Item Details

coverage

Winston-Salem (N.C.)

creator

Simmonds, Andrea

Namak, Dalia

date

2019-11-07T14:39:41Z

2019-11-07T14:39:41Z

2017-11-30

2019-11-07 (issued)

description

Dalia Namak is a Junior at Wake Forest University majoring in Anthropology and Political Science and is the current President of the Muslim Student Association. In this oral history, Namak explains how Islam gives her an understanding of what a good life is and informs her basic values of being a good person. Her decision to attend Wake was not related to her religious beliefs but in a desire to stay close to home as a Winston-Salem resident. Namak says that her decision to not wear a veil deeply impacts her perception of being muslim at Wake because she is treated no differently than other students; she mentions that she was wearing her veil to Friday prayers once and was nervous about how people would treat her because she would appear more visibly muslim. Namak explains how she first got involved in the MSA during high school in a desire to reach out to more Muslims in the area, and the different organizations she's involved in on campus, but repeats that not all Muslims have the same experiences on campus because they all come from different backgrounds and approach their faith in different ways. She urges the university to more widely bring Halal food to campus and to provide prayer spaces that are cleaned and maintained to a certain standard, as well as promote muslims and their events (major holidays, MSA events) in a more positive light. While Namak's experience on campus has been mostly positive from an external standpoint, she still struggles internally with the role her identity can play in classroom environments.

790A Knowledge Dispels Fear: Islam and Islamophobia: Student Interview Project

Faculty director: Dr. Joshua Canzona, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Part-Time Assistant Teaching Professor of Theology, School of Divinity (Wake Forest University)

format

audio/mp3

0:37:20

oral histories

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/95588

language

English

relation

Special Collections and Archives

Z. Smith Reynolds Library

Wake Forest University

History of Wake Forest University Oral Histories (RG53.1)

rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Rights Statement

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subject

Muslim college students

Wake Forest University

Islam

title

Namak, Dalia oral history and interview

type

sound