Increasing numbers of Latina women are going against their old customs by converting to Islam, a report by Womens E-News says.
Zainab Ismael, a Hispanic woman born in New York, stated, “as a Latina, you are raised, if you got it, to show it, to flaunt it as much as possible.” She now chooses to go against this social norm for a more conservative lifestyle in the Islam world. Ismael now barely shows any skin at all.
Islam has become increasingly popular among women in the United States, with female converts “increasing 9 percent since 2000.” The religion is also becoming popular among the Hispanic population as a whole, which accounted for 12 percent of all the new converts to the Islam in 2011.
The main draw Islam has for Hispanic women appears to be its views on gender equality. Many Latina women, who grow up in male-dominated families, are beginning to find the religion appealing due to its equal view of both sexes.
Many Latina women who have converted to Islam often find themselves fearing backlashes from their family and friends, but still place their new religion above all the problems that might come with it. Guadalupe Marcado, another Islam convert and member of the LGBT community, couldn’t have summed up her conversion any better saying “I am doing this for me and God.”
(Photo by Jarek Jarosz via Flickr)