Chapter 13: Bangladesh

Rina is part of a Muslim family from Bangladesh. Although her two boys were born in the U.S., she and her husband tried to bring them up in the Bangladeshi Bengali culture with Islamic beliefs. One day around 3:00 p.m., the phone rang in Rina’s apartment. She ran to answer the call. Surprisingly, the phone call was from the principal of her boys’ school. The principal politely greeted her and then informed her that an incident had taken place with one of her sons that day. Toward the end of rehearsal for a school concert, in the middle of a song that the students were practicing, one of her boys had refused to sing two sentences of the song where he had to utter repetitively, “Jesus is our God and He is our Lord.” He stopped singing and told the teacher, “As a Muslim, I believe Jesus is one of our prophets, but not our God!” The principal told Rina, “The school has organized many events with the participation of immigrant children from different ethnic groups and religious beliefs. Students have been performing this song for the past couple of years. Nobody has ever had any objection to this verse before, so we never thought of changing the song.” Rina felt very thankful to the school as they con-Views From Inside: Languages, Cultures, and Schooling for K–12 Educators pp. 217–227 sciously informed her about the incident and apologized for creating discomfort for her son. After completing the conversation with the principal, she had to sit down and rest for a minute as her heart sank. She felt helpless and wondered how she could help her kids to learn how to negotiate diverse American cultural identities, perspectives, and situations.