In the short film Hijabi World, Rutgers University students—specifically, Muslim women who observe hijab—talk about the day-to-day challenges of wearing a headscarf. “Sometimes you itch in your own skin,” says one woman named Halima. These are the heartening testimonies of a handful of Muslim women about why they decided to wear the scarf and how it impacts their lives and religiosity.

This film appears in the third issue of Newest Americans, a collaboration between Rutgers University-Newark, Talking Eyes, and VII Photo centered around America’s changing demographics. More information can be found on the Facebook page and Twitter account. This short film is part of an ongoing series on The Atlantic from Talking Eyes Media about movement, location, and identity called State of Migration.

The New York Times recently published a “guide” to Muslim headscarves. The article intended to illuminate an Islamic concept that promotes modesty, but the associated images showed styles specific to a few countries and all of the silhouettes were faceless. These types of portrayals can contribute to a misperception among some that Muslim women who don the headscarf may lack agency.

In today’s political climate, the headscarf has become more than just a spiritual symbol of modesty. At one point, women working in government positions were not allowed to wear it in Turkey. In France, the niqab — a version of the headscarf that covers the face — is banned. In the field of counterterrorism, some view the headscarf as a manifestation of extremism. And as the number of Islamophobic attacks continues to rise in the United States so, too, does the fear among Muslim women, especially those who wear hijab, that they’ll be victims of violence.

In light of this, The Huffington Post asked women from all over the Internet to show just how beautifully diverse the hijab can be using the hashtag #HijabToMe. By showing the many different ways women choose to tie their hijab and the various meanings it takes for them, we hope to offer readers a glimpse into the diversity of Muslim women who don the headscarf. Muslim women were asked to post a picture of themselves along with a brief description of what wearing the hijab means to them.

Source: The Atlantic