Zara Hossain is Here

Zara Hossain is a teenage, queer, Pakistani Muslim in her senior year of high school. When she must face a racist classmate, her father decides to confront his daughter’s harasser, which sets in motion a chain of events that jeopardize Zara’s promising future and her family’s visa status, highlighting the hardships and injustices immigrants can face in the United States. Students may have opportunities to reflect on the parallels in the book’s themes to current events in the real world. Suitable as a literature circle choice or for independent reading in a Grade 9–10 classroom, the story’s themes of identity, race, and multiculturalism may prompt students to connect to social justice issues and immigration policies.