Raquel Evita Saraswati pretended to be a woman of color. Her deception traumatized the communities she claimed to help.

Raquel Evita Saraswati made a name for herself in a number of Philadelphia’s community and advocacy circles.

The queer, Muslim woman held iftars during Ramadan, creating a space and providing mentorship for other queer Muslims in the community. She attended and helped organize protests, including a vigil in West Philadelphia after the mass shootings at Christchurch mosques in 2019, and a jummah prayer at City Hall after George Floyd’s murder. She served as chair of the Mayor’s Commission on LGBT Affairs, won a “RAD girl of the year” award and, most recently, was appointed the chief equity, inclusion and culture officer with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

And through all her work and relationship-building, Saraswati always ambiguously presented herself as a woman of color — of Latino, Arab and/or South Asian descent. But last month, Saraswati’s colleagues at the Quaker organization AFSC published an open letter that, word by word, unraveled the image Saraswati has carefully sewn together of herself over the years.

Saraswati was a white woman, they said, of German and Italian descent. She was born Rachel Elizabeth Seidel, and changed her name to Raquel Evita Saraswati — presumably to sound more diverse, they wrote.

And all of this was confirmed by Carol Perone, Saraswati’s biological mother, who told the Intercept, “I’m as white as the driven snow and so is she.”

Saraswati maintains that the information published about her history and family over the last month is inaccurate but that it will take time to fully address questions around what her identity actually is. Meanwhile, the anonymous AFSC employees did not respond to a reporter’s questions about what motivated them to investigate Saraswati in the first place, but it did lead to Saraswati ultimately resigning from her post within the organization.

The revelations about not only her race, but also her history of participating in anti-Muslim dialogue on far-right platforms, has raised questions about the shortcomings of diversity, equity and inclusion work in white institutions — including the vetting of applicants for spots on the Mayor’s commission.

“The issue of her race is certainly a story because it’s a pattern that we see again and again ... of white women ... presenting themselves with a different race in order to gain access and legitimacy in the groups that they claim to be a part of,” said Sana Saeed, an Al Jazeera journalist who tweeted criticism of Saraswati in 2015. “But I think the bigger story here is how someone with her particular and recent background of being involved with far-right and right-wing organizations and platforms was able to successfully become a part of a very progressive local movement, as well as a very progressive organizations such as AFSC.”

Most of all, however, revelations about her have rattled the local community that once trusted her as one of their own, planting trauma and hurt among people of marginalized identities.

“People are deeply hurt and damaged by her lies, because a lot of people saw themselves reflected in her being that visible with the identities she claimed to have,” said Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, a former friend of Saraswati’s, and Philly-based writer and organizer.

“Overwhelmingly, people are asking themselves, did she construct these identities on her own, or was she planted for purposes of infiltrating space? How did this happen?”

Muhammad woke up an early February morning to their phone ringing. It was one of their close friends, who was calling to ask whether Muhammad knew Saraswati. Then their friend went on to say that employees at Saraswati’s workplace published an open letter claiming Saraswati was white.

Muhammad was stunned.

They had first met Saraswati years ago, when Muhammad was organizing with the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative, addressing racism in LGBT spaces across Philadelphia. They connected on multiple fronts: being Muslim, being queer and being people of color. Saraswati had told Muhammad she was Arab. But depending on whom she was talking to, her background fluctuated from Indian to Egyptian to Lebanese to Colombian, according to those who knew her.

“She deeply connected to the experience of people who are oppressed around their gender, their sexuality and religious background,” Muhammad said. “And because of that, we had very personal conversations as a Black Muslim who grew up queer and nonbinary in Philadelphia. I thought at the time we had points of connection around a shared spiritual identity.”

The situation was the same for other people, particularly queer Muslims, whom Saraswati befriended.

A longtime friend of Saraswati’s, whom The Inquirer is not identifying because of potential personal impact, met Saraswati through progressive Muslim circles about six years ago. The woman was a queer Muslim, and Saraswati’s presence compelled her to reach out. The two struck up a friendship and created a WhatsApp group with other Muslim women of color, supporting each other emotionally and even financially over the years.

The woman’s impression of Saraswati was that she was kind and generous, but always positioned herself as a person of authority on matters of oppression or injustice.

“She somehow was always able to position herself as the most oppressed, and simultaneously the most woke,” she said. In hindsight, she believes that Saraswati was simply manipulative.

Through her falsely claimed identities and lived experiences, Saraswati was able to build a significant amount of trust in marginalized communities. People saw themselves in her false stories, and saw her home as a safe space to convene. They confided in her about personal issues ranging from sexuality to spirituality, and she positioned herself as a mentor to many. She also accessed mutual aid funds — in which everyday people get together to meet the immediate needs of their communities — that were designated for Black and brown folks.

“What she did will further marginalize people.”

A wave of trauma and deep betrayal has washed over the communities Saraswati claimed to represent following the revelation of her identity, with people wondering whom they can trust — a particularly harmful situation for community members who are already marginalized and oppressed, and desperately need safe, supportive spaces.

“I can assume that it’s devastating for people already marginalized by their family to find out this person had lied to gain access to their story,” Muhammad said. “What she did will further marginalize people, because now no one is going to be willing to gather that space because of the concern of people lying like this.”

The anonymous woman and her friends watched as Saraswati blocked them on social media and removed them from their group chat after they confronted her about the news articles. Through tears and laughter, they’ve processed and attempted to heal together over the last month, piecing together who the person they thought was their best friend actually was.

“We learned that we all had misgivings and skepticism of some of the stories she’s told us and that everything suddenly clicked with the news of her fraud,” the woman said. “I think the best thing she can do is to try to live out the remainder of her days with some sort of integrity. Out of the limelight, out of any position of authority.”

Saraswati said in an email that “I hear that people feel hurt and confused,” but maintains that she has not misrepresented herself, pointing to the advocacy work she has accomplished in Philadelphia as a Muslim woman.

Saraswati’s stature was particularly prominent in more established and powerful institutions in the city, from the Mayor’s office to the William Way LGBT Center. And although the values she presented and advocated did not necessarily raise red flags among those who knew her, the fact that she took up space and opportunities as a white woman is harmful in and of itself.

“It wasn’t just that she used her identities to somehow feel a sense of belonging — she also used it for purposes of being in positions of power,” Muhammad said. “She’s disenfranchised and positioned herself in a place where other people who actually have that lived experience should be.”

Saraswati has had a consistent rallying cry in her right-wing media appearances: “It would be useful to have Muslims willing to speak out against the theopolitical ideology that seeks the subjugation and oppression of all of us.”

Time and again, Saraswati echoed far-right moderators’ concerns and requests to hear Muslims condemn terrorist attacks, and urged her fellow “dissident Muslims” to speak out against “radicalization” and gender violence.

Saraswati’s discourse was part of a larger trend, scholars say, of the federal government pushing binary depictions of Muslims during counterterrorism campaigns that threatened civil liberties.

“Post-9/11, the government wanted Muslim spokespersons to convince Muslim communities there was something wrong with Islam, and that there was only one way to practice Islam — which was a highly secularized version, and one that entailed unconditional cooperation with the government,” said Sahar Aziz, a Rutgers Law professor and author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom.

“This is part of the definition of the so-called moderate Muslim or the good Muslim,” Aziz continued, “which was not about how you practice your faith, but more importantly complying with the government, not questioning ‘countering violent extremism’ programs, not questioning the ‘War on Terror’ and how it stereotyped Muslims as presumptively terrorist, or how it infringed on religious freedoms by expecting Muslims to open up mosques to the FBI, DHS and law enforcement.”

Saraswati’s media appearances ranged from Fox News to Newsmax to the Clarion Project, all far-right platforms known for their anti-Muslim bigotry. The Clarion Project, a D.C.-based nonprofit that claims to “expose violent extremism,” was even spotlighted for its bigotry by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Saraswati also worked for the Islamic Forum for Democracy, an organization that claims to combat the causes of “Islamic radicalization,” but perpetuates anti-Muslim tropes and allies itself with other right-wing groups, including the Clarion Project.

What is clear, many say, is that Saraswati saw herself as a spokesperson for Muslim communities. Unclear, however, is her intention in the process, and why she halted roughly five years of such appearances and discourse after a final Newsmax appearance in 2015.

“It may just be that she got the memo a little bit late, and matured in her thinking about her politics,” said Sofia Ali-Khan, former Philly resident and author of A Good Country, noting that Saraswati converted to Islam in high school.

“I do think it’s unfortunate, because those were platforms that were creating this good Muslim, bad Muslim narrative, and I do think she did feed into it,” she continued. “But I don’t know that we can say that it’s intentional. And I say that based on her wider reputation for genuinely doing good work, and wanting to contribute to progressive spaces.”

Community members and Saraswati’s former friends have questioned whether Saraswati was gathering intelligence for far-right groups, or whether she was just an opportunist changing her tune once the focus on terrorism started to die down in 2016, and former President Donald Trump’s campaign and election perpetuated anti-Muslim bigotry, prompting more support for the community from progressive circles.

Aziz pointed to the term “professional Muslim,” coined by civil rights attorney and author Rabia Chaudry, referencing the post-9/11 environment that called on Muslims to respond to issues and questions related to Islam in public discourse. If Saraswati made a living through things such as consulting jobs or news gigs that gave her publicity, she could have simply been following the money as progressive circles searched for more Muslim representation.

Her critics have said that Saraswati weaponized a false racial and ethnic background to legitimize herself in spaces, right or left. Doing so is particularly harmful to the Muslim community, which is already racialized despite it being a faith that is followed by people of all ethnic backgrounds.

Reflecting on her history, Saraswati said that there are appearances she made then that she wouldn’t repeat today, but that she thinks the scrutiny she is being placed under is harsher because she is a queer woman. She pointed to other interviews, sermons and blog posts she has written to emphasize her faith-based human rights advocacy.

“While there are certainly things I would articulate differently as a 39-year-old than I did 10 to 15 years ago, I have never perpetuated hate against my own faith,” Saraswati wrote in an email to The Inquirer. “I maintain that the response I am receiving is significantly more critical and harsh than that received by many men and those who have not identified as LGBTQ+.

”I find it very curious that those who have said things that are explicitly anti-Islam, or who indulge in very harsh commentary about Muslims at large and to this day are not in the position I am in as someone who has been very clear that Islam is opposed to injustice and commands that we work against oppression.”

When Oskar Pierre Castro met Saraswati during the AFSC search committee’s quest for a new DEI officer, he saw someone who “touched all the points,” as he told the Intercept.

“In my mind it was, ‘Great, a person of color, a queer person of color, who happens to be a Muslim, it’s a woman, all these things, and someone who seemed to get it,” Castro told the news organization, going on to say that he felt duped by Saraswati’s lies. He did not respond to an Inquirer request for comment.

But some have pointed to this exact quote as a perfect characterization of the problem with DEI work in predominantly white institutions.

“In progressive organizations, such as the AFSC, whose supposed missions are to combat oppression, discrimination and inequity, tokenization in the name of internal ‘diversity’ often serves as little more than window-dressing for white-led organizations that refuse to structurally reform,” columnist Karen Attieh wrote in the Washington Post.

Mark Graham, chief marketing and communications officer of AFSC, said the situation has prompted them to review their internal processes, including vetting.

“This is a complicated situation and AFSC leadership is working through it in a thoughtful and humane way, taking in many perspectives,” Graham wrote in an email to The Inquirer. “While AFSC is not a predominately white institution, we, like many other institutions, continue to focus on work that effectively addresses institutional racism and repression.”

Chris Bartlett, executive director of the William Way LGBT Center, worked alongside Saraswati on the Mayor’s Commission on LGBT Affairs. He said he was disappointed to learn about Saraswati’s misrepresentation, but that “the Raquel described in the media is not the one I know.”

“As a self-described Muslim queer woman, she provided one among a number of strong voices in occasional programs at William Way addressing religious pluralism and compassionate response to community trauma,” he wrote in an email to The Inquirer. “The Saraswati Affair causes all of us as leaders to examine our shared role providing authentic services and in determining the integrity of our programs.”

The Inquirer also quoted Saraswati in 2019, when she served as chair of the Mayor’s Commission on LGBT Affairs. As for the commission, a city spokesperson said it has a standard vetting process that includes the review of publicly accessible social media activity.

“Unfortunately, this process did not disclose Raquel’s media appearances, or else she would not have been appointed to the commission,” they emailed The Inquirer. “It is deeply disappointing that Raquel chose to misrepresent her identity during the commission application process. It is important to note, however, that the Office of LGBT Affairs does not interrogate our community members for proof of their identities as a matter of practice.”

But Saraswati’s media appearances don’t require much digging, particularly around the time she was appointed to the Mayor’s commission in 2017 — which raises skepticism about how much vetting was actually done by Philly-based organizations, and concerns about the level of awareness around what anti-Muslim rhetoric looks like.

“This is a woman who was representing herself as a Muslim spokesperson, but she wasn’t speaking on behalf of anyone but herself.”

“Because these diversity initiatives are structured to only seek to have someone who looks the part, but [does] not actually represent communities, then it’s easy for these opportunistic individuals to come in and play those roles,” Aziz said. “This is a woman who was representing herself as a Muslim spokesperson, but she wasn’t speaking on behalf of anyone but herself.”

Even more tragic, Aziz said, is that Muslims and Arabs are often marginalized or excluded from DEI initiatives. And in this rare case when a woman was elevated because of those identities, her ethnic identity ended up being false.