NewsTaco

By Wendy Diaz, New America Media/The Muslim Link

SOMERSET, N.J. — Tucked away in a quiet rural neighborhood in Somerset, New Jersey is an old brownstone that houses the New Jersey Chapter of the Islamic Center of North America’s (ICNA) WhyIslam Project. Within its confines, in a second floor office decorated with rose-colored walls, sits the administrative assistant and only female employee of the department, Nahela Morales.

In a long black garment and gray headscarf, Morales sits in front of a computer entering notes and taking phone calls from the program’s hotline, 1-877-WhyIslam, a resource for individuals hoping to learn more about the religion. A Mexican immigrant and recent convert, Morales is the national Spanish-language outreach coordinator for the program, part of ICNA’s mission to disseminate information about Islam nationwide.

But Morales’ efforts go beyond U.S. borders: the 37-year-old recently led a trip to bring Islamic literature, food and clothing to her native Mexico.

Morales, who was born in Mexico City but later moved to California and then New York, is part of a growing population of immigrant Muslim converts from Latin America – many of them women — now helping to bring the religion back to their home countries.

Immigrant Latinas Find a Place in Islam

“Many immigrants are here by themselves,” says Morales, noting that Latina immigrant women are drawn to Islam because of the sense of “belonging” they find within the Muslim community. “When they come into the mosque and see smiling faces, they feel welcome.”

According to WhyIslam’s 2012 annual report, 19 percent of the some 3,000 converts it assisted in 2011 were Latinos, and more than half of those (55 percent) were women. The 2011 U.S. Mosque Survey, which interviewed leaders at 524 mosques across the country, found the number of new female converts to Islam had increased 8 percent since 2000, and that Latinos accounted for 12 percent of all new converts in the United States in 2011.

Experts attribute the phenomenon to recent migration trends.

Muslim and Latino immigrants are increasingly living side by side in urban neighborhoods across the country, from California, Texas and Florida to New York and Illinois, states that according to data from the Migration Policy Institute constitute 72.5 percent of the total foreign-born population from Latin America in the United States. At the same time, these five states are also home to the highest number of mosques, The American Mosque 2011 Report shows, reflecting a growing Muslim presence as well.

Wilfredo Ruiz, a native of Puerto Rico who converted to Islam in 2003, is an attorney and political analyst specializing on the Islamic world. In addition to working with various non-profit organizations, including the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), he also serves as the imam at his local mosque in South Florida.

“More women than men convert, both in AMANA offices and in the mosques in Southern Florida,” Ruiz says. Latina immigrants, he explains, often feel exploited both in Latin America and the United States. The higher status afforded women in Islam and their modest dress, he believes, offers a sensible alternative.

“I have heard from Latina women that they seek protection, and they find [that] protection and respect in Islam,” he adds.

Juan Galvan, executive director of the Latino-American Dawah Association and author of Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam, believes that Islam may also hold another, distinctly religious appeal to Latino immigrants because it reveals to them what he calls a more profound understanding of monotheism.

“Most Latino Muslim converts have had personal experiences with Muslims that first drew them closer to Islam,” he explains. “These Muslims may be their friends, acquaintances, classmates, coworkers, bosses, marriage partners, or others. By interacting with Muslims, a non-Muslim learns about Islamic monotheism for the first time.”

Because Islam emphasizes God’s, or Allah’s, oneness, Galvan says, it presents Latinos with a unique alternative to traditional Christian theologies that accept the existence of holy deities – Jesus, the Holy Spirit, saints and miracle workers — which are connected to, yet distinct, from God.

“While Protestantism may have fewer intermediaries than Catholicism, Latinos come to Islam because they believe in a concept of God that acknowledges Him as the Most Powerful and therefore, needs no son,” says Galvan, who is himself a Mexican-American convert to Islam.

Prayers Answered


Morales found her own place in Islam after a turbulent past.

In 1979, Morales’ mother risked crossing the border into the United States illegally and alone, leaving her infant daughter behind in Mexico under her grandmother’s care. When Morales was 5 years old, she was finally reunited with her mother, who by that time had settled in Los Angeles. Mother and daughter gained amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. However, even as a U.S. citizen, Morales recalls feeling out of place.

“It was a very difficult adjustment since I did not speak English,” says Morales. “I remember entering the school system and not being able to communicate with my teachers or peers. I wanted to go back home [to Mexico].”

Adding to her difficulties, Morales was the victim of years of neglect and abuse at home, and as a pre-teen she was removed from her mother’s custody and placed in foster care and group homes, until ultimately she was able to settle on her own and finish college.

She moved to New York in 2001. Shortly after her relocation, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred at the World Trade Center. When news reports blamed Muslim extremists, Morales began to research Islam.

“I was watching the news and they were always showing [Muslim] people shouting ‘Allahu-akbar,’ God is great, so I thought, if your God is so great, why is he allowing you to kill people? If Muslims say Islam [is about] peace, then this doesn’t make sense.” She decided to find the answers herself and purchased a copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Morales also began befriending Muslim women on MySpace.

“They were so nice, and I became more curious. One of the Muslim women I met happened to be Puerto Rican, and she got in touch with someone in California that could send me an information package about Islam with books, a Quran, a prayer rug, and a hijab [headscarf].”

Morales continued to make contact with Muslims through the Internet and searched online for the closest mosque to her new home in North Bergen, New Jersey. She began visiting the mosque and eventually converted in 2003, and continues to be an active member of the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center, or NHIEC.

Situated in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, 30 percent of NHIEC’s congregants are Latinos. The Latino influence is so great that the mosque offers simultaneous Spanish translation of its Friday sermons and Islamic studies classes, and even hosts an annual “Hispanic Muslim Day.”

During one of her visits to the NHIEC mosque in 2009, a WhyIslam worker overheard Morales speaking Spanish and asked if she would be interested in a bilingual position with the company.

“I asked [God] to please send me a job where I would be able to worship and wear my veil. I knew right then my prayer was being answered,” recalls Morales.

She has now been working with NHIEC for more than three years, and recently led a campaign to deliver Islamic literature and audio, clothing, and toiletries to a needy Muslim community in Mexico City.

During that trip Morales met with her own family members in Mexico, who are mostly Catholic. She says that initially they were not accepting of her decision to practice Islam or of her modest style of dress. They accused her of turning her back on her culture. But on her most recent trip to her hometown of Cuernavaca, she took the opportunity to talk to them more about her religion.

“It is obvious that Islam is still very strange in Mexico,” admits Morales, who says that since her last visit her own family has become more receptive. “But it is also very clear that people want to learn about it.”

Latina Muslims, At Home and Abroad

Isabela Duarte has been in the United States since the age of seven. A Muslim convert living in Chicago, the 30-year-old left Mexico with her family in 1990, crossing the border illegally and moving to the Windy City, where she attended school while her parents worked. After high school, she says, she had no other choice but to follow in her parents’ footsteps.

“I figured that there was no possibility of furthering my education because I’d lack assistance due to my status,” she explains. She eventually landed an administrative position in a social services agency, but thanks to the recession she soon lost her job.

“That’s when my real struggles began. I searched for jobs everywhere. Immigration laws became tougher … most places of employment denied me any type of opportunity regardless of the experience I had.” She ultimately settled for babysitting jobs that paid under the table.

In the winter of 2008, while her parents faced foreclosure, unemployment, and a divorce, Duarte had an emotional breakdown. Seeking help, she came upon a YouTube video of Quran recitations. Her best friend, who was Puerto Rican, had already become a Muslim, and Duarte soon followed in her footsteps.

But while she has found solace and community, participating regularly in events held by the Latino Muslims of Chicago, an Islamic group that serves the needs of Latinos, she says her immigration status continues to be a struggle.

“This is my home,” she says. “Chicago has been my home and I don’t recall any other.”

Part of a growing Hispanic population in the United States, Duarte is also among a Muslim community that, according to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, is expected to increase dramatically over the next 20 years, thanks largely to immigration from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

In North and South America, the estimated Muslim population in 2010 was 5,256,000. This number is expected to more than double by the year 2030.

Thirty-four-year-old Liliana Anaya, a Muslim convert from Colombia and a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., is familiar with the trend. The mosque in her hometown, Barranquilla, Colombia, reports an average of four conversions a month.

Anaya, who converted to Islam in June 2002, is a graduate of Rollins University in Orlando, Florida, where she majored in political science and international relations. She later attended American University to complete a Master’s Degree in international peace and conflict resolution.

After graduating, she got a job at a non-profit organization offering mediation for criminal, district, and county court systems in northern Virginia. During this time, she met her husband, a Muslim convert from Argentina, and together they applied for U.S. citizenship.

While Anaya was expecting their first child, she decided to travel back to her country to give birth. After their arrival, she and her husband discovered the Othman bin Affan Mosque in Barranquilla, a small Muslim community that lacked adequate resources. Because Anaya’s husband had earned a degree in Islamic Propagation from Umm Al Qura University in Saudi Arabia, they became involved in the mosque, organizing and teaching classes.

“I felt that Muslims in the states are already part of the fabric of the society,” Anaya explains. “But here [in Colombia], we are in the baby steps. If I want something, I have to create it. If I want Islamic classes for my children, I have to create them.”

Anaya and her husband are now in the process of establishing an Islamic school for the Muslims of Barranquilla. Both say that given their commitment to the work, return to the United States is unlikely.

“The Muslim community here needs us,” says Anaya, “so we can’t move.”

This story was made possible by a grant from Atlantic Philanthropies, and was produced as part of New America Media’s Women Immigrants Fellowship Program.

This article was first published in New America Media.

Wendy (Umm Uthman) Diaz is the Co-founder of Hablamos Islam and Hablamos Islam Niños, two websites dedicated to providing Spanish-speaking Muslims and non-Muslims with educational resources about Islam in Spanish.

[Photo courtesy New America Media]

Today as we remember those we lost on 9/11, here are a few remembrances from our News Taco community:

• 9/11 Is No Excuse for Bashing Muslims
• The September 11 Lessons I’ve Learned
• Experiencing The Post-9/11 New York City

Feel free to share your 9/11 experiences or memories with us here in the comments or on Facebook.

[Photo By Meda]

I moved to New York City the summer after 9/11, though I was actually born in Brooklyn, but raised in Miami, so it was a return of sorts. The city was still visibly stunned and the country was astir with its color-coded thing. “Ground Zero” had stopped smoldering months ago, but the clean-up was well under way. Thousands had died, which meant that hundreds of thousands were being directly affected, which then affected the millions grinding it out in the city.

A deep sense of distrust, especially towards Arabs and East Asians, descended on the city like some medieval plague. The summer after 9/11 jobs became scarce as state and federal monies were put on hold so that our “response” might become apparent (nation building price tag and all). The Department of Ed and City University of New York had freezes; this or that association was only hiring internally. The summer after 9/11, New York City still reeled from the pelagic psychic pain and ultra-deep remorse inflicted by those two planes.

The summer after 9/11, the subways were thronged with anti-terror police in body armor, scaring the crap out of everybody. Of course, though, it was for your safety, so unless you were heading up your own cell you shut your mouth and shared the platform with the swat squadron.

We were told numerous times a day that it was the new price of freedom. According to the Daily News, by 2008, the NYPD was already “reinventing itself as an intelligence and homeland security agency” as well as “the nations’ largest police department.” As the country’s hawks played with smoke and mirrors at the United Nations to obtain legitimacy for their eventual invasion of Iraq, New York City became one of the safest and best patrolled cities in the world with “37,000 officers,” and “tens of millions of dollars – much it from federal grants – on an array of high-tech security measures designed to thwart threats.” This is the reason that the NYPD is the only police force in the world with an international presence as many of its officers work in conjunction with Central Intelligence Agency analysts.

I lived in New York for a total of eight years, in handful of neighborhoods. The last five living in a Harlem enclave (Striver’s Row) in a neighborhood were I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was Latino but not Black. I have lived in an attic on Church Ave in Brooklyn, and right on third Ave in Spanish Harlem, in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood where the world would shut down on Friday evenings in preparation for Shabbat. And I have been out and about to the wee hours of the night, intoxicated and stumbling, bumbling through wind-slapped city streets, industrial zones, and hipster kingdoms. And nothing has ever “happened.”

I have never been mugged or pistol-whipped or knifed in the gut or taken advantage of in a violent and aggressive manner. I also taught high school for three years in the Bronx in a poor neighborhood with a large gang presence. So, I have seen fights, melees, and minor bar brawls, but I benefited directly from the safety and surveillance of a post-9/11 heavy police presence. Which is to say, 9/11 was more than a day in history for New York City, it was a pivotal moment in that city’s identity which, for better or worse, becomes your reality as soon as you step into the city.

[Photo By join the dots]

By Jameelah Xochitl Medina

Re-visiting the Past: Ancestral Memory of Islam

Although many U.S. Americans of all ethnicities are embracing Islam, I often wonder if ancestral memory plays a role in the number of Latino/as embracing the faith of Islam. Latino/as may be first or even third- and fourth-generation in the U.S., and many more of are indigenous to the Southwest.

While Latino/as embody an ancestral mix of Indigenous, Spanish, and African blood and have been referred to as a “cosmic race” because of the roots in these three ethnic cultures, their ancestral mix of religious cultures is not talked about as much. From the geographic branches of their Spanish and African heritage, many Latino/as have a religious mixture that includes the three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three religions have a long history in Africa, particularly North Africa, and a long history in Spain, specifically southern Spain.

Thus, the ancestral memory of Islam for many Latino/as who feel urged to convert to Islam may be rooted in four types of ancestors: 1) with a Moorish Muslim ancestor in Spain between the years of 711 and 1492 when the North African Moors ruled Andalusia, Spain; 2) with African captures, many of whom practiced Islam, who were taken to all parts of the Americas as slaves; 3) with amorisco ancestor who feigned Christianity and blended in with the mass of Mozarab Spanish migrants from Andalusia (approximately 36.9% of all Spanish migrants) who arrived in the Americas between 1493 and 1600, and 4) with Indigenous ancestors who were introduced to Islam by both North and West African traders and runaway African slaves (cimarrones) with whom they built and cohabited in freetowns or palenques.

With all the possible sources of the memory of Islam within the Latino/as community or on individual bases, one cannot ignore the more obvious roles Islam has played in naming practices and the Spanish language itself. Latino/as use given and last names that are Arabic, Arabic-derived, or reflect figures in Islamic history.

Just a few examples are: “Omar” (an Arabic name and famous figure in Islamic history means “one who lives a long life”) is a name that is common among Mexican-Americans in my area of Southern California; the surname “Medina” refers to an Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia and also to center of a town (downtown); the Mexican city of Guadalajara is an Arabic term (Oued al-hidjara) meaning “the river of rocks”; the Spanish word “ojalá,” which is “nshaAllah” in Arabic or “if God wills” in English; and the scores of other words in Spanish that are derived from Arabic (e.g., granadilla,alfombra, algodon, sofa, alberca, almohada, camisa, etc.).

The Search for Peace and Tranquility

Many Latino/as have left the Catholic Church for Pentecostal Churches, Seventh Day Adventist Churches and Kingdom Halls, but the rising number of Latino/a Muslims is a testament to the universality of the faith of Islam and to the struggle among Latino/as to find inner peace and tranquility by following a religious path that is not as common as others in the community.

Latino/as whom I know have converted to Islam for many reasons: the absence of intermediaries like a priest, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary or la virgin de Guadalupe, santos, santeros or the spirits of dead family members who are remember in altares. Many Latino/as see it as a breath of fresh air that they can be their own religious teacher in the absence of one and that they can have a direct relationship with Allah at any moment and in any place. Although there are no intermediaries in Islam, it is not too much of a stretch for Latino/as to accept Islam because it does accept and protect the roles of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and all the similarities in prophets and messengers beginning with Adam and including Abraham, David, Moses, Lot, Enoch, and others. Another similarity that Latino/a converts notice is between the Catholic rosary beads and the tasbih or dhikr beads used by many Muslims to keep count of supplications.

Challenges

The challenges of being a Latino/a Muslim most obviously come in the form of familial confusion and rejection and the loss of “friends.” For many Latino/a families, Catholicism is so ingrained to the point that it is sometimes indistinguishable from Latina culture, especially by the older family members who see Catholicism as part and parcel of being Latino/a. For this reason, some Latino families feel a deep sense of cultural and familial betrayal when one of the family members is exploring or, worse yet, choosing to embrace Islam. It can be seen as a total rejection of the heritage and not simply as a question of religious re-affiliation.

For example, my best friend, who is Cuban American, converted from Santería to Islam in 2002. Her mother, a santera, took her daughter’s conversion as a complete rejection of her family and a renouncement of her Cuban identity. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. My best friend continues to love, eat, sing, write, breath, and celebrate her Cuban culture and family even with continued rejection from family; her Cuban flame has not been extinguished by the wind of Islam. Although her story does not appear and my essay focuses on challenges of racism and Islamophobia in the new book, I Speak for Myself: American Women on being Muslim (White Cloud Press, May 2, 2011), I encourage Latinos and US Americans of all ethnicities to learn more about the great experiential, ideological, and ethnic diversity by reading the collection of 40 essays by 40 women working on coming full circle in their own ways.

Jameelah Xochitl Medina is an educator, a business owner, a published author, a poet, an artist, and a student. She first began writing poetry at 12 years-old, and has been drawing since 2001. Jameelah is the author of The Afro-Latin Diaspora: Awakening Ancestral Memory, Avoiding Cultural Amnesia published in 2004, the owner of Hijabified 24:31 line hosted at Cafepress.com, and the owner of The Medina Academy of Overachievers. Jameelah’s research and activism has won her the honor of being listed in Oprah Magazine as one of 80 women leaders of the future, nominated by the White House Project.

[Photo By Daniel Zanini H.]

Gas prices keep inching toward $4 nationwide, albeit in some places it already costs more than that for a gallon of gas. Unrest in the Middle East is being blamed for the rise. Drivers are starting to drive less as a result.

A French ban on burkas, garments women wear to completely cover themselves in public, takes effect today. Several women have been detained already in protest over removing the clothing.

President Barack Obama is set to redo the budget, tackling Medicare and Medicaid, as well as taxes on the wealthy, in an effort to bring down the country’s debt.

A third major earthquake hit Japan; this one was a 6.6-magnitude quake.

The U.S. government has spent $608 million on the military’s Libya operation so far.

[Photo By Ashi]

New York Rep. Peter King – R was sent a bloody pig’s foot with a note containing anti-Semitic sayings yesterday. He’s the same guy who went on a witch hunt for Muslims last month.

At least 6 people died in the U.S. South as the result of severe weather storms yesterday and into last night; high winds, hail, lightening and the resulting problems affected Georgia and the Carolinas.

Two U.S. citizens were killed in their vehicle as they waited to cross from Tijuana into the San Diego area early on Monday.

Radiation in seawater near the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan is 7.5 million times the legal limit.

Republicans in the House are set to propose a budget that includes changes in the tax system and cuts Medicare and Medicaid.

[Photo Courtesy Congress]

President Obama is set to cut U.S. oil imports by 1/3 over the next decade due to unrest in the Middle East and rising prices.

There were 201,000 jobs added to the private sector this month, according to the private company ADP; this is good, but not great growth.

Muslims in the U.S. face increasing discrimination since the 9/11 attacks, according to the Department of Justice.

The Supreme Court seems set to rejection a class action lawsuit brought against Walmart for systematic gender discrimination against women.

Radiation continues to leak in Japan, where 4 of 6 Daiichi reactors are not fixable; sea water shows radiation levels 3,300 times the legal limit.

[Photo By Kedondeng]

NPR, while capable of some incredible journalism, did a half-assed job of trying to create a trend story this week that implied Latino Islam converts were somehow more dangerous or prone to terrorism than other Muslim extremists. First and foremost, it’s important to note that neither all Muslims, nor all Latino Muslim converts are terrorists; this is like implying that all Catholics are child molesters — the argument simply holds no water.

Secondly, NPR has extremely weak evidence for this “trend.” In its own words: “Latino converts to radical Islam have been connected to terrorism cases in this country with increasing frequency — and officials are trying to understand why.”

Apparently, “increasing frequency” means a handful of times in nearly 10 years. Really NPR? Give me a break. I know you practically make it a policy of excluding minority journalists from your staff, but you truly are better than this. Here’s NPR’s “evidence” for this supposedly growing trend:

• The FBI just arrested 21 year-old Antonio Martinez after charging him with plotting to blow up a military recruitment center.
• In 2002 Jose Padilla trained with al-Qaida.
• In 2007 Daniel Maldonado joined an affiliate al-Qaida group in Somalia.
• Bryant Neal Vinas was also involved with al-Qaida a few years ago.

That’s it. Do you see the trend? I can’t, can you help me find it?

[Photo By Daniel Zanini H.]