About

About This Blog:

The purpose of this blog is to serve as my forum for sharing my views, rants, insights, questions, and thoughts on a variety of issues. I write about my own life, writing and the arts, Islamic/Muslim issues, social justice, immigration rights, support for women of color across the globe, indigenous rights, and many other things. This blog is to remain a safe place for discussion, polite debate, and sharing of information.

I hate labels, but since they seem to always be demanded, if you are looking for a way to define me you can start with

Muslim

Native American (Indian)

Militant/Radical

Multi-cultural

Mulit-lingual

Traditional

I will defy your stereotypes of any of those labels. I will challenge you to look at myself and others with an open mind and a criticism of everything you have been taught to assume. I will beg you to open your heart to the rest of the world and look upon us all as equal humans with the same basic needs, desires and dreams, but with the right to obtain them by our own methods. I will demand that you respect everyone on this site.

It is my personal goal to incite activism, dialogue, organizing, and collective work against the evils of privelage, racism, classism, and any other marginalizing of any group of people.

I can be reached directly at niqaabisister@yahoo.com.

About Me:

My name is Aaminah Hernández. I am a fiercely independent niqaabi American Muslim woman of Native American descent. I converted to Islam in 1998. I am a writer and I write about alot of things including Islamic subjects, Native American and immigration issues, and other social justice issues.

I currently work full-time in the office of small company that provides language and cultural resources (interpretation, written translation, education and consulting) to our local healthcare community.

I am a member of our local Health Literacy Task Force, and until February of 2007  also volunteered for two years in our local literacy coalition as a member of the governing Steering Committee and as a co-chair for the Adult Literacy subcommittee.

I am a 2006 graduate of United Way’s Project Blueprint and 2007 graduate of our local Chamber of Commerce’s 10-week Institute for Healing Racism Program. I am also a recent member of our local anti-racism initiative, Partners for a Racism-Free Community.

I am currently working on an Islamic/Native American themed novel, and my first poetry chapbook.

Besides all that, I am freelance writer and copyeditor, and also the editor of the online fiction blog Writeous Writings (currently inactive), and moderator of an online writing group, as well as co-moderator of the Islamic Artists Society e-group.

I am the proud mother of a pre-teen son, who I of course expect to follow in my overachieving footsteps and surpass me quickly! He has already written several small books in a series for his school’s publishing center, and is working on consolidating them and filling in gaps to create a novel. I also have three nephews and a neice (by my Muslim brother, who converted three years before I did) that I love to spoil as if they were my own.

To read more of my published work, please see the tab marked “My Writings” at the top of my blog for links to my on-line publications.

Writer’s Biography:

Aaminah Hernández is an American Muslim who converted in July 1998. She is a freelance writer out of Michigan, where she also works full time, is the mother of one, and is active in a variety of community activities, including racial justice, literacy, and health literacy work.

When a member of the Islamic Writers Alliance (IWA), she published a short story, poem and article in their first anthology, Many Voices, One Faith.  She also contributed a monthly columnist for the San Diego-based Muslim newspaper, Quest. She is a frequent contributor to the South African magazine The Straight Path/An Nisa and has also been published several times on IslamOnline.net as well as in Illuminations Magazine, The Muslim Weekly of London, and Rendering Islam.com. She is also an active Board member of the Islamic Artists Society  and the editor of a blog showcasing Muslim short fiction that is currently on hiatus while searching for new talent.