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As an Asian American, and as somebody of South Asian descent in particular, I belong to a group of people with some of the biggest and most diverse Muslim populations in the world. But what exactly is this holy month, and how can we use this moment to come together and celebrate our collective heritage?

To help me answer these questions, I spoke with Asna Tabassum, a sophomore studying biomedical engineering and a member of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) here at USC.

Amidst this confusion, I came across the phrase “Model Minority Myth,” and that’s when everything started to click. A narrative that has existed for years, it touts the inherent success that Asian Americans experience in this country. . . And yet, the trope misses key aspects of the Asian American experience. It turns our community into a monolith, lumping a continent of over 40 countries into one group.

We love to paint Asian America with this brush of affluence and comfort. . . It turned out, there’s a far different reality that many Asian Americans face today. While my Pakistani and Indian classmates lived in quiet towns of new money, there were people like my family, who often relied on food stamps or lived in cramped apartments to survive since coming to America . . . How is it that we ended up with such stark divides?