Between Alexandria and Queens: How an Egyptian-American woman found her identity and became a symbol of women empowerment in New York
By becoming an artist, designer, educator, and a community leader in New York City, Shireen Soliman broke the traditional systems on her pathway towards finding her own identity.
With roots originally from Alexandria in Egypt, Shireen did not see much of her original culture where she was growing up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When she was old enough, her family sent her to Egypt each year for summer vacations. This is when she began getting in touch with her roots and formed that side of her identity.
“I grew up creating my own identity, sifting through the bits and pieces of my life here in the US and the summers I spent in Egypt; how I was when I was in Egypt VS. how I was when I was in the US. For me, it was a life journey to integrate those aspects of my identity.”
As a female growing up in a traditional Egyptian house, Shireen’s parents had a vision for her education and career. For Arab families and especially around that time, there was a standard “menu” that their children should choose from to be successful and able to provide for their families. Any education that does not eventually lead them to become doctors, engineers, bankers, or lawyers was deemed not worthy.
But Shireen discovered her passion for art and wanted to purse an education in art and fashion design. Her mother was very supportive. Her father, however, took a while to eventually support and respect her choice.
“I was in conflict from early on, I had artistic talents and I wanted to be a creative person in some way. I looked at the “menu options” but I did not fit into any of these boxes. Most of my life, I’ve found that I don’t fit in a lot in the easy boxes.”
Fortunately for Shireen, her family thought that it did not matter what she chose to study: “I was going to get married, so there was no need for me to learn anything about finance, politics or about the world in general, because lucky for me, I would have a husband who would take care of me, so they groomed me for this path .”
Shireen ended up studying art in Pennsylvania at Moore College of Art and Design, a local all-women’s college, and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design.
“There was something about fashion design, about drawing people, about telling people’s stories that I was drawn to. Art school was a challenge at that time. Beauty was pretty much one standard — fashion was seen through a very western lens. I was told by my professors that; my colors were too bright, too shiny, and too much. Everything about me was too…too much.”
After finishing school, she moved to New York City to work in fashion and eventually settled down in Astoria — one of the most diverse spots on the planet. Shireen says she finally found herself in a place in the US, where she could relate, where she could see the beauty of diversity: different nationalities, colors, body sizes, hairstyles, and patterns. She finally felt like she belonged.
“Palestinians walking on Steinway with their beautiful colorful national dresses, Polish women with their scarves; there was so much to be inspired by. I remember when I was in college the person whose collection won the all the prizes composed of basic silhouettes and three colors: red, white and blue. It didn’t feel meaningful and didn’t seem to reflect the identity of the people wearing them.”
Shireen worked in fashion for years before deciding to pursue a master’s Degree in the field of educational leadership in arts and technology at Bank Street College of Education in 2011.
As she was studying to earn her degree and drawing from her own experience as she was growing up, she started to question systems and whether they can be changed to be more inclusive and support different experiences: how to create access and equity? How educational systems are created in certain countries and for what cause? How do we make sure that people coming from different races have the same access to top schools and opportunities?
Since then, Shireen’s work focuses on the ideas of systems. It has become clear to her why she did not fit earlier in any of those standard boxes. “Things are the way they are because we were dictated to think about things in a certain way without questioning them.”
“Systems of thought lead to systems of practice. For example, when we think about Gender in fashion as binary then it will be only men and women. Men will dress as how they are constructed to dress and the same will go for women. This of course is reflected in the retail system. We go a store and we never question it, but it is always left for men and right for women.”
“We don’t have to accept this anymore. We can interrupt and disrupt that system — and any system. We can create a retail system with open spaces where there is no gender section and all clothes are kind of mix and match. Everyone will have freedom of what they want to wear– imagine, that is happening already!”
Shireen explored the link between identity and narrative with fashion as the ultimate expression of identity. In her own art, she illustrates and celebrates the beautification and representation of the female form, cross-culturally and throughout history, a life-long passion driven by her own cultural heritage.
Teaching fashion design at both Parsons and Pratt Institute, Shireen shows students how they can use digital and traditional methods to support their fashion design process, including creating the technical packages so their clothes can to go to production and drawing the fashion figure.
“My students are immigrants coming from different worlds and cultures that may or not be similar to mine; Indian, Latin American, Chinese, etc. However, we find a way to connect, so they know that I can empathize with them. The design process has to be an empathic one, because we are designing for people and from people. That means understanding the importance of culture competency and literacy and taking that from the classroom and out into the world.”
Shireen claims that she is not immune from falling into unintentional biases. “I try to pause and catch myself from falling into biases by avoiding making assumptions especially with my students. I try to show them stories about fashion from all over the world, so they can get inspired and learn first-hand about different cultures and not fall into biases as well. I plant the seed and hopefully it is something they’ll want to grow.”
As a mother, and as a volunteer and advocate for women in a non-profit organization that supports women and families facing domestic abuse, Shireen believes that women are powerful sources of education and empowerment: “A mother is a school. The power of women in society and community to pass on tradition, to act as an aspiration and uplift others, is an inherited gift.”
“When I speak to young migrant Muslim American women, I just feel like there is an energy that immediately lights up the room because they can hardly believe I made it. Whenever I tell them my story, and the challenges I faced, and I am still facing, there are always like: “aha — you know our story, you know the obstacles that we face at home when we try to explain to our parents what we want and how we want to engage in American society.””
Shireen believes that when you feel empowered by just being yourself, you naturally empower others. Her advice to young women like her, who are struggling to fit in and trying to find their own identities:
“To me it is about the gift of grace, to give someone the benefit of the doubt, to be an ally, to understand ultimately there is a universality in our connections to one another. Find your own humanity and see humanity in others, understand these systems, and that no one is created out of the vacuum, there are always these interconnected systems. Look for and find those connections; in the systems, in the cultures, in society, in humanity, and cling to them. Find your allies…find your tribe and rise up.”
This article is written by Rahma Gamil Soliman, Migration Officer for Media and Communications at IOM Office to the United Nations in New York.
