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As a South Asian Muslim woman with a disability, labels are not new to me. My identity is summed up for me by others every day, no matter where I go: sometimes I am a young woman, sometimes I am “brown,” sometimes I am a member of a “terrorist” religion, sometimes I am just a wheelchair.
Labelled
It is not easy to accept being reduced to three or four labels when you are trying to be the best that you can be—especially when those labels conjure images of helplessness or scary otherness in people’s minds. Where are my ambitions, my hopes, and my skills in those labels? My experiences, my successes, my personality?