Tuesday, September 30, 2008

visual advocacy

The United States is a country that is extremely diversified in culture, religion and race. Nowadays, in the United States, interracial relationships or marriages are quite common. Some individuals or groups are very skeptical about interracial relationships and how they could possibly work. My husband and I are a prime example of an interracial marriage, he is Arabic and I am Italian and Slovakian. The essential key roles to making one work are open mindedness and communication. From the very start of our relationship, we had been very open with each other about the similarities and differences, between our cultures and religions. We both respect each others religion and culture and intertwine them through our everyday life. The six photos I choose show the differences between us but they also represent how an interracial marriage is able to work.

The first photo I took represents our religions. My husband is a Muslim and I am a Roman Catholic. We each believe in one God and that prayer is a way of communicating to Him. A Muslim prays five times a day, facing the holy city of Mecca on an Islamic Prayer Rug. As a Roman Catholic, I pray before meals and at bedtime with an occasional reading from the Bible. The Holy Bible and Koran are the religious books of our religions. The construction of each is different; the Bible is made of the two Testaments while the Koran is the revelations to Prophet Muhammad from Allah.

The next slide represents the difference of our races. As anyone can see my husband’s skin color is a couple shades darker than mine. The color of our skins may not look that different but to others it as if mine is green and his is red. I chose to intertwine our hands to show our love, respect and devotion for each other and to symbolize that nothing or no one could come between us.





4 comments:

Hamza said...

This is a great project and topic. Being a Muslim myself, I understand the importance of diversity and being respectful and understanding of other people's religions, because a lot of times people misunderstand Islam and make judgments. I think its great that you and your husband can respect each others religions so much.

Great job!

mrezik said...

Like Hamza, I am also a Muslim and I too appreciate your project topic. Even in Dearborn, with one of the largest Muslim populations in the country, racism and prejudice affects us almost every day. It's great to see people like you who look past all of that and just see the person. Great topic.

*Fatma* said...

Interesting topic. My aunt is a muslim and she is married to a Cristian. They both get along well with each other. They put aside their differences just like you and your husband. It is nice to see people like this in our community.

nancysalem said...

This is a very important topic that unfortunately has not been accepted around the world yet. Living in america we are privleged to being surrounded with open-mindedness and respect for others. I'm glad you and your husband take advantage of that by keeping judgements of differences out of your relationship. Good job