I learned that it was first colonized by the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, British and Japanese. Over the decades, Malaysian culture evolved as it was influenced by each colonizing country’s culture. Although I did my best to be a responsible traveler by reading about Malaysia and speaking with people who are familiar with South East Asia, I let some negative ideas and beliefs about Malaysia creep in my mind. Some of the books I read were old, so their descriptions of Malaysia were outdated, but I mistakenly took them as factual information describing what Malaysia is today. For example, I learned that agriculture, forestry and fishing were the foundation of Malaysia's early economic development. This led me to think that I would be living in the forest with no WiFi. You can imagine my surprise when I landed in Kuala Lumpur and it looked like New York City. Little did I know that this would be one of many times that I would come to recognize and respect different perspectives.
The official religion of Malaysia is Islam, the world's second largest religion. There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and about 3.5 million live in the U.S. Can you guess how many live in New York City? I've always been a spiritual person— my parents grew up Catholic in Haiti— but I never really committed to church or practicing the religion. I knew coming to Malaysia would be a special opportunity for me to strengthen my faith because I would away from familiar surroundings and be able to form my own beliefs. Part of this growing process included confronting Islamophobia, or prejudice and discrimination against Muslims and Islam. This is important because I can't grow in my faith if there are other people who are discriminated against because of their beliefs.
