Hello. Assalamualaikum. Bonjour. Konichiwa. Namaste. Ni-hao. Hola.

These words are all greetings, in different languages, from different cultures. All these cultures have histories behind them, beautiful rich histories, and it's extremely offensive if you negate them.

Growing a Muslim-Pakistani in Canada, I was exposed to a wide range of cultures and races from a very young age. And though Canada is a very accepting and multicultural community, sometimes people forgot. Or they didn't respect my background. Or they would come up to me and say something so uneducated that it hurt.

Many times in my life has a white person walked up to me and said, 'Hey, do you speak Pakistani?'

In our school, almost 50% or more of the students were Pakistani, Indian, Asian, Egyptian or Somali. You would think someone would try to learn a little bit about us.

The white kids would sometimes make such rude and stereotypical jokes, and my friends and I would try to laugh them off, but you couldn't deny that at sometimes I would wish I was just a normal white child.

I remember asking my parents not to speak in Urdu in front of my friends, refusing to wear kurtas or any other Pakistani piece of clothing to school, asking my mother not to make kebabs and parathas for lunch.

I was ashamed of who I was. And that never should have happened.

The only thing people like me can do to stop this self-shame and racism is to educate ourselves and to educate others as well.

When my family first moved to Pakistan, I refused to learn Urdu because I wanted to flaunt the fact that I was from Canada in front of the other children. Now, studying Pakistan Studies for my O Levels I am awed by the amazing history of my people.

And I want everyone to be in awe of it as well.

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First off, I'd like to address the Muslim stereotypes.

The biggest and most incorrect stereotypes are:

1. THE PERFECT PRACTISING MUSLIM

In every Wattpad story I've read, I found that every Muslim character was an perfect practising Muslim, who followed the religion completely and was a symbol of angelic morals.

No,no,no,no.

No one is perfect. That's what Islam tells us itself. Islam maybe the perfect religion for a good life in this world, but that in no way means that Muslims are perfect.

There are weeks in between where I do not offer a single prayer, I don't always fast, I swear, I backbite, I lie. That's because I'm human and Muslims are human and humans make mistakes. Humans aren't ever perfect.

Didn't y'all watch Hannah Montana as a kid?

When I read Afflicted by falloutdiscos, I was so delighted to find that Maha, even though she was a Muslim, had given up on so many parts of her religion. She was a sinner. And I loved that.

So many girls that I knew who wore hijabs had boyfriends. So many more girls, including me, don't ever wear hijabs. Even more disregard Islam, in more ways than possible.

So if you are writing about a Muslim girl, she doesn't straight off have to be wearing a hijab, originating from Saudi Arabia, praying five times a day, not drinking, or the new Virgin Mary.

There are Muslims in so many countries like, India, China, Somalia, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Lebanon, etc.

And each one of these countries has a special community, and background, which gives each person a completely different outlook on life.

So please, do some research, talk to some friends or ask someone, before you write out another stereotype.

2. THE KID WHOSE FAMILY BEATS HIM/HER

One huge misconception about both Muslims, and Pakistanis too, is that in family life, parents are physically abusive, and strict in many other ways too.

This isn't true. At all.

Sure, my parents are strict, they don't let me go out too late, and I always have to get good grades at school. But that doesn't mean they beat you.

Okay, I got smacked one time when I was six for stealing some chocolate and then getting lost for three hours at Ikea, but that was for a whole other reason altogether.

Some parents are very liberal, and let their kids do absolutely whatever they want, and others are very conservative, especially towards girls, but that doesn't mean there is no middle ground.

Ask yourself a question first. Why would a parent beat a child? When you come back with an answer for that, you realize there is NO LOGICAL REASON. So then why would a loving, caring parent follow you around with a baseball bat in hand?

If you'd like to write about a character who is physically abused, do some research. Because the same mom who drives you to school and makes cupcakes and cookies everyday will not usually beat you.

3. THE EXTREMIST MUSLIM

OKAY, I KNOW THERE ARE A LOT OF TERRORIST GROUPS OUT THERE, AND THAT MOST OF THEM ARE MUSLIM, AND THAT PROBABLY TERRIFIES YOU, WELL GUESS WHAT?

IT TERRIFIES ME TOO.

No ten year old Muslim child wakes up in the morning with ambitions to destroy America or Christianity. Can I take this time to tell you that Islam is a very accepting and very gentle religion? These terrorists are most probably people who have terrible misconceptions due to illiteracy or personal vendettas.

THEY ARE NOT NORMAL. OKAY?

Sure if you want to write a story about some kid becoming an extremist, no problemo, but DO YOUR RESEARCH. This kind of stuff doesn't happen to just any normal person living in a comfortable environment with absolutely no aversion to other races or religions.

Also, not everyone follows Islam in EACH and EVERY little part of their life. I read this story once, where a father wouldn't let his daughter walk on the same sidewalk as a men did, and it was SO RIDICULOUS.

Yeah, when I go to the supermarket, I have to check the ingredients of what I buy, and that I'm not allowed to eat pork, or that there are a lot of soaps and shampoos I can't use because they contain animal fats.

But that does not mean that I will not drive in the same lane as a man is driving or that I can't speak to a man who is not my brother or father.

There are exceptional cases where stuff like this happens, but that's just what they are : EXCEPTIONAL.

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Secondly I'd like to tell you humans a bit about us Pakistanis, and just a bit about the Indians as well.

Pakistan and India have a long long long long long history, and that history shapes the society nowadays much more than you could ever think.

Pakistan itself is a huge cultural mixing pot. Throughout history, people from all over Asia,Europe and Africa came to the subcontinent.

There were the Mongols, the Afghans, the Chinese, the Moors of North Africa, the Dravidian race, the Arabs, the British,French and the Portuguese and so many more.

Pakistan can also be divided into different cultures. We have the Pashtuns/Pathans from the Northern regions; the Balochi from the Western Province, Balochistan; the Punjabi, who were mainly Hindu and Sikh converts a long long time ago; the Sindhi and the Siraiki, who have their own languages and tradition apart from us all; there are the originally Urdu-speaking families that are mostly found in Karachi.

There's a lot more too, but I have to stay to the point. My family comes from a Rajput background, which means my ancestors were Hindu feudal lords long ago. Psychologically, the Rajputs were a stubborn nation, refusing innovation and new ideas. The lower classes of the Rajputs converted to Islam when the Arabs came to India. Maybe all this has influenced my family and other Rajputs in turn.

Now, Pakistan is a generally backwards nation, with people clutching hard on old ideas and beliefs. So many people still refuse education and equal opportunity for their female offsprings.

My parents themselves had never been restrictive, that is until I got my period. Casually and slowly, my parents dropped little hints into conversation, making me wear a dupatta, not letting me go outside without my brother or father, telling me not to wear choti shirts - Western clothing.

This was, and sort of still is what Pakistani parents do to their children, especially those who move out of Pakistan. In Pakistan, the O Level schooling system starts at Grade 9 (which is the only system in which Urdu and Pakistan Studies can be exempted) and so many kids like me, have just been flown in from Canada, America or the UK, to start school in Pakistan - caused by the deep rooted fear that children go bad in highschool.

Kids like me,who have been kept far away from the Pakistani culture, are brought back to the country because parents don't want their children to become too Westernised.

This is just one example of how history and culture shape a person's life.

You could write about a character going through something like that, or flip it around and send a born and raised Muslim/Pakistani off to the West and see what happens.

Study a little about us, but keep in mind, that just being Pakistani/Muslim doesn't make one religious or smart or extremist.

RACE DOESN'T MAKE THE PERSON.

Also there are two main stereotypes that apply mainly to the 'brown' (Pakistani/Indian/Bengali/Middle Eastern) race are :

1. THE GENIUS BROWN KID

Generally speaking, many brown kids are academically smart. All throughout my school life in Canada, whenever I got good grades, someone would make a snarky comment about 'well she's brown, what did you expect?'

I know why I work hard in school. Because my father was probably the oldest child in his family, part of the first generation in our entire ancestry to go to school. And that education gave him opportunity, and hard work got my family all the way to Canada, a country where my dad knew he could give my brother and I a good education and lifestyle.

That's why I work hard, and maybe it's similar for a lot of other kids. But their stories could be different, maybe they actually are interested in school, maybe they have high ambitions that they work to achieve, maybe they are that first generation that is being educated.

In grade eight, I went to a school almost full of people of colour. People immigrated from all over, and there were so many kids from so many different countries there.

There were two girls from an Afghan family who had fled the country for Pakistan, and then came to Canada. Those girls didn't speak a single word of English, and only a bit of Hindi, but they were the smartest kids I have ever met. Their father was the only person who had ever been to school, and in Canada, they were delighted to find computers and books and they worked so hard to improve and learn more.

Did you ever think about that?

No one is ever born smart, so think twice before you stick a label onto someone.

2.THE KID WHO CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH

This is probably the most offensive stereotype, and can be applied to any race but I'd still like to talk about it here.

I'll tell you about it through one of my experiences.

Basically, my family came to Canada when I was almost two, and I lived there until I was ten. Then we went to Pakistan for about three years, and came back to Canada again for a year.

When I went to school and people asked where I'd come from, they'd be so shocked that I could speak English.

Like what is Pakistan? Still back in the Stone-Age?

And really? Can you only base someone's education on how well they speak English? Does Urdu or Arabic or Hindi or Bengali or Chinese or Japanese or Korean have no value?

Sure, many immigrants don't have such a great accent, or don't speak such great English or don't speak any at all, but that doesn't mean anything about them.

This is not true at all. There are so many kids here in Pakistan who speak much better English than me, so many kids who are more eloquent than your average Canadian/American/British person. So many other kids don't, but they are smarter, speak better Urdu and are better at Math than me.

English doesn't equal intelligence.

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I'd like to sign off saying that barely anyone will ever fall into your stereotypes. There is always an exception to the rule.

If you don't want to go very in depth in your research for a character, that doesn't mean you can't write about them. People if all books have plain, boring stereotypical characters, then they don't reflect on reality at all.

Race or religion isn't the entire basis of a person, and sometimes, this stuff doesn't matter at all.

But before you go write something completely rude and ignorant, get educated. There are so many beautiful and interesting cultures in the world that you cannot simply ignore, and it never hurts to be smarter.

I'd be happy to answer anyone's questions through PM, or feel free to comment on this and I'll reply.

- Mariam, your average Muslim, Canadian-Pakistani fourteen year old.