Fatima and her Muslim girlfriends dwell in a world of exquisite subtlety in which modesty is the operative word. Fatin recently dyed her black hair auburn. "Everyone asks me why, because nobody sees it," she said. "But I like to look at myself."
Fatima, who will attend the University of California at Berkeley in the fall, is one of a growing number of young Muslim women who have elected to adopt the covering their mothers rejected. Islamic dress, worn after puberty, often accompanies a commitment not to date or engage in activities where genders intermingle. Her mother, Shazia, who has a master's degree in economics, does not wear the hijab.
Fatima's decision to cover herself, which she did freshman year, was nuanced and thoughtful.
"I noticed a big difference in the way guys talked," she recalled. "They were afraid. I guess they had more respect. You walked down the street and you didn't feel guys staring at you. You felt a lot more confident." Her parents were shocked but said it was her decision.
Fatima has faced some post 9/11 taunts. "They call you terrorist, or raghead because high school students are immature," she explained. But she and her friends say Muslim boys, unidentified by dress, may have a tougher time.
"The scarf draws the line," said Fatin, the daughter of a Singaporean mother and Indonesian father who often finishes her friend Fatima's sentences. "It's already a shield. Without it everything comes to you and you have to fight it yourself."
Fatima and her friends attend the academically elite International Baccalaureate Program at a public high school, where, as their friend Morgan Parker, 17, put it, "the jocks are the nerds." But the social pressures, especially in less cloistered settings, can be intense.
"I felt left out, big-time," said Saira Lara, 17, a senior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto of her school prom, looking dazzling in a flowing maroon gown. But she gets a vicarious taste of dating by talking with her non-Muslim friends.
"The drama that goes on! The Valentines Day without a phone call or a box of chocolates!"
Imran Khan, 17, a senior at Los Altos High School, admits that his school's prom was not easy.
"When I told my friends I wasn't going they all said "are you crazy?"' he said in a phone interview. "Prom is a you-have-to-go kind of thing. Obviously if all your friends are going you're not you're going to feel something. That day I was, `Oh man, my friends are having fun and I'm not.' But I don't regret not going."
Most of Imran's school friends are not Muslim, and his Muslim friends are scattered across the Bay area.
"A lot of times it's difficult," he said. "We guys blend in so you can't tell we're Muslim. We're not supposed to touch the opposite gender. My friends who are girls understand, but when other girls want to hug you or shake your hand, it's hard. I don't want them to think I'm a jerk or something."
Adeel Iqbal, 18, a senior at Bellarmine College Preparatory, an all-male Catholic school in San Jose, went to his co-ed senior prom stag. Adeel decided to go both in his official capacity as student body president and as a representative of his Muslim beliefs.
"Every day we're bombarded with images of sex and partying and getting drunk, in music and on TV, so of course there's a curiosity," he said. "When you see your own peers engaging in these activities, it's kind of weird. It takes a lot of strength to not participate. But that's how I've been raised. When your peers see you're different in a positive way, they respect it."
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