Growing up in overwhelmingly white suburban New Jersey, Amanat was pained and felt like an “outsider” as one of the only Muslim families in the community, and often the only person of color in her class. Amanat’s identity as a Pakistani-American Muslim (her parents were recent immigrants) in an otherwise overwhelmingly Caucasian community led her to find solace in an unlikely place: on the pages of X-Men comic books, where she found friends and inspiration in the “otherness” of the superhero characters of those stories.
Just as Amanat felt “different” and “misunderstood,” the exiled characters of these comics looked to their differences for strength. This was a revelation to her, and has become Amanat’s guiding principal.
As a child and budding teen, Amanat was touched and inspired to find a “strong black beautiful woman, a man in a wheelchair” on the pages of comic books — characters who were being celebrated as people who mattered, and people who were strong. Above all else: people who could help defend others and be a guiding light.
Much of the work she’s been charged with creating at Marvel is about reaching out to girls and women — bringing them into the world of graphic storytelling, and helping them to feel at home there. Amanat values inclusion above all else, and her current work now as Marvel Comics Director of Content & Character Development allows her to continue to work for inclusive storytelling for all readers, regardless of their race, age, gender, or beauty.
Amanat’s crowning achievement has been the creation of “Ms. Marvel” in 2014, a series featuring the first-ever Muslim-American comicbook superhero, “Kamala Khan,” a normal teenage girl who happens to be Muslim. The groundbreaking series immediately skyrocketed to success — going into an unprecedented seven printings in its first year alone.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
