http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1529
When Beatriz Kehdy was growing up in Sao Paulo, Brazil, she felt uncomfortable with the standards of beauty that she says were a part of the culture in which she was raised. An emphasis on external beauty and the body, she says, became increasingly foreign to her own personal values.
Kehdy moved to New York City almost 10 years ago and eventually discovered a sense of place in Islam and in the hijab, or headscarf worn by http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3323 in the faith. “When I wear the hijab, I feel more respected, people talk to me with respect,” she said.
The now 27-year-old architect converted from http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2635 four years ago, but didn’t tell her family until a few years later, in a letter.
“When I started wearing the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2993."
Kehdy is one of many Latin American women in the U.S. who have embraced the Islamic faith. The American Muslim Council, based in Chicago, estimates that there are more than 200,000 Latino Muslims in the United States. Women make up 60 percent of conversions to Islam, according to experts.
Mosques around the country have begun to offer special classes where women converts can learn about Islam. The North Hudson Islamic Educational Center, in Union City, N.J., offers both English and Spanish Language classes. Mariam Abassi, vice president of the Da’wah (outreach) program at the center, said about 500 members of the center are http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1505 converts. There are between 4,000 and 5,000 members in total.Many Latinas choose to accept Islam because they marry Muslims. Others convert when they’re single, often because they feel unfulfilled by the religion in which they were raised. For a large number of Latinas, that faith is Catholicism.
“Some of them really have doubt about the Trinity,” a central belief in Catholicism that says God exists in three beings, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; said Chernor Sa’ad Jallah, assistant Imam at the Islamic Cultural Center, in East Harlem, the largest mosque in New York City. “They find it really confusing,” In his community of about 1,500 people, between 10 and 15 percent are Latinos. Some said they were uncomfortable making confessions to a priest and feeling as though they had no direct relationship with God.
“I was raised as a Catholic but I didn’t like it. I felt this emptiness,” said Mayeline Turbides, who lives in West New York, N.J.” I was never convinced.” She took the name Leila after she became a Muslim.
Before discovering Islam, Turbides had explored evangelical http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3733. I got drunk 500 times,” Turbides said in Spanish. “But nothing made sense. I wanted rules.”
When it comes to assimilating to a new faith, Islam appeals to Catholic Latinas for several reasons. “There are many similarities between Catholicism and Islam,” said Ibrahim Hooper, Communications Director and spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C. “Both have principles that need to be followed, regarding how you conduct yourself as person, how you operate in a community.”
Others find a new religion to be an escape from the confines of machismo, or chauvinism.
“I feel more protected,” Turbides said. “Men used to shout things at me when I was walking down the street. They would honk their horns. When I wear the hijab, nobody says anything.”
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/03/latinos-converting-to-islam.html