According to the Pew Research Center, the number of Muslims living in the US increased from 2.5 million to 3.5 million from 2007 to 2017. Roughly a quarter-million of them are Latinos.

Converting to Islam 21 years ago, Jaime “Mujahid” Fletcher felt alone, finding almost no material about Islam in Spanish.

The feeling of loneliness maximized after his father started asking about Islam, taking the decision to translate educational material about the faith to Spanish to help him.

 “So, the more that we translated and explained to them in their own language it became less foreign to them,” Fletcher, a Colombian-American, told CBC News.

Over the years, this effort grew into Islam in Spanish, an Islamic center based in Houston which provides educational information about the religion in Spanish.

Though they didn’t aim to convert people to Islam, Fletcher says they have seen an explosion of Latino and Latina converts.

 “Based on data Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group embracing Islam in America,” Fletcher said. “People just show up and they say hey we’re coming here to embrace Islam.”

In Colorado, Rudy Sanchez and Juana Serrano also took the decision to convert to Islam, saying they found inner peace in the religion.

 “I feel like I just I found my answer,” Sanchez said.

 “It was kind of like a coincidence you know like I’m thirsty and then some guy with a water bottle was just like, ‘hey you want some water?'” Sanchez expressed.

Serrano added that Islam gave him peace. “It just really started to pull at my heart,” she said.

 “It gives me a lot of peace, it gives me a lot of freedom that I didn’t even know I had.”

In addition, many Latinos convert to Islam due to similarities between Islamic and Latino cultures.

 “Coming from a Hispanic background family is very important,” Serrano said.

 “Respecting parents and respecting family members and all that’s a huge part of Islam and that’s also a huge part of like our culture,” Sanchez said.

 “Looking deeper into Islam all of a sudden you start finding out that hey this is the way you know I was brought up these are the values my family shared with me so there’s a lot of affinity,” Fletcher said.

Lucy Silva is a Muslim. She converted from Catholicism 18 years ago.

 “Some people just jump into it and put on the headscarf, I took my time in doing a lot of research before taking that step,” she said.

Once Mexican and Catholic, and now Mexican and Muslim, which some people just can’t get their heads around.

 “They automatically assume I’m Arab or from ‘over there.’ So when they hear me speaking Spanish – let’s say I’m at a grocery store, or I’m speaking to my Mom or my son – they’re quite surprised. They say, ‘Where did you learn to speak Spanish’ and I say, ‘Well, I’m Mexican,’” Lucy said.

It’s hard to know exactly how many Latino and Latina Muslims are in the U.S. because no official studies have been carried out. But some experts estimate that figure to be anywhere between 150,000 and 200,000.

One report from Florida International University says 90 percent of them are converts.Most of them women.

In fact, Latino and Latina Muslims are the fastest growing ethnic group in Islam.

 “A lot of their values tend to already be conservative values. They have a higher respect for Jesus who we say is a prophet in Islam. They have a high respect for the mother of Jesus, for Mary. So there’s that kind of connection with religion and the idea of God and love for God,” Mustafa Umar an Imam at the Islamic Institute of Orange County, says.

 “If you grew up in a traditional Hispanic family home, then it’s very similar to Islam,” she said.

She’s from Puerto Rico and converted as a teenager, only weeks before 9/11.

 “I was exposed to drugs and alcohol when I was about 11. And for me, Islam was more of like a stability and structure for me,” Wanda said.

But coming from a strict Catholic background, it wasn’t easy.

 “It took my Mom about five years to get used to me converting to Islam. It was quite hard for her. She threw me out of the house. I was 16 and I moved out. Afterward, my Mom called me on the phone and she asked me to come back and stay with her and she said she was going to try to her best to understand why I became Muslim. And do her best to change and now she’s… now we have an amazing relationship but it took well, I’ve been Muslim now for 15 years, so it took a long time,” Wanda says.

For women like Wanda and Lucy, it’s particularly tough when politics mix with religion, heritage, and gender.But, they refuse to give up hope or their identities.