Leila Fadel

Next week marks a grim anniversary for Las Vegas. The single deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. A man opened fire from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino into crowds at a country music festival on Oct. 1, 2017. He killed 58 people, injured hundreds more and left this city reeling.

A year on the city is still healing. We spoke to two survivors.

'I hid under someone who was dead'

At MGM Grand Las Vegas, a bookmaker takes bets on sports events at the round counter at the Race & Sports Book near the casino.

In a year of reporting on Muslims across this country, I walked away knowing that there is no one story to tell, there are many stories. And yet so often, Muslims are spoken of as a monolith rather than the diverse mosaic of practice, culture, tradition, race, gender and sexualities that they are.

It started with a sign pinned to Sana Afzal's backpack after the election in 2016. "I like Trump, you're fired."

At the 16-year-old's new high school in Gilroy, Calif., just outside San Jose, kids whispered in her Spanish class: "Allahu Akbar" — "God is great" in Arabic — in a derogatory way.

Editor's note: NPR's Leila Fadel traveled across the country to meet young Muslims expressing themselves in new ways. You can see more from her Muslims in America series here and in the May issue of the National Geographic.

Fashion designers. Community activists. Parents. Converts. High school students facing down bullies. Podcasters creating their own space to exhale.

The newest generation of American Muslims is a mosaic, one of the most racially and ethnically diverse faith groups in the country. At a time when all religions are struggling to keep youth engaged, Islam is growing in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.

A new generation of American Muslims is asserting its own narrative, worrying less about explaining Islam to others and more about embracing what makes them different and contributing to the American tapestry.

As NPR is reporting, they are community organizers, converts, high schoolers facing bullies and podcasters creating a space to be themselves.

Amena Khan is a Muslim British beauty blogger who wears a headscarf. And beauty brand L'Oreal did something historic last month. They chose her, a Muslim woman in hijab as one of their hair care ambassadors. Not a strand of her hair was on display.

It earned them praise for their bold choice.

But the praise turned to controversy when tweets that Khan wrote in 2014 — as civilian casualties mounted in the Gaza strip in a war between Israel and Hamas — surfaced.

This week, when a district court in Las Vegas unsealed nearly 300 pages of police affidavits, the name of a second person of interest in the mass shooting that left 58 people dead was blacked out.

But because of an error, the documents released to The Las Vegas Review-Journal included name of an Arizona man named Douglas Haig, according to the newspaper. And it started another frenzy over whether Stephen Paddock acted alone.

Aiden and Ethan Dvash-Banks share pretty much everything. The 16-month-old twins were born four minutes apart, from the same womb, to the same fathers and now they share the same toys in the living room of their Southern California home.

But there is one thing they don't share — Aiden was granted U.S. citizenship and Ethan is living in California on an expired tourist visa.

Christine Caria flips through pictures and videos she took at the Route 91 Country Music Festival on her phone. She was having so much fun, working with her friend Heather Sallan who has a company that sells cowboy boot accessories.

She stops on one picture.

"This is Kurt Von Tillow," she says. "He passed."

On Sunday, people around the country will mark one year since the Women's March on Washington, D.C. Last year it brought hundreds of thousands of liberals to the capital, many wearing pink knitted caps in solidarity. Others marched in hundreds of cities and towns across the United States and more than 80 other countries.

On a recent night in Chicago, a Muslim preacher sits on the floor in the center of an ethnically mixed and mostly young group of men and women. Around him, a drum circle sings praises of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

Mint tea is served on gold trays. A man with a hipster beard circulates an incense burner. A musky, wood scent fills the air.

This was supposed to be the Ekblad family's first Christmas in their new home, a four-bedroom near a park in Ventura, Calif., that they stretched their budget to buy. Allie Ekblad, 32, says she was ready for the holiday: For once, she had finished Christmas shopping early for her husband, Matt, 2-year-old Jace and 8-month-old Ava.

"The one year I'm ahead of everything," she says, sighing. "I had everyone done, including the kids, stockings, the extended family. All done."