Road work
Jul. 1—When Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins hit old Route 66 with about 10 crew members to document their experiences as Muslims on the ultimate American road trip, they knew they'd feel right at home in one of their destinations.
The couple, whose Chicago-to-Los Angeles journey is chronicled in a series airing on PBS this month, met and married in 2012 in Northern New Mexico.
The pair embarked on The Great Muslim American Road Trip on Sept. 13, 2021, Robins says, finishing nearly a month later. The first of three weekly episodes that trace their journey airs Tuesday, July 5.
Part of the pair's itinerary on the long-decommissioned highway involved meeting Muslims and learning related history. While Haydar and Robins weren't at liberty to discuss episode details, they were effusive in their praise of the experience — and of a former home that still calls to them.
Robins, who's in his mid-40s, grew up near Boston and vividly recalls visiting New Mexico for the first time as a child.
"It made a huge impression on me, coming from the East Coast," he says. "Just the landscape. I came when I was 10 and had really only been in Massachusetts. I remember driving from Albuquerque to Taos and these pyramid-like mountains coming straight out of the desert. I'd never seen anything like that."
The next year, Robins says, he chose a book about New Mexico as a topic for his fifth-grade book report.
The fascination held, and years later he served as a summer volunteer at Lama Foundation, north of Taos, for four years before opting to live full time at the spiritual community.
About two years into Robins' stay at Lama, Haydar, now 34, showed up there to study permaculture. In the next two years, Robins converted to Islam and the couple had their first child there.
After that, "I went to graduate school in New York, and we had another child while I was in graduate school," Haydar says. "We decided to live in Santa Fe. We moved right before the pandemic. It was beautiful; we got a chance to be outdoors a lot; we spent a lot of time hiking and camping and just being outdoors. That felt like really a gift, especially for our kids during those early pandemic days."
Schools were shut down, she says. As a result, "Nature kind of became our school."
The family since has relocated to Haydar's native Michigan, where much of her family lives. Their Route 66 trip was their first without their children, now ages 7 and 4, Haydar adds.
She says the couple jumped at the chance when contacted about the project, adding that her mother was happy to look after their children for a few weeks.
Haydar, whose rap career and songs such as "Hijabi (Wrap my Hijab)" have raised her profile, says the couple's 2015 "Ask a Muslim" project "put us on the national map." It was aimed at shattering stereotypes.
The Route 66 journey had a different purpose, she says.
"We didn't set out to make a point, with activist intentions," Haydar says. "Our intentions were a little more, oh, a chance to have a second honeymoon and have some stories. Traveling this iconic 'American' highway through the heartland, the Midwest."
Haydar and Robins were selected for the series in part because of their desire to take a trip together after months of pandemic restrictions, says Alex Kronemer, the executive director of the production company that created the series.
"They had a real reason to do it," says Kronemer, who leads the Virginia-based Unity Productions Foundation. "They have great chemistry together. Frankly, we also needed people who could spend that much time on the road."
Haydar and Robins were selected from about a dozen candidate couples for the trip, he says. Their affability and availability weren't their only selling points.
"Even though they're Muslim, they didn't know a great deal about America's long engagement with Islam," Kronemer says. As a result, he adds, lessons and experiences in the show surprised the couple as much as they'll surprise the audience.
Among those surprises was experiencing Santa Fe as tourists, rather than residents.
"We had never been to Basilica of St. Francis," Haydar says. "That was really cool, to get to hang out with the priest for a little bit. I talked about my relationship with Mary, and the priest shared a lot of beautiful stories about his relationship with Mary. It was a beautiful connection we couldn't have had just living in Santa Fe. You don't think to do that when you're just in your hometown."
The couple's interactions with residents along the route left a profound impression, Robins says.
"We were meeting people who were not extraordinary, who were not famous, who were doing beautiful work of just literally feeding people, serving people, saving people's lives," he says.
Robins emphasizes that the show isn't really about the couple.
"What I hope viewers will get is seeing this part of America, this part of American history, through our relationship, our jokes, our marriage, the good and the bad. Mona and I are not hopefully that interesting compared to the people we meet."
Haydar says that being surrounded by cameras was an adjustment, but the couple ended up getting comfortable enough to have some much-needed long talks about their relationship.
"We had a few hard conversations. Some of them show up in the show," she says. "I don't know how I feel about that, but I'm sure it'll be all right. It's real, you know? We're just a married couple, with highs and lows. We were taking this journey on Route 66, but we also were taking this inward journey."
The couple's return to the Land of Enchantment was all too brief.
"All of our stops in New Mexico were in the course of, like, 48 hours," Robins said. "We could have spent a month there."
