From The Hartford Courant
be Jesse Leavenworth
efore the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Diana Hossain “lived a really quiet life as a Muslim.”
“Up till then, I could practice my faith, take the kids to the mosque. We had social gatherings, we had prayers,” Hossain said.
“All of a sudden, ‘Muslim’ was brought to the forefront,” she said. “The world changed for everyone.”
Although she doesn’t “look like a Muslim,” Hossain said, carving air quotes with her fingers, the college professor who was raised a Christian refused to fly under the radar. In letters to the editor, at public forums and in her daily life as a teacher and volunteer, Hossain has defended her adopted faith with a constant message about the true nature of Islam.
Growing up in Bristol in a Roman Catholic family, she was Diana Roberts, daughter of a radio announcer and a state worker. After graduating from Wheaton College in in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish, she met and fell in love with Anwar Hossain, a Muslim and architect from Bangladesh who lived in the same Hartford apartment building.
For the marriage that soon followed, Hossain said she considered dual ceremonies, including a service in the Catholic church. But when she asked a priest about the prospect, “he just looked at me and said, ‘Absolutely not,'” she said.
“That was a door-closer for me,” Hossain said. “I just got up and left.”
Hossain, 66, of Bolton, is now retired from Manchester Community College, although she continues to teach one course there. She began her career as a Spanish and Latin American history teacher at high schools in Hartford and Rocky Hill and started working part-time at MCC in 1982. Hired full-time at the college six years later, she expanded the English as a Second Language program from one to four levels, with more teachers and many more students.
