Source: Huffington Post
A few days after Riyadh Mohammed arrived in America in 2011, an acquaintance pulled him aside and told him, “You might be offended by what I say, but I’m giving you this advice to help you.’”
The advice given was this: Don’t use Mohammed in your legal name in the United States.
Mohammed is an Iraqi-American investigative journalist who came to the United States as a refugee. He had used the name “Riyadh Mohammed” as his byline since 2008, and was hesitant about changing it.
But looking back years later, Mohammed says he wishes he had taken the friend’s advice.
“If it was up to me, I would have never kept that name, because of all the complications,” Mohammed said. “It’s affected my dating life, my possibilities of finding an apartment, my career, everything.”
Categories: America, Islamophobia, The Muslim Times, USA