Does My Head Look Big In This?

Amal, a 16-year-old “Australian-Muslim-Palestinian” (4), decides to start wearing a hijab full time. She used to be one of the “part-timers,” those who “wear the hijab as part of our uniform at an Islamic school or when we go to the mosque or maybe even when we’re having a bad hair day” (2).

Her father is a doctor and her mother is a dentist, and they have recently moved to Camberwell, a part of Melbourne, Australia with “beautiful tree-lined streets, Federation homes, manicured front lawns and winding driveways” (4). As opposed to their earlier home (in Donvale, whose population was a mix of ethnicities), in Camberwell “everybody pretty much keeps to themselves” (4), and the population is mostly white Christians. Amal has a good relationship with both of her parents. She shops with her mom and can confide in her, and she can also manipulate her father into allowing her to watch Sex in the City by embarrassing him (“I just need to hint that I’m experiencing ‘cramps’ or a ‘girl problem’ and I can get my way” (3)).