7
Street roots
Sept 16, 2011
IN GOOD FAITH from page 1
she needed to remove her veil in order to
assimilate. She’s faced enormous challenges
because people think of her as a hostage,
even though she’s wanted to wear the veil
since she was 13. We’ve been supporting
her with rent and food for years. She’s
hoping to get a job with Intel.
I think the best solution for these women
is to create your own business. Islamic
Relief USA is piloting a program in
Washington D.C. that would provide seed
money for small, home business proposals.
For Ramadan fasting during the month of
August, we have a fundraiser to buy Winco
food cards. That way people can shop for
food they want to e a t Throughout the year,
we also provide hot meals and moving
assistance.
S.B. What do you think of Muslim/
American relations right now, and how can
we get to a better place?
L.H.: When you hear how many
Americans are automatically suspicious of
Muslims, that’s crying out for attention. (A
poll one year ago by Time magazine found
that more than 4 in 10 Americans say they
have an unfavorable view of Muslims,
significantly more negative than opinions of
other faiths).
Jews, Vietnamese, Japanese ... many
groups went through the same
discrimination. We can get through i t
There’s good and bad in everybody. You
L.H.: There was a silver lining in 9/11.
American Muslims realized that we have
isolated ourselves so much. It’s our own
fault that a majority of Americans distrust
us. How would they know? We never gave
(most Americans) the opportunity to get to
know us.
It changed after 9/11. All of a sudden
mosques that closed their doors to non-
Muslims opened their doors and welcomed
their neighbors to learn about their
community and understand their values.
After the Pioneer Courthouse Square
attempted bombing, Japanese Americans
really kicked into action. Japanese
Americans, including my husband, testified
in court about the discrimination and
profiling that happened to their families
during World War II.
I believe the case of Mohamed Mohamud
was a way to justify the need to have the
JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) in
Portland. We know we can’t trust the FBI.
The FBI has a lot to do to prove themselves
to Arab Muslims.
Our relationship with the Portland Police
Bureau is much better. They’ve tried to
extend themselves. We work with the Arab
and Muslim Police Advisory Council to
encourage the Muslim and Arab
communities to report hate crimes.
The police department wants to get
Muslim youth interested in joining the
police force. Parents, especially refugee
parents who come from dictatorship
countries, are the biggest hurdles to this
goal. For the future of the community, we
have to find a way to
reeducate parents,
because we need
policeman, firemen
and politicians from
the Muslim
community.
S.B. How do people
hear about your
relatively small
organization, and how
do you get funding?
P H O TO CO URTESY
O F ISO S
Volunteers at one of
the Day of Dignity
events, organized by
American Muslims
to provide meals,
clothes and services
to people
experiencing
homelessness.
can’t stamp all Muslims.
Working with youth and neighbors,
getting the next generation into politics and
the police force — that’s the way we can
make an impact. Our measure of success
would be to have advocates speak out on 5
our behalf who are not Muslim.
That’s where ISOS comes in. So many
times people have come to me saying, “you
were my last hope. And not only have you
given me hope, but you have also given me
awareness.”
S.B. How did the September 11,2011
attacks and the November Pioneer Courthouse
Square attempted bombing affect your own
community and ISOS?
ISOS from page 1
opportunity to start their lives over, ISOS
draws on a network of mosques and
individual donors, and is composed
entirely of volunteers with a board that, by
design, represents diverse cultures,
including the USA, Zimbabwe, Pakistan,
Ghana, Palestine and Kenya.
What began as a network to assist
arriving and needy families from the
Muslim community, has broadened to
include everyone seeking help to survive.
Since it's founding as a nonprofit in
L.H.: Thirty
percent of people we
help say, “I know you
because you helped
my friend.’ People
hear about us
through mosques,
211, United Way and
nonprofits who link to
us.
Funds come mostly
from individual
donations. Although, we received a $3,000
grant from the McKenzie Foundation to
create a youth program for kids that are
falsely stereotyped — Jewish, African
American, Somali Muslim, Japanese
American, Pakistani and Bangladeshi. A
handful of high schoolers signed up for eight
workshops. We asked them to write down
stereotypes of each other anonymously on
index cards, and by the end of the sessions,
they realized they were more like each
other than different.
It was a really positive group, and
something I think is desperately needed in
this country with terms like Islamophobia
and so many negative pictures and
connotations of Muslims.;
ISOS is all volunteers. Each person on
2003, ISOS has raised $300,000 directly
for services for the disabled, elderly,
single mothers and the homeless. In
addition to the Day of Dignity, the
organizations’ volunteers conduct refugee
resettlement assistance, distribute
furniture and household items, youth
prejudice forums, and food drives, among
other efforts and projects.
Board members attest to the challenges
their clients face in assimilating on a tight
deadline of support; learning a new
language, finding employment, and raising
children in an entirely different culture
the board comes from a different cultural
background. No one can accuse us of being
homogenous.
We decided money could never
compensate for the work we do, so we all
have other jobs. Sometimes you take ISOS’s
work to bed with you, but when you get
through it and you see there’s light at the
end of the tunnel, it reenergizes you for the
next case.
S.B.: Health-care wise, what is ISOS doing
to help?
L.H.: A while back, Providence S t
Vincent Medical Center contacted us and
said, “we don’t know how to deal with health
"So many times people have come to me
saying, 'you were my last hope. And not only
have you given me hope, but you have also
given me awareness/"
care for Muslim patients.” So we sat down
with their chaplain and created a brochure
that talks about Muslim modesty, food,
grieving customs, and comfortable
interaction between doctor and client
OHSU got wind of the brochure and is also
very excited about it
A lot of Iraqis coming to the Portland
area have mental issues, especially PTSD,
and it takes a while to get disability funds
and find jobs. We try to help them.
S.B. Who are your collaborators?
L.H.: We collaborate with Catholic
Charities, Lutheran Community Services,
Neighborhood Housing Services, Friendly
House, Jewish Family Services, the
Immigrant and Refugee Community
Organization (IRCO), and the Oregon Food
Bank. We reach out to mosques, including '
As-Sabr mosque on Capitol Highway, Bilal
mosque in Beaverton and the Muslim
Educational Trust in Tigard. Right now, we
are trying to network with JOIN and Outside
In to get homeless off the streets. We work
with the Oregon Islamic Chaplains
Organization to help ex-prisoners get on
their feetiagain and also address domestic
violence.
S.B. What is it like for refugees you help
adjusting to life in the U. S.?
L.H.: A couple years ago, it wasn’t that
hard for a refugee to find a job, but now it’s
very hard. They only have eight months to
find a job, house and learn English before
TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families) runs o u t The nice thing about
IRCO is they extend support after eight
months. In comparison, when the
Vietnamese came to the U.S., they were
provided with three years of support.
Refugees to the U.S. wait in their home
countries to get into the U.S., and they
think it will all be OK once they get here.
It’s a shock when it’s not It begs to ask, if
we have the ability to help make them self-
sufficient in their own countries, why don’t
we help them rebuild their own countries?
from the one they left behind. They also
see the survivors of physical and
emotional trauma, more familiar with
systems of corruption than of support
“These people, they fall through the
cracks,” said Issam Abu-Khater, a board
member for ISOS who is originally from
Palestine. “Then they come to ISOS. They
come to us and we fill the gap.... In the
past three years we have seen an increase
in the number of people benefiting from
our organization, and we’ve seen many,
many more requests.”