If America is going to embrace its Muslim community, it needs to go beyond categories, beyond groups  — beyond stereotypes.

The first blow came as a surprise, though it shouldn’t have. It was the height of the Tehran hostage crisis, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days between 1979 and 1981. I never wore a hijab to my almost-entirely-white middle school in Cupertino, California, but surely the kids in the neighborhood had seen me on the weekends when I went to Islamic school to learn Arabic and read the Quran in a traditional shalwar kameez outfit, my head covered.

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