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From: Aliza Becker <azbecker@mindspring.com>
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Subject: [NIFL-ESL:6461] FW: A Nation of Immigrants Rebuilds
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------ Forwarded Message
From: "Mbelanger" <mbelanger@immigrationforum.org>
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:08:31 -0400
To: <mbelanger@immigrationforum.org>
Subject: A Nation of Immigrants Rebuilds
National Immigration Forum
Date: September 24, 2001
To: Forum Associates and interested advocates
From: Maurice Belanger
Re: More Excerpts from Stories Relating to the Events of September
11
----------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
1. “Tragedies touch Oregon hearts,” Portland Oregonian,
September 13
2. "Governor dines at restaurant targeted by hate mail" The
Courier-Journal, September 20, 2001
3. "Houston Muslims offer to aid FBI as translators,"
Houston Chronicle, September 20, 2001.
4. President George W. Bush, address to Congress, September
20, 2001
5. "Hostility adds to grief for kin of Arab victims,"
Boston Globe, September 21, 2001
6. "Residents show support for terrorized family, bakery,"
Rockford Register Star
7. "Country’s newest citizens face a changed America,"
Cherry Hill Press, September 20, 2001
----------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from “Tragedies touch Oregon hearts,” Portland Oregonian,
09/13/2001
After eight years in the United States, mostly in Portland [OR], Eric
Hartono was sold on all the good the country had to offer.
But friends mourned Wednesday when they learned the 19-year-old had died
in a plane hijacked by somebody who saw instead nothing but bad in
America. Hartono, an Indonesian immigrant, was killed on United
Airlines Flight 175, which veered off its course to Los Angeles on
Tuesday and exploded into New York’s World Trade Center.
. . . . Like his four older siblings, Hartono left his childhood home
on the brink of adolescence to live with a host family in Portland. He
started seventh grade in 1993 as a wiry boy, unsure in his faith and
feeling out American culture. By the time he left for Boston during the
summer of 2000, Hartono had finished high school, sported an impressive
set of biceps and grown into a spiritual young man.
He left behind a group of loyal friends, marked as much by their
differences as by their similarities. Several said he was generous with
everybody and always humble, despite growing up in a wealthy family.
“He doesn’t look at what you have, what you own, how much money you’ve
got,” [his friend] Soetanto said. “He doesn’t look at your face,
whether you’re pretty or ugly. He just pretty much hangs out with you.”
============================
IMMIGRANT BUSINESS
Governor dines at restaurant targeted by hate mail
By Tom Loftus
The Courier-Journal
September 20, 2001
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Gov. Paul Patton and his staff hit the buffet line at
the Pizza Inn last night to show support for the Iranian immigrant
family who own the restaurant.
The owners had been slandered in an anonymous e-mail that circulated
among many state government computer users Monday. Signed by "a
concerned and patriotic citizen," the e-mail called for a boycott of the
restaurant since its operators allegedly "were clapping and cheering" as
they watched television replays of the Sept. 11 attack on the World
Trade Center.
But Pizza Inn owner Martin Mehrizi said the e-mail was "a terrible lie."
He said that it had prompted a threatening telephone call, but that his
customers -- many of whom are friends -- did not believe it.
Mehrizi said he, his wife and two children left a dictatorship in Iran
11 years ago to come to the United States so his children would have a
better chance to go to college and to enjoy the freedoms this country
offers. Mehrizi, a Muslim, said he has been a U.S. citizen for nearly
five years.
He said the attacks of Sept. 11 were very upsetting to him and his
family. "As an American, but more as just a human being, I thought this
attack was terrible, just terrible," Mehrizi said. "I cried watching CNN
when they showed a father showing a picture of his daughter who was
missing. I am a father, too."
After reading news reports of the e-mail, Patton decided to personally
defy the call for a boycott and apologize to Mehrizi and his family.
"We are a nation of immigrants. We come from many backgrounds, many
religions. And we don't think singling people out because of their
nationality or their religion or their race or any other characteristic
is American," Patton told Mehrizi as he entered the restaurant last
evening. "We're very sorry. . . ."
"I'm very happy that I'm in Kentucky," Mehrizi answered. "Thank you very
much for coming."
The e-mail said of the restaurant owners, "If you haven't noticed, the
operators are of Islamic descent." It warned not to use violence against
the Pizza Inn because "American insurance companies" would pay for any
damage and said only a boycott could shut the business down and send the
owners "back where they belong."
"Someone classified these people with the terrorists. Certainly they are
not. These are Americans. They are American citizens. We're not going to
discriminate against anyone here in Kentucky," Patton told reporters
before piling a plate with at least five pieces of pizza from the buffet
line. "Someone sabotaged this business for some reason, and we're going
to make sure that that sabotage does not hurt this business. In fact, it
very well may help."
Two state employees have been admonished for spreading the e-mail, but
its author has not been identified. Patton said that the author had
abused state equipment and that the governor's technology office and
state police are investigating. But he said he did not know how likely
it is that the e-mail can be traced.
Beverly Watts, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on Human
Rights, said her office has received few reports of hate crimes or other
acts of discrimination since the Sept. 11 attacks. She noted reports of
vandalism at a mosque in Louisville and the Islamic Center in Lexington
last week.
"But even one incident is one too many. And the report of this hate
e-mail circulating to computers in Frankfort and elsewhere was
alarming," she said.
Watts asked anyone victimized by a hate crime or other form of
discrimination to call the commission's hotline at (800) 292-5566.
=========================
Sept. 20, 2001, 12:20AM
Houston Muslims offer to aid FBI as translators
By JO ANN ZUŃIGA
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle
Muslim and Arabic representatives offered help Wednesday in capturing
terrorists, including a response to an FBI request for translators who
speak Arabic, Farsi and Pashto.
Masrur Javed Khan, president of the Pakistan Association of Greater
Houston, and a coalition met with U.S. Rep. Ken Bentsen, D-Houston,
shortly before he flew back to Washington to consider the airlines
bailout package.
"We are all in this together and support President Bush," said Khan, a
Rice University graduate who has been in Houston since 1980.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III on Monday requested assistance from
citizens with Arabic language capability. The FBI on its Web site
www.fbi.gov set up a link to an online application at www.fbijobs.com
for translators.
"The Arabic-American community and others immediately overwhelmed our
telephone switchboard," Mueller posted on the Web site. "I want to thank
you for your tremendous response and support."
The FBI is seeking people fluent in Arabic and Farsi, which is spoken in
Iran and parts of Afghanistan, and in Pashto, which is spoken in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The FBI hired linguists in Detroit and elsewhere before the attacks in
New York and Washington on Sept. 11, but has since stepped up the
effort.
"In the midst of meeting about airport security and America's response
to the attacks," Bentsen said, "I also met with these constituents who
have raised families here and who are American like all of us.
"Although we are in a heightened state of security, we should not single
out any one group."
Responding to the possibility of Houston being listed as a target,
Bentsen said, "With Houston being the fourth largest city along with its
petrochemical complex and the Texas Medical Center as assets, we have
been targeted as far back as during the Cuban Missile Crisis."
"Without creating a sense of panic, we need to concentrate on security
and prosecution of those culpable."
Khan said the Houston coalition, which includes the United Holy Land
Fund for humanitarian relief and the Islamic American Muslim Council, is
also coordinating a visit by Mayor Lee Brown to a local mosque.
"We need to learn more about each other, to educate yourself and use us
as a source of strength, not division," Khan said.
The coalition has established a local hot line for any hate crimes at
713-524-6615 at the Islamic Society of Greater Houston. A recording
warns, "Do not take the law into your own hands."
The local database lists about a dozen incidents, including a severe
beating of a man whose car broke down in the Houston Ship Channel area
Sept. 11, Khan said.
"But many of them are afraid to publicly come forward," he said.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has established a hot line for
reports of hate crimes against Arab-Americans, Muslim and South Asian
victims of violent incidents at 800-552-6843.
Abbas Yaacoubi, part of the coalition for the United Holy Land Fund in
Houston, said America is made up of immigrants and everyone should
remember where their forefathers came from.
"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle," he said of offers
to help all communities.
================================
President George W. Bush, in 9/20/2001 address to Congress
“I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world.
We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of
Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as
friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil
in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are
traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.
The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many
Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every
government that supports them.
“I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many
have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first
responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for
unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or
religious faith.”
===========================
Hostility adds to grief for kin of Arab victims
By Anne Barnard and Beth Daley, Globe Staff, 9/21/2001
NEW YORK - Jude Safi's friends are camping out at his parents' house in
Brooklyn, refusing to give up hope that the young bond trader may still
be pulled from the World Trade Center wreckage.
Jacqueline Sayegh's marriage documents are waiting at Our Lady of
Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights, but the rector fears that the
waitress, who worked at Windows on the World atop the north tower, will
never be back to pick them up.
Their stories echo those of thousands missing in last Tuesday's
terrorist attack, except for one thing: They are of Arab descent. Their
families, and those of at least 50 other Arabs and Arab-Americans dead
or missing in the disaster, face a double burden: They must suffer a
terrible loss while also dealing with the threat of hostility from
people who lump them in with the extremists suspected in the attack.
''It's like we're not allowed to mourn; we're being blamed and
accused,'' said Emira Habiby-Browne, who runs the Arab-American Family
Support Network in Brooklyn and is organizing an escort service for
people who have stopped going out in public because of violence and
threats against Arabs and other immigrants. ''We are in pain. We, too,
have lost people. We are New Yorkers.''
But all those interviewed agreed on one thing: Scrutiny of Arabs had
interrupted their grieving process. They felt as violated as anyone, but
many wondered if putting up flags would be bowing to an unfair demand.
''Why should we have to prove our loyalty?'' said Habiby-Browne.
Jamil Dari, 21, a typical Brooklyn kid who is both a money manager at
Evergreen International and the son of Palestinian immigrants, ran
outside his Rector Street office just in time to see the second plane
hit. ''All you could see was debris coming after us, like it was chasing
us,'' he said.
He said he is proud of his identity but tries to stay out of politics.
''I'm just trying to earn a living like anyone else,'' he said, sounding
like any other Brooklyn teenager-turned-Wall Street professional.
Yet even as the shock of the impact threw him backwards down the block,
Dari was thinking of things other than his own survival. ''The first
thing that popped into my head was: This could be one of my people,'' he
said. His next thought: ''This could be a big problem'' - that is, there
could be a backlash against Arabs.
Since then, he has been spitting up blood from smoke inhalation,
fighting off nightmares from seeing body parts on the sidewalk, and
mourning missing friends, including Safi. But he also has had to field
questions from friends and acquaintances about Osama bin Laden, the
Saudi businessman based in Afghanistan who is suspected in the attack.
''How am I supposed to know?'' he asked.
Even as activists urged Arab-Americans to let the world know they were
victims like everyone else, some victims' relatives didn't want to talk
about ethnicity at all. Sany Iskandar of Sudbury said of his brother:
''He was a human being. It doesn't really matter to me where we're
from.''
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 9/21/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
==================================
Rockford Register Star
Judy Emerson
Residents show support for terrorized family, bakery
Baker Falah Alaboudy cradled the telephone on his shoulder as he jotted
down the caller's number with one hand and used the other to pat the
head of 1-year-old Heba, who was clinging to his leg and howling.
"That lady has a restaurant, and she wants to place an order," Alaboudy
said after hanging up the phone and scooping up the curly-haired girl
for more comfort.
There have been many such encouraging calls since residents learned that
Alaboudy closed his business, Albaraka Bakery, out of fear last week
after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Someone called the bakery and threatened to kill Alaboudy and his
family. The storefront was defaced with shaving cream. A woman came into
the bakery and spit at Alaboudy's wife, Alia Zeidan.
Government investigators say the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and
World Trade Center were the work of a violent, fanatical group claiming
to be Muslims.
ALABOUDY AND ZEIDAN are Muslims of the regular, peaceful variety. In
fact, they fled their home countries — Iraq for him, Lebanon for her —
to escape violence. They met in the United States and married in 1995.
He's a U.S. citizen, and she has Canadian citizenship. Their four young
children were born in Rockford.
I wrote about Alaboudy and Zeidan in Wednesday's column. Since then,
dozens of people have called the family to offer support and to ask when
the bakery will reopen. Many people also have called me or sent e-mail
messages expressing emotions ranging from sadness to shame to outrage at
this example of homefront terrorism of innocent people.
Several people said they would be happy to help guard the business to
protect the family and ward off vandals. One woman offered to let the
family live with her for a while if they would feel safer.
Customers told of receiving bags of free pita bread and food samples
from Alaboudy and Zeidan. Others reflected on their own immigrant roots
and the wonderful diversity that is America.
"I saw the story and was heartbroken," said Jackie Gay, office manager
at Hinshaw & Culbertson, a law firm. "Everyone here was appalled. The
people who did it are no better than the people who perpetrated the
terrorist attacks."
Getting no answer at the bakery's telephone number, Gay planned to send
a messenger to tape a note on the door asking Alaboudy to call her when
he reopens so she can order baked goods. "I'm sure we're not the only
ones who want to give them business."
Indeed, they are not.
"I'LL BE THERE the first day they reopen," said Lee Rucks of Rockford.
"We should stand outside the business and show that we support these
people."
Alaboudy said Thursday that he hopes to reopen Oct. 5.
One woman called to say she had been in the bakery recently and found
Zeidan to be "kind and generous." The woman said she was shocked that
anyone would try to intimidate and terrorize this nice family. She
wouldn't leave her name, however, because she said she feared that the
people who harassed Alaboudy and Zeidan are kooky enough to turn on her.
Police are investigating the incidents, which they consider to be hate
crimes.
True Muslims don't identify with the radical, violent zeal that links
the terrorists, said Dr. Dawood Harunani, an Oregon dentist who is
president of the Muslim Association of Greater Rockford.
"What these guys did is not Islam," he said. "It doesn't come anywhere
close to the teaching of the prophet Mohammed."
Harunani said the Muslim Community Center is trying to assist Alaboudy
and Zeidan. Anyone wishing to help them or be part of a support group to
prevent additional intimidation of area Muslims should call the center,
397-3311, or Harunani's office, 732-6192.
==========================
Country’s newest citizens face a changed America
September 20, 2001
By JIM McELHATTON Staff Writer
CHERRY HILL
In a one-story, vinyl-sided rancher that could pass for a neighborhood
dentist office Wednesday, people waited in line to be searched so that
they could become United States citizens.
They spread their arms and legs for security guards, who told them to go
put their pocketbooks and cell phones back in their cars.
They came back and spread their arms and legs once more, and again the
guards swiped hand-held metal detectors up and down and across their
bodies.
In the lobby of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service district
office here, set on a dead-end street in a quiet residential
neighborhood, staffers took paperwork and told visitors to have a seat.
Side by side, they sat in small, 48-seat room with an American flag and
a 6-foot-tall Statue of Liberty in the corner.
And they waited.
Some of these people fled war-torn countries and waited almost 25 years
for this moment. But the last nine days brought the awful realization
that even American harbors are not safe anymore.
Bloodshed in their homelands, which led them to seek refuge here, has
seemed to follow them, some of the immigrants said.
Yet they added that despite last week's terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, despite the prospect of a long war, they
still could not wait to say the oath of allegiance Wednesday afternoon.
They knew that war could happen. They memorized the words of the oath:
"I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United
States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
The 33 people waiting in the room represented 21 countries.
And one of them was Nadine Alikhan.
The 29-year-old Toms River woman came here from Jamaica 15 years ago.
She arrived at the INS office with her husband, Agha, 34, originally of
Pakistan, one hour before the 3:30 p.m. ceremony.
Agha has also applied to become a citizen, but his application hasn't
been accepted yet. The limousine driver came here in 1984 from Murree
Hill, a mountainous town an hour's drive northeast of Islamabad, the
Pakistan capital.
The couple was excited when they first arrived at the Cherry Hill INS
office. They sat on a small, green wooden bench, smiling as they
recounted what led them up to this special day.
"People here don't know how good they've got it," said Nadine, who
sometimes worries about how people treat her husband. She hopes they do
not cast blame on him because he is Pakistani.
Agha, who hasn't driven his limo since the attack because airport
business has dropped off, said most people in Pakistan do not support
Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind last week's terrorist
attack.
Agha said he could not imagine how his life would have turned out if he
did not come to America at age 18.
"I can't answer that," he said. "It depends who you fall in with. None
of the people I grew up with fell in with these fundamentalists, but if
you do then they'll brainwash you.
"But I'm proud to live in America. This is where everybody in the world
wants to live. I love this country."
Agha said, too, that in his country, if there was a suspicion of a
threat from a certain ethnic group, then those people would be killed.
"They would disappear," he said. "By morning, they'd all be dead."
"That's not the way it works here, that is why this is a great country,"
he said.
In America, that will never happen, he said.
Around 3 p.m., guards unlocked the glass doors into the INS offices, and
the soon-to-be American citizens stood in line.
Just in front of Nadine was Tran L, 65, of Atlantic City. He used to be
an officer in the South Vietnamese Army, and he survived in prisoner of
war camps for nine years before coming to America in 1992.
He now deals blackjack at the casinos.
"This freedom is a precious thing," he said. "In my own country, I was
afraid to sleep at night."
As guards began swiping the hand-held metal detector across Nadine, her
husband rose from the bench to follow her.
The guard asked him for INS documents showing he was to be given the
oath.
"That's my wife," he said. "I just want to watch her."
But the guard told him there weren't enough seats inside, and so Agha
returned to the green bench outside of the front door.
After they were all seated, INS officers took the immigrants' green
cards.
INS Officer-In-Charge Carol Bellew entered the room to administer the
oath-of-citizenship, in a ceremony that lasts about 15 minutes and takes
place once a week here.
Earlier, she said each one is special.
"This is one of the biggest moment in these peoples' lives," Bellew
said. "They each have so many stories. I still get the chills every time
I hear them say the oath."
But after terrorists struck the country last week, Wednesday's ceremony
took on added significance, Bellew said.
"I think we're really much more aware of what it means to be Americans,"
she said.
As the ceremony began, Bellew welcomed everybody in the room before
leading the immigrants in the oath of allegiance that would formally
make them Americans.
"In this little corner of the world," Bellew told her audience, "a lot
of people don't even know we're here. But today, make sure they can hear
from all the way over in Philadelphia."
With that, at Bellew's cue, people stood and nearly yelled the 140-word
oath that end, "So help me God."
Meantime, Agha sat outside on the bench adjusting his baseball cap. He
didn't get to hear the oath.
Inside, this country's newest citizens sat back down and waited for
their citizenship papers.
There were 12 open seats.
==============================
Maurice Belanger
Senior Policy Associate
National Immigration Forum
mbelanger@immigrationforum.org
http://www.immigrationforum.org
------ End of Forwarded Message
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