Towelhead Trivia Quiz

Answer: She was caught acting inapproprately with her mother's boyfriend.

Jasira's mother, Gail, found out that Jasira and Gail's boyfriend, Barry, had acted inappropriately. Gail believed it was Jasira's fault (and even said as much while putting Jasira on the plane) and sent her to live with her Lebanese father in Houston. Gail believed that Jasira needed to learn how to act appropriately around men.

Answer: Zack

Jasira's father had just bought a house on a cul de sac, so Jasira could attend school in the suburbs, instead of the city. Soon after Jasira moved to Houston, the Vuoso family stopped by to welcome Jasira and her father, Rifat, to the neighborhood.

While Jasira and Zack sort of played badminton outside, Rifat found Jasira a job watching Zack after school. Jasira was only three years older than Zack, so he resented being babysat and kept calling Jasira derogatory names.

Although Rifat hated Saddam Hussein, he didn't correct Mr. Vuoso's impression that Rifat liked Hussein as Rifat didn't care what Mr. Vuoso thought about him.

Answer: Greek

Rifat was dating a woman named Thena, a Greek woman who worked with Rifat at NASA. She generally dressed provocatively and liked taking Jasira shopping and doing her makeup. When Melina told Thena she was pregnant with a girl, Thena said girls were so much more fun than boys.

Thena and Rifat both thought that Americans were rednecks who didn't know anything about the rest of the world.

When Rifat made Jasira write a letter to her grandmother; he made her write that he was engaged to Thena.

Answer: He's black

Jasira had dinner at Thomas's house. When Rifat picked Jasira up, he saw that Thomas was black and accused Jasira of misleading him. Then Rifat told Jasira she was not allowed to see Thomas anymore because people would be cruel. Gail also thought Jasira shouldn't date a black boy, but then sent a photo of herself with her new (black) boyfriend. Rifat told Jasira that Gail was a hypocrite as she supported Rifat in his decision to not allow Jasira to go out with Thomas.

Answer: looking at men's magazines

Zack decided he wanted to look at his father's magazines while Jasira was babysitting. As Zack wouldn't obey Jasira and put the magazine away, she decided to look at the magazines as well. Apparently that's how she and Zack spent their afternoons, until Mr. Vuoso came home and caught them. He asked Jasira if she liked looking at the magazines and she said she did.

Jasira hit Zack later on when he called her several names. Zack told on Jasira and Mrs. Vuoso told Rifat what happened and brought Jasira's last check. Rifat was upset until Jasira told him why she had hit Zack. Mr. Vuoso later on took Zack over to the house and made Zack apologise as he wanted better access to Jasira.

While babysitting, Jasira went through Mr. Vuoso's bag he had prepared in case he was called up.

Answer: book

Melina could see that Jasira didn't have a female influence around her and that Jasira was having problems going through puberty with just her father around. Melina gave Jasira a book that explained the changes Jasira's body was going through. However, Jasira explained her father wouldn't allow the book in his house because of the drawings of female anatomy. Melina told Jasira she could leave the book over at Melina's house and read it whenever she wanted.

Melina did give Jasira a key to her house as she was afraid Mr. Vuoso was acting inappropriately with Jasira. Melina told Jasira to use it whenever she needed - no questions asked.

Answer: Yemen

Rifat was Lebanese. Jasira had never met her grandmother, but was forced (by her father) to write a letter to her grandmother. Jasira's grandmother wrote back, but in French. Jasira was forced to ask her French teacher to help her translate the letter. The French teacher had another student translate the letter in front of Jasira's entire French class.

Gail lived in Syracuse.

Gil had lived in Yemen and knew Arabic. Melina explained that they only had squat toilets in Yemen and it wasn't very easy to go to the bathroom there while pregnant as squatting was difficult.

Answer: The war was over.

Gil invited them over to celebrate the end of the war. Rifat was upset because the Americans hadn't killed Saddam, and didn't want to celebrate the end of the war. But, of course, Rifat didn't tell anyone he didn't like Saddam and only said the end of the war wasn't worth celebrating.

Answer: He found a men's magazine in his house.

Mr. Vuoso had given Jasira the men's magazine as he knew she liked it. Rifat found the magazine and, while driving Jasira home from the mall, started hitting her hard on her thigh. When Jasira and Rifat arrived home, she jumped out of the car and ran to Melina and Gil's house, using the key Melina had given her in case of any trouble.

At dinner, Gil saw the marks on her leg. Melina saw the marks when Jasira was getting ready for bed and took some photos of the marks in case the photos were needed to prove to the police what had happened.

Answer: Mr. Vuoso had touched her inappropriately.

Rifat and Thena went to Gil and Melina's house for the dinner to celebrate the end of the war. Melina and Gil hadn't been expecting Rifat to come to dinner as Jasira had run away from Rifat. In addition, Thomas was at dinner as he had come home from school with Jasira. Jasira and Thomas had tried having sex in the room Jasira was staying in, but Melina caught them.

When Rifat was at the house, he asked to see where his daughter was sleeping. He went through that room, then went into the bathroom to find evidence of something Jasira was doing. He ended up finding a condom in the toilet that Thomas had hidden. As Melina was pregnant, she didn't need a condom, so he knew that Jasira had been using it with Thomas and confronted everyone with the evidence. Melina protested that she hadn't allowed it and didn't know what had happened. When Rifat said that Jasira had lost her virginity in Melina at Gil's house, Thomas then protested, saying Jasira had lost her virginity at Thomas's house. Then it was Jasira's turn to protest, saying she had lost her virginity at Rifat's house.

Jasira then had to explain that Mr. Vuoso had touched her inappropriately and had had sex with her. Jasira told Melina after the police had come that she left out part of the story: That Jasira had pretended to want to have sex with Mr. Vuoso, but hadn't really wanted to. Melina comforted Jasira by saying that didn't matter - Mr. Vuoso was still breaking the law.

Mr. Vuoso was later arrested. While out on bail, Jasira brought over the body of Snowball, the Vuoso family's kitten, which Rifat had accidentally run over.