Mona Haydar
Mona Haydar (born 18 May 1988) is a Syrian-American rapper, poet, activist, and chaplain. Her EP is Barbarican (2018), and she is best known for her viral song "Hijabi (Wrap My Hijab)," a protest song. Early life and education Haydar was raised, along with her seven siblings, in Flint, Michigan. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Damascus, Syria, in 1971. At 14 years old, Haydar began performing spoken word poetry in Flint at open mics and poetry shows downtown. There she developed her act and was taught to use poetry as a way to tell stories she felt were largely ignored or intentionally skewed by the mainstream media. Haydar was mentored by the majority Black artist community in Flint who taught her to use her voice as a way to heal white supremacy and tell true stories. One such mentor was Dr. Traci Currie, then, a professor at the University of Michigan - Flint. In 2011, after graduating from the University of Michigan - Flint, Haydar left the US and studied at Jami' Abu-Noor in Damascus, Syria. When the Syrian conflict erupted, Haydar's studies in Islamic spirituality were cut short and she moved back to Flint. Haydar has a master's degree in Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary. In 2012, Haydar left Flint where she had been working as a substitute teacher and moved off grid to an inter-spiritual community and retreat center called Lama Foundation. There she met and married her husband, Sebastian. Early career In 2015, Haydar and her husband, Sebastian, set up a stand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, inviting people to “Talk to a Muslim,” offering them coffee, donuts, and flowers as a means to “replace trauma with love.” Haydar gained an audience after her social media post about their project went viral, and it helped her reach an international audience. Her music and show, The Great Muslim American Road Trip, is a continuation of that work. Career Haydar is the co-host of the PBS show "The Great Muslim American Road Trip" which aired in July 2022. The show follows Mona and her husband Sebastian "on a cross-country journey along historic Route 66. As they meet new friends and explore more than a dozen stops, Mona and Sebastian weave a colorful story about what it means to be Muslim in America today." The couple spent weeks on the road meeting people all along Route 66 to hear the story of Muslims in America starting from the earliest stories (pre-USA) like that of Mustafa Azzemmouri, a Moroccan enslaved by the Spanish and forcibly brought to North America, with the Conquistadors as a navigator and skilled linguist as well as the stories of the enslaved West-African-Muslims who were sold into chattel slavery in the early US history. The show highlights these historical stories as well as modern stories of Muslims in the now US. In 2016, at 6 months pregnant with her second child, Haydar was at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, taking a stand with the native