The Los Angeles Times this morning has an interesting front page story about a Muslim teen growing up in Texas. Like a lot of teens, Hiba Siddiqui keeps secrets from her parents as she tries to reconcile the values they’ve taught her with her own discoveries about the world. When her father comes home from work, for example, she quickly changes clothes:

Hiba slips out of the white T-shirt with black letters that read “HOMOPHOBIA IS GAY,” which she wore to Kempner High School, where she is a junior. It’s one of a collection of slogans the 17-year-old has silk-screened on T-shirts in her bedroom, unbeknownst to her parents, both Muslim immigrants from Pakistan.

There are other aspects of Hiba’s life lately she thinks they might not approve of either, like the Muslim punk music she has been listening to with lyrics such as “suicide bomb the GAP,” or “Rumi was a homo.” Or the novel she bought online, about rebellious Muslim teenagers in New York. It opens with: “Muhammad was a punk rocker, he tore everything down. Muhammad was a punk rocker and he rocked that town.”

This much Hiba knows: She is a Muslim teenager living in America. But what does that mean? It is a question that pesters her, like the other questions she is afraid to ask her parents: Can she still be a good Muslim even though she does not dress in hijab or pray five times a day? If Islam is right, does that make other religions wrong? Is going to prom haram, or sinful? Is punk?

Hiba’s story provides interesting insight on both the growing prevalence of Islam in America (10 years ago, could anyone have imagined a 100-member Muslim Student Association at a high school in Sugar Land, Texas, the home turf of Tom DeLay?), and the travails of Muslim teens navigating an America that has a chip on its shoulder about Islam.