It was the best of drives, it was the worst of drives: a Muslim teen’s road trip tale, a guest post by Huda Fahmy

Growing up I had a love/hate relationship with road trips. On the one hand, I loved being on the open road, feeling the wind in my face–on the rare occasion I could feel the wind in my face because my dad used to say it was illegal to open windows while driving on highways. I loved singing whatever song my mom decided was appropriate for us to sing (hello many deliveries of Down by the Bay!). I loved being with my sisters even when we fought about who was breathing too loudly on whom. And I loved reaching our destination wherever that happened to be. On the other hand, I was a visibly Muslim teenage girl who wore hijab and cared way too much about what other people thought. Road trips brought excitement, but with that came embarrassment and fear.

Imagine having to get out at a rest stop and using the public bathroom to wash your hands, face, arms, and feet in preparation for the prayer you will then have to perform on the grass outside in full view of everyone who chose to stop at the rest stop that day. And you can’t even be discreet because it’s not just you, it’s you and your family of seven. You can imagine how unusual that likely looked to the unsuspecting folks who walked in to see us all lined up in in the bathroom with our feet in the sinks.

I mean, honestly, how did my mom expect me to concentrate on my prayers when everyone was watching? My eyes were supposed to be pointed down but instead they were darting around, looking for any hint of danger. And we didn’t pack prayer mats with us back then so when it came time for the sajdah, when my face had to be pressed to the ground, I was now worried about both people getting up in our business and bugs going up my nose.  

Road trips always tore me in two, because all that being said, I still loved being Muslim and I loved wearing the hijab. I found solace in knowing that even my struggles were counted as acts of worship.  And whenever we had to pray in public, my mom would always put it in perspective. She would say every spot that witnessed our prayers was going to speak on our behalf on the Day of Judgment. That Huda Fahmy pressed her face right here for her Creator. And that was pretty cool.

Looking back, it didn’t make all the anxiety, fear, and embarrassment go away like some magical incantation, but it helped me remember I wasn’t put here to please people. I lived my life for something Greater. It’s why I wanted to write Huda F Cares?

In Huda F Cares? Huda is a 15-year-old teenage Muslim girl who is excited to go to Disney World with her family. When her father reveals they’ll be driving there, Huda’s excitement drops. The drive from her hometown of Dearborn, MI to Orlando, FL would take a whopping 24 hours. She can’t imagine lasting that long in a car with her annoying sisters, but she chooses to focus on the destination. Disney World is going to make it all worth it! It’s not until the family stops at their first rest area that Huda comes to realize she’s more anxious and embarrassed about being visibly Muslim than she’d ever thought.  Even the idea of Disney World isn’t helping to ease her mind. When in Dearborn, she was able to blend in, but outside that bubble now, she’s going to stick out like a sore thumb, and she doesn’t know what to do. She asks herself the question I found myself constantly asking at the age, “I love being Muslim, but does that mean I have to love being different?”.

It’s an internal battle that we all grapple with. We’re trying to balance holding onto our identity and wanting to blend in with the mainstream. Mix that with road tripping in unfamiliar territory and it’s a recipe for one wearing journey. It’s easy to see now that those detours and stops shaped my experiences the most. While uncomfortable at the time, I can look back knowing they left me feeling stronger about myself and what I believe in.

I wonder if my parents knew. Did they know just how much about myself I would learn on these road trips? Because how could they know that I would only come to that self-discovery because I was forced out of my comfort zone? That with every taxing road trip—and there were so many—I’d learn more about the strength of my conviction and depth of my faith? How did they know that because I was forced to confront the gaze of others I would come to realize that my value did not decrease based on other people’s inability to see my worth.

Yes, being different means standing out—and if I thought standing out at rest stops was bad, Disney World was a whole other story—and yes standing out means you’re going to be uncomfortable, but it also means you’re going to have something other people don’t.  You’re going to develop a distinct voice that comes from a unique perspective, and it’ll give you a chance to inspire and educate people around you. For me? As cliché as it sounds, I learned it wasn’t about fitting in or standing out but being true to myself and embracing the journey. After all, as Dave Mitchell put it, “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”

Meet the author

Huda Fahmy is an author and illustrator most known for her webcomic Yes, I’m Hot in This and her graphic novel Huda F Are You?. Huda grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, and has loved comics since she was a kid. She attended the University of Michigan where she majored in English. She taught English to middle and high schoolers for eight years before she started writing about her experiences as a visibly Muslim woman in America and was encouraged by her older sister to turn these stories into comics. Huda, her husband Gehad, and their children reside in Houston, Texas.

website: www.hudafahmy.com

IG: instagram.com/yesimhotinthis

Facebook: facebook.com/yesimhotinthis

TikTok: @yesimhotinthistiktok

About Huda F Cares?

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature

In this laugh-out-loud funny sequel to the graphic novel Huda F Are You?, the Fahmys are off to Disney World, but self-conscious Huda worries her family will stand out too much.

Huda and her sisters can’t believe it when her parents announce that they’re actually taking a vacation this summer . . . to DISNEY WORLD! But it’s not quite as perfect as it seems. First Huda has to survive a 24-hour road trip from Michigan to Florida, with her sisters annoying her all the way. And then she can’t help but notice the people staring at her and her family when they pray in public. Back home in Dearborn she and her family blend right in because there are so many other Muslim families, but not so much in Florida and along the way.

It’s a vacation of forced (but unexpectedly successful?) sisterly bonding, a complicated new friendship, a bit more independence, and some mixed feelings about her family’s public prayers. Huda is proud of her religion and who she is, but she still sure wishes she didn’t care so much what other people thought.

ISBN-13: 9780593532799
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date: 10/10/2023
Age Range: 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post