Bab al-Markaz

Newsletter of the Arab American Action Network


Issue 16      
August 2010
Arab American Action Network
3148 W. 63rd St. Chicago, IL 60629
773-436-6060
773-436-6460
[email protected]
In This Issue
Upcoming Events
AAAN Updates
Feature: Youth Organizing
Quick Links
 
Join Our List
Join Our Mailing List
Staff

Hatem Abudayyeh
Executive Director

Rasmea Yusef
Associate Director

Suha Abuosba

Case Manager


Samira Ahmad
Lead Case Manager

Gihad Ali
 
 Youth Organizing Program Coordinator

Halima Bahri
Youth Services
 Program Coordinator
 
  Muna Hammad
New Americans Initiative/ Citizenship Project
 
Nadia Musa
Childcare

AmeriCorps Members
Nazly Damasio
Aaisha Durr
Tahany Elian
Besan Quran
 Muhammad Sankari
Shira Tevah
Laila Younes

Put Illinois to Work
Amal Abdellatif
Medinah Abdelmuti
Tammy Abughnaim
Kholoud Abusalem
Inas Affaneh
Yasmeen Affaneh

Mahmoud Alshaikh
Nuer Alshaikh
Aris Cervantes
Ramzy Elian
Veronica Garcia
Hanan Ghanayem
Ayah Hassan
Mustafa Hassan
Remal Hindi
Amany Hussein
Widad Hussein
Heba Matari
Rowaida Nofal
Asma Razik
Donia Razik
Sabreen Razik
Arasele Robles
Fatmah Tabally


Board

Lamees Talhami
President 
 
Ali Hussain
Vice President 
 
Louise Cainkar-Mashrah
Treasurer
 
Members
Widad AlBassam
Omar Bishtawi
Laila Farah
Ahlam Jbara
Mona Khalidi
Souzan Naser
Ora Schub

WBEZ's Alison Cuddy Speaks with AAAN Board Member Louise Cainkar about Domestic Violence Report

AAAN board member Louise Cainkar discussed the report she authored about domestic violence prevention in the Arab community--recently released by the AAAN--on WBEZ's 848 on August 17th.

Listen to the 8-minute segment here.
AAAN Remembers Young Activist Damian Glenn Turner

The AAAN family would like to express its condolences to those who knew and worked with Damian Glenn Turner, an 18-year old youth organizer from Woodlawn who was shot and killed on August 14th.  

Damian was co-founder of Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY), a project of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), allies of ours in the struggle for racial and economic justice and stronger communities. He traveled with STOP to New Orleans to protest the demolition of public housing; he sat-in at HUD offices to stop the foreclosure of his home, the Grove Parc housing complex; and he just recently returned from the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. Damian attended our last Never Silent Caf� in April and closed out the night with an enthusiastic freestyle performance with friend Darrius Lightfoot, former AAAN youth organizer Zeid Khater, and rapper Ed Hooligan. [Watch here--Damian starts the video.]

Damian will be remembered and missed always.  Youth of color are dying every week in Chicago, and while it is tempting to want to place all the blame on the individuals responsible for these deaths, it will not bring the movement for economic justice, and to end violence in our streets, forward. For while individuals are pulling the triggers, responsibility lies elsewhere.

Responsibility lies with a police department that stops and arrests youth of color for walking down the street. It lies with government policies that cut our social services and education (over 3,000 Chicago Public Schools teachers and staff laid off in the past few months) every day, and bail out banks and financial institutions that steal homes and livelihoods. It lies with an immigration system that is broken and criminalizes millions of people across the country, detaining and deporting undocumented workers and devastating families that are torn apart.  It lies with an economic crisis and recession in which people without jobs (10% unemployment now in the U.S.) are stuggling to feed their families.  It lies with the city's Juvenile Detention Center, the overcrowded "Audy Home" where youth are denied sanitary facilities, and where the school sometimes closes for days at a time. And responsibility lies with a University mowing people down on its gentrification quest, and a hospital that got famous for turning poor people away.

To end this violence, we will organize our communities to resist oppression by the banks, the government, and other institutions-because the economic violence perpetrated by these entities begets the gun violence that kills mostly poor people everyday.

To show your support for Damian's work, get involved with STOP by emailing [email protected], donating to Fearless Leading by the Youth at www.stopchicago.org, or sending donations directly to Damian's mother, Sheila Rush, 736 E. 61st St Chicago, IL 60637.
Upcoming Events
 
National Network for Arab American Communities Annual Conference
 
September 24 & 25
Rutgers University, Newark Campus
Newark, New Jersey
 
 
The NNAAC National Conference is a unique opportunity for leaders and activists to build their skills, learn about resources, network and recognize the strength that they represent as an empowered community.
 
Conference highlights include:
  • over 10 workshops and panels on topics of importance to nonprofit leaders, with a focus on peer learning;
  • a policy forum on issues of importance to the Arab American community;
  • nationally recognized keynote speakers;
  • opportunities to gather information on "what works" from other nonprofit organizations;
  • a Friday afternoon tour of local NNAAC member organizations
  • a Community Celebration Dinner Saturday evening at the Hilton-Newark Penn Station; and much more.

For more information call 313-842-5121.

Register here for the conference.

9th Anniversary of Afghanistan War--Protest & Rally  
 
Saturday, October 16
12:30 PM-
rally at Michigan and Congress; march on Michigan Ave

 
October 16 is being organized by dozens of antiwar and social justice organizations in Chicago and across the Midwest. Join the protest to say no to the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine and to call for jobs, healthcare, housing, and education, and equality for immigrants.
Palestine: One Land, One People, One Destiny 
 
United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) presents
Second Palestinian Popular Conference: Together, Restoring Our National Institutions, Reclaiming Our Rights, Empowering Our Community

October 29-31, 2010
The Westin Chicago Northwest
400 Park Boulevard
Itasca, IL 60143
 
To the Palestinian community in the United States, to the Arab and Muslim communities in the US, and to all groups and individuals in solidarity with our cause....
On May 17, 2010, the 62nd anniversary of Al-Nakba, we remember our past and look towards the future of our cause. As we recall, and pledge to end, our people's uprooting and displacement from their homeland, the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) calls upon you to participate in the Second Popular Conference for Palestinians in the United States in Chicago, IL on October 29-31, 2010.
Join us and participate in organizing the Second Popular Conference. The Conference's primary goal is to empower our community in the US to assume a key role in realizing Palestinian rights and develop principled and pluralistic Palestinian national institutions in the United States. We have an obligation to become full participants in our Palestinian quest for freedom, self-determination and the return of the refugees to their original towns and villages. Your full participation in all aspects is essential as we march together for a free Palestine -  Palestine: One People, One Land, One Destiny!
 
To get involved with the Second Popular Conference for
 
Keynote speakers include Haneen Zoabi, Marcel Khalife, Archbishop Theodosios "Atallah" Hanna, Ghassan Bin Jiddu of Aljazeera, and many more!

 
Register here
for the conference.
AAAN Updates
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End of Summer Camp

Summer campers and the Arab Women's Committee took to the park--Rainey Park, near Stevenson Elementary--on August 5th for the last day of camp. Food, games, and sunshine abounded as many students expressed dismay at having to wait an entire year to return to camp.


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A dozen or so staff, youth, and family members made the journey to Milwaukee August 7th for Arab World Fest. One of the largest Arab American cultural celebrations in the U.S., Arab World Fest is part of a strategy for "fostering a better understanding and appreciation of Arab people and their rich cultural heritage." The festival offered food, music, folk dance, an Arab souk, mural depictions of classic Arab stories, argeela, and more.

Arab World Fest

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Cultural Democracy ConferenceExecutive Director Hatem Abudayyeh spoke on an August 13th panel at the Association of American Cultures Open Dialogue Conference of 2010. Panelists--who included directors of other Chicago Cultural Alliance (CCA) member organizations as well as director of the Alliance itself--spoke on "cultural democracy," emphasizing the success of the CCA in using collaboration across different cultural organizations to work toward a common dream of social change. The panel was part of a 3-day symposium on policies and programs that further advance cultural democracy and cultural equity platforms.

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                   Community Iftar      AAAN hosted a community iftar­ on August 18th, celebrating the close of the youth program's summer session. Youth from the four teams--Palestine, Racial Profiling, Arab Affairs, and the Alliance of Young Women Activists--told a packed markaz about the projects they've been working on.
 
Read more about the youth organizing program.
 

Young and Powerful

Research and Organizing celebrates one year


Samira Ahmad
Ever been kicked out of a mall? The AAAN Racial Profiling Team­­­ has. They were told to leave Westfield Mall in Chicago Ridge in late July, where they were surveying mall-goers about racial profiling and discrimination in the suburb of Oak Lawn, south and west of Chicago proper. Their work was part of an ongoing project that began with community mapping last summer, from which the youth created this map (not yet finished) of Arab homes in Oak Lawn. This summer, they set out to survey more residents and interview students of Oak Lawn Community High School in depth. [Take the survey here.] Ultimately, they will choose a campaign directed at institutions, like schools or police departments, that perpetrate or do nothing to stop racism and racial profiling.

 

Race plays a strong role in the program, which is made up of mostly Arab, along with Black and Latino, youth. They have lots of conversations about identity, says Muhammad Sankari, 22, who moved to Chicago from Wisconsin in January to join the cultural outreach department with an emphasis on youth. "It breaks down stereotypes that communities hold about each other," he says, as well as "internalized stereotypes." Some conversations focus on Arab identity--a real necessity in a society where being Arab has been so demonized by the media and government--but they do so in an "accessible way," says Sankari, and they stress "identity as people of color." It's about "understanding where we differ and where the similarities are."

 

Many participants cite the relaxed atmosphere and youth-led nature of the center as the thing that enables such candid interactions to take place. "I never really had a space like the AAAN to just go to chill and do things I like," says Arasele Robles, 20. Robles learned of the program through Widad Hussein, who joined the youth program in 2006, who she'd become friends with at Bogan High School. When she first met Hussein, she "started asking her all kinds of questions," she says. "I had never met any Arabs or Muslims." Robles first participated in Silent Echoes--the spoken word and hip hop program--and then joined the Youth Leadership Team. Two years later, she was hired to help run Silent Echoes, and is currently the AAAN's artist in residence. Now she experiments with mosaic and gold leaf on the markaz walls and doors and draws portraits of figures like Ghassan Kanafani and Emiliano Zapata on any available surface. [See photos of Robles's work.]

 
While Robles made over the office, and Racial Profiling had a run-in with mall security, the Alliance of Young Women Activists worked on a 15-minute documentary about patriarchy and double standards [watch the short trailer here]; Arab Affairs gave weekly presentations to all 32 youth and staff about Arab history, culture, and current affairs; and Team Palestine coordinated and conducted outreach for the Youth/ Student track of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) conference to take place in October.
 
Read more.
 
If you're a youth interested in getting involved, find us on facebook or email [email protected] with your name, age, school, and phone number.
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AAAN LogoThe Arab American Action Network (AAAN) strives to strengthen the Arab community in the Chicago area by building its capacity to be an active agent for positive social change. As a grassroots nonprofit, our strategies include community organizing, advocacy, education, providing social services, leadership development, cultural outreach and forging productive relationships with other communities.