Moorpark Native Works for Humanitarian Issues in Dubai

Leena Barakat and I grew up together in Moorpark. We had classes together throughout elementary and middle school, played tennis together in high school, and were both getting ready for our eighth-grade school picture when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were carried out.

Barakat, who is Muslim, didn't initially think she'd face any discrimination after the attacks—partly, she said, because Moorpark was such a tolerant town.

"Growing up in a middle-upper class suburb like Moorpark, I was always around a diversity of races, ethnicities and faiths," Barakat said. "I was just as American as anyone else in my class. We all went to the same school, listened to the same music, watched the same movies and played for AYSO together. So if I was treated differently by any person, my first instinct was never 'It's because I’m Muslim or Palestinian.'"

Although Barakat had heard stories of other Muslims being the victims of hate crimes, she didn't experience it first-hand while she was living in Moorpark.

"Of course, things changed drastically as the years went on and I became more aware of the ‘real world’ we live in," Barakat said. "I became very socially conscious of the fear-mongering, misrepresentation of Islam and its Muslims, and the modern day Islamophobia that the Bush administration had succeeded so well in fostering.”

She said Muslims’ lives were never the same after that.

“We were taking the blame for something we, our faith, had nothing to do with," Barakat said, adding she liked to intervene whenever she'd hear an ignorant comment made by someone who misunderstood her faith.

"I think as an Muslim-American, talking to people on a personal basis helped them to understand that we’re not as 'bad' and 'scary' as they thought," Barakat said.

At the age of 16, Barakat decided to start wearing a hijab (head scarf), in part because she felt she had "a responsibility to represent Islam in a more positive and accurate light" in the post-9/11 years.

According to Barakat, "I became more involved in my community, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and tried to show that Islam and America are not (and have never been) mutually exclusive entities."

Barakat points to her upbringing as helping foster this sense of responsibility.

"My parents were brilliant in teaching me at a young age to think not just locally, but globally—not just for the benefit of yourself, but for the benefit of others and the common good," she said.

Barakat, who received her bachelor's degree in international relations from UC San Diego, has become very involved with the Palestinian freedom movement after spending a summer studying in the West Bank.

"I saw enough for me to realize the value of my own privileges as an American citizen," she said. "Who was I to witness the daily injustices that occurred in Palestine and not come back and do something about it? Why can’t I use my privileges to their benefit and be a voice for the voiceless?”

She said that’s when she stopped seeing this as a "Palestinian issue/movement" but rather a humanitarian one.

Although Barakat currently lives in Dubai with her husband, she plans on returning to the United States to raise her family.

"I wouldn’t live anywhere other than the U.S.," she said. "The kind of freedoms, privileges and opportunities we are born with is something that is not to be taken for granted and should not go to waste. I was born in America, and my kids will be born in this country because it's home. I only hope they don’t waste the privileges given to them, but instead use them to help those who are less fortunate and underprivileged."

As far as Barakat's personal goals for the future, she said, "I hope to continue to work, as my parents taught me—as the underprivileged deserve—for the betterment of all humankind."