The issue of who shows up in the curriculum is a very live debate in Florida today, where there is legislation that limits history and civics curricula in public schools. I went to elementary and high school in overwhelmingly white suburbs and anticipated college as an opportunity to figure out what was missing from my educational experience.

When President Joe Biden called Pakistan “one of the most dangerous nations in the world,” the irony felt painful. For so many Muslims in America and around the globe, the United States has spent the last two decades proving itself to us to be the most dangerous nation in the world.

The last time my family watched July 4 fireworks, we spread a blanket out in Washington Crossing Park, the site of George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War. Our little ones, then 4 and 6, stayed up far past bedtime. That was when Donald Trump was campaigning on the promise of banning people trying to enter the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries.

We hadn’t understood that all of DuPage County is believed to have been a sundown county—a place where a Black person ought not be caught when the sun set, or they could expect to be violently run out, or even killed. It’s unsettling to find that so many of the places made all-White through violence remain overwhelmingly White today, as if the threat still hangs in the air and in the culture.

Recent studies and surveys by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) tell us our concerns were justified. ISPU has been a boon to American Muslims, who had previously lacked good data about themselves, helping us see more clearly how we’re faring.