Trust?

Muslims. America. Muslims in America. Muslim-Americans.

On edge. We are always on edge. Terrified.

Guarded. Suspicious. Watched. Surveillance.

Questions. Always asked questions.

Who do you know?

What do you know?

How do you know?

Where do they live?

Why do you know?

F.B.I. Police Task Force. Spying. Probing. Wire tapping. Shredding our mail.

The knock on the door. Not a knock. Earth Shattering. Splintering. Door no more.

Always the middle of the night. Wife screaming. Baby crying.

Two children hiding in the closet. What will I tell them this time?

I go to mosque. Any more so many strangers to me.

Who is sitting next to me in my house of worship?

Friend? Enemy? Informant? Undercover agent?

You. Are you a terrorist?

How frightened and scared I am. We all are.

How strange this land is. America. Land of the free?

My confusion runs rampant.

Like you and you and you I too was born here.

Third generation Muslim-American.

Great Grandparents. Legal immigrants. From Iraq. A land you hate.

Yet I know not why? Have you ever visited such a bountiful land?

Your fears. Your ignorance. They have spoiled your beauty.

They have spoiled the beauty of our country.

Such uniqueness. This land of opportunity.

Sadly you allow your history to repeat itself.

Native Americans. Slaves. Women. Minorities. Interracial marriages. Homosexuality.

Muslim-Americans. Anyone you deem unlike you.

How many lives will you displace? Destroy?

Do you pay such a price for your ethnicity? Your ancestry?

I want to believe what I learned in school.

Life. Liberty. Equality. Justice. For all.

In college though I learned about you.

You must decide which I am to believe. And trust. America.

Your actions. Your words. They scare me. They scare us.

All I want. All we want. Is to live in peace!

*Inspired from the episode The Convert from This American Life