Muslim and Arab-Americans, alarmed by prejudice, push voter registration
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Ez-Zohra Baidouri, 73, of Morocco, registers to vote for the first time with the help of her daughter Amina Baidouri, center, on September 30 outside of Masjid Al Furqan in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Muslim men get ready for Friday jummah prayer on September 30 at Masjid Al Furqan in Philadelphia. Offended by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigration as a way to end terrorism, Muslim-Americans are pushing back with grassroots voter-registration drives, and through Yalla Vote, a national initiative of the nonprofit Arab American Institute, which is pouring resources into the 12 states with the highest concentrations of Arab Americans.
PHILADELPHIA » Ez-Zohra Baidouri, 73, left Morocco in 1986, settled with her family in Northeast Philadelphia, and became a U.S. citizen 15 years ago.
On a recent afternoon, after prayers at Masjid Al Furqan mosque on Roosevelt Boulevard near Cottman Avenue, she signed a voter registration form — a first for her.
“Trump, not,” she said.
Zakir Ullah, 37, born in Pakistan and naturalized in 2007, stopped by the volunteers’ table outside the mosque to get a form for his wife, 30-year-old Husna.
“I’m registered, she is not,” Ullah said. “We have to pick the person who will be better for the country. I prefer Hillary.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s call to stop Muslim immigration, and his swipes at Arab countries as incubators of terrorism, have offended some Arab-American and Muslim American groups. They are pushing back with voter registration drives.
“Yalla Vote” — roughly translated as “come on, vote” — is a national initiative of the nonprofit Arab American Institute, which is targeting the 12 states with the highest concentrations of Arab Americans.
Because voter registration forms do not ask for religious affiliation, no one knows how many Muslim Americans are registered voters. As for numbers of Arab-Americans state to state, AAI’s estimates are higher than census figures. The institute contends the government undercounts Arab-Americans because of ambiguity in the census question on ancestry, and “distrust/misunderstanding of government surveys among recent immigrants.”
Yalla Vote’s organizers say they are promoting voting, not candidates, and that their mission is to use the power of the ballot box to put Arab Americans at the forefront of national conversations on such topics as surveillance, profiling, immigration, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
“With an estimated population of over 180,000, the Arab-American community in Pennsylvania could be a swing constituency” on Election Day, said Yalla Vote’s Pennsylvania field coordinator, Summar Elgogari of Reading, a Temple University senior majoring in secondary education and social studies.
Since late July, a grassroots interfaith group in Philadelphia has heeded the call of some of its Muslim members and has circulated fliers — “As-salamu alaykum! Are you registered to vote?” — aimed at what it estimates are thousands of unregistered Muslims in the city.
One of the group’s founders, Tarik Khan, 37, is a nurse practitioner who was born in Bustleton. The coalition has no official name, though Khan calls it Trump Busters. It includes members of EmergeUSA, a national nonprofit that promotes civic engagement in Muslim, South Asian, and Arab American communities.
“It just hit me as someone who is Muslim, watching Trump rise because of anti-Muslim bigotry,” Khan said. “I wanted to help strengthen the voice of the Muslim community.”
At the Muslim American Society of Philadelphia, a mosque, school, and community center, director Naser Khatib has joined a national campaign by the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations to register one million voters. The driving force, the organization says, is a sharp rise in Islamophobia.
“We want to show Trump, and even Hillary, that we are here and we will vote,” he said. “Vote is power.”
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©2016 The Philadelphia Inquirer
10 responses to “Muslim and Arab-Americans, alarmed by prejudice, push voter registration”
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Time for Trump to tell the Muslims, “I’m a changed man! Namaste!”
Not all Muslims are radical. It’s just a few. The same goes for apes. Not all apes are radical, just a few. Crooked Hilliary is the enabler, manipulator and liar, that feeds on Democrat voters because they are easily manipulated. They fall for anything.
I cannot imgagine why any educated person would allow an obvious incompetent* to be their leader. I do know that the most devoted Trumpzis get their information from Fox News and other, even more biased media. They change the subject whenever facts put them into a corner. They resort to insults when someone with a higher IQ puts them in their place.
When you Trump kissers post a link to your favorite articles, I try to read/watch them with an open yet critical mind, and post a response. Those articles are almost always poorly written, slanted, and not real news, but I read them because I am not manipulated by cheap marketing and propaganda.
Your mother was right, lespark. You shoulda stayed in school, you coulda been someone. But it’s not too late; get educated, do something with your life!!!
*Incompetent at basic administration, communicating with normal mainstream people, relating to females without using money and fame, putting ideas into a logical argument, etc. We can go into detail later; I have a life and will go to it now.
these muslims that are living here like the article above and other million muslims living here are bunch of cowards pretending to like America, if they liked this country then why don’t they squeal on other muslims in mosque and other places when there talking about terrorist attacks and killing us, most of these muslims are a bunch of phonies. wanting to turn this country into a muslim state.
They have a name for it…it’s called Jijrah.
Hijrah
It is not prejudice that most Americans dislike Arabs and Muslims: Because the unpopularity of these Non-American groups is rooted in their fascist religion which makes them hate our culture and lifestyle – even when they do not openly show it.
Don’t Muslims realize they are perhaps the most intolerant and discriminatory people on the face of the earth? I don’t think Americans have beheaded anyone for carrying a Koran.
How many more people have been lynched by white Americans because of the color of their skin?
When was the last recorded lynching of someone of color by white Americans? And when was the last beheading or mass killings by Muslims? Answer these questions and you will see how misplaced your comment is.