have to give them everything, your whole life to them, and their happiness is your happiness, it just made very little sense to me. I was trying to do it but it was never possible to achieve. And then I learned that in Islam your parents have rights over you but you also have rights over your parents and it’s a balance.”

Jabin opted for a traditional arranged marriage but she wanted to be with someone who would respect her independence and be a friend and partner. After several proposals, a family friend suggested the man who became her husband. “I really liked his family. They were very forward thinking. His dad was a political leader and both sisters studied abroad. His family is from Bangladesh but he was studying in London. Just seeing the family structure, how liberal they were, how progressive they were, that was very attractive. They were religious but not culturally conservative. Marriage for me was difficult because I thought I would have to give up my career, that I’d have to become a stay-at-home mom. This is a beautiful thing, but for me that was the biggest fear: that I would have to do that instead of choosing.” While she and her husband had planned to have children of their own, they have experienced fertility challenges and hope to adopt through foster parenting.

Working with At-Risk Youth

Jabin currently works as a family intervention specialist at Warren Street Academy, an alternative school for at-risk youth with behavioral and emotional issues. The Academy serves 50 students from different districts, including Hudson, Catskill, Greenville, Albany, Troy, Cairo, and Taconic Hills. Jabin’s position is made possible by a five-year grant through the Galvan Foundation.

“I reach out to the community to find them resources and opportunities to help them feel like they are part of the community but also to make sure they have the things they need to strive in school. A lot of times at-risk youth are at risk because their families need help, so my job is to make sure their families have support and the communication they need to feel they belong. As a recent graduate and someone looking to stay in the community and do work in the community, this job really feels like home. It does get stressful, I’m not going to lie, but there’s a lot of benefit at the end of the day to see the difference you’ve made and I really enjoy that.”

 In addition to her work at the Academy, Jabin co-founded Hudson Muslim Youth with Atia Begh in 2016 after identifying a lack of resources for young Muslims in the community.

“Our goals are to address internalized Islamophobia, Islamophobia in the community, and to create resources for women and youth in faith spaces and community spaces in Hudson.” Jabin hopes that this organization can become a valuable resource for the entire Muslim community in Hudson and initiate interfaith collaborations and youth organizing.

A Muslim and an American

“Although I am very passionate about my Bangladeshi heritage I think one of the difficulties I have is being Muslim-American, because after 9/11 the media told us that you couldn’t be a Muslim-American. You were either Muslim or American but you couldn’t be both.”

Jabin still struggles with this duality, which is especially difficult when her identity as a Muslim is visible. “I’ve wondered…am I not getting the job because I wear hijab, because I am Muslim? Or if I am in a meeting, am I not getting the role I want because of my religion, because I am a person of color, because I am a woman, because I am Muslim? Am I not seen because of who I am, or am I too seen? I think some people only see the hijab. They assume I am a suppressed, shy, very introverted person who is not able to speak for herself.”

Some of the challenges Jabin faces have to do with how women feel in any male-dominated religion or space. The current Islamic Center has no space for women to pray, but Jabin feels that there are other ways to create a sense of belonging for Muslim women who traditionally pray at home. Jabin emphasizes that while the new mosque will have space for women, she hopes that there will also be programming and events and services available for women.

“When you are a minority in a country and you don’t have a space to learn about faith and to practice openly it becomes increasingly difficult to believe in God and follow prayers and to feel like you belong somewhere. That really does affect your ability to stay a Muslim or practice Islam the way you would like to.”

Even in the current political climate, Jabin feels that there is more support for the Muslim community as a whole. There are better services for non English-speaking Bangladeshi residents, but there is room for improvement. She hopes that young people in her community will engage in further community building without hesitating.

“Just jump in,” Jabin says. “Don’t be scared to try something new. Your story and your voice matter.”