What was it like for immigrant Muslims and Arab-Americans in the wake
of 9/11? Ten years on, three people tell their stories
Saturday September 3 2011
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/02/after-9-11-muslim-arab-american-stories
Adama Bah, 23, student
My mother came to the United States with me in 1990, the year I turned
two. We originally came from Koubia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Koubia" title="] in Guinea, west Africa. My dad was here already,
living in Brooklyn. Then came my brother, who is now 19, my sister,
who is 17, and two more brothers who are 13 and five. I'm 23. We lived
in an apartment in Manhattan.
I went to public school until seventh grade. Then my dad
wanted me to learn about my religion, so he sent me to an Islamic
boarding school in Buffalo, New York. What's weird now that I look
back is that my parents aren't really religious, we didn't really go
to mosque. But my dad heard about the school from somebody who
recommended it.
I was 13 when 9/11 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/september11"
title="] happened. My teacher announced that a Muslim might have done
it, and that there might be hatred against Muslims. I felt 9/11
when I came back to New York for Ramadan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ramadan" title="] break. Altogether, there were six classmates who had
to get on a plane to come back. At that time, we covered our faces. I
couldn't believe the looks. Everybody was scared, pointing. We got
extra screenings, our bags were checked, we got pulled to the side.
I've never had racism directed toward me before.
My parents didn't know I wore the niqab until I came home. My mom
opened the door, saw me, and told my father, "You have to
tell her to take this off."
I came back to New York public school for ninth grade. I left the
Islamic school because I didn't like it. I remember telling my
dad, "I'm too controlled there." I wore my niqab [http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b" title="] for a few months. I didn't
have any problems in high school, but after a while, I thought, "This
is not a mosque." So in the middle of ninth grade, I took it off.
The morning of 24 March, 2005, my family and I were in the house
sleeping. Someone knocked on the door, and these men barged in. Some
had FBI jackets, and others were from the police department and the
DHS [Department of Homeland Security [http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm"
title="]]. My mom can't speak much English, and they were yelling at
her, "We're going to deport you and your whole family!" I was
thinking, "What are they talking about?" I knew my dad had an issue
with his papers, but I didn't think that my mom did.
Then I saw my dad in handcuffs. It was the scariest thing you could
ever see; I had never seen my father so powerless.
One of the women put me in handcuffs. I panicked so badly, I was
stuttering, "What did I do? Where are we going?" I'm 16 years old, in
handcuffs.
They took me and my dad and put us in an [Cadillac] Escalade
[http://www.google.co.uk/search?
q=Escalade&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=VA9WTsiOK8mx8QPepdTBDA&ved=0CEUQsAQ&biw=1765&bih=1008"
title="]. I didn't recognise the building where we were taken.
They put me in my own cell. I was nervous, panicking, crying. I was
trying to figure out what was going on.
I was taken out of my cell to be interrogated. Nobody told me who they
were. It was just me and a man. He asked me all these questions about
my citizenship status. Then after a while, he said, "You know you're
not here legally, right?"
It was as if one of the biggest secrets in the world had just been
revealed to me. The guy's attitude didn't change when he realised
I didn't know what was going on. He was nasty.
Finally, they called my dad. They gave us a document about how we
could see a consular officer. My dad knows how to read English, but he
said to me in Pular [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pular_language"
title="], "Pretend you're translating to me in my language."
Then he said, "Whatever you do, do not say you can go back to your
country. They will circumcise you there." In order to get married in
Guinea, a female would have to be circumcised. My dad's brothers would
make sure I got circumcised.
Then the guy told my dad, "You've got to leave." To me they said, "We
have to fingerprint you." When we were done with the fingerprints,
they took a picture of me. I was then sitting on a bench in the main
entrance when this young lady walked in. Her name was Tashnuba. I had
seen her at the mosque before, but I didn't know her. I started
panicking, thinking, "What the hell is she doing here?"
Finally I was brought to another room. The questions these federal
agents asked me were terrorism questions. My dad had signed papers
consenting to let them talk to me because I was underage. We didn't
know that we were supposed to have lawyers. The FBI never told us.
The male interrogator told me that the religious study group Tashnuba
was part of had been started by a guy who was wanted by the FBI. I had
no idea if that was true or not. I wasn't part of the group, but I
knew it was for women learning about religion. There was nothing about
jihad or anything like that. They told me they'd taken my computer and
my diary. But there's nothing in there that's suspicious so I wasn't
worried.
Then they asked me about Tashnuba. I told them, "I don't know her."
They said, "Tashnuba wrote you on this list. She signed you up to be a
suicide bomber."
I said, "Why would she do that?"
Then they told me Tashnuba and I were going to leave. They handcuffed
us both. The cuffs left marks. We got back in the Escalade. I'm very
traumatised when I see Escalades now. When we arrived at our
destination, they put us into our own cell. Tashnuba and I looked at
each other. She said to me, "You put me on a list?" I said, "No! They
said you put me on a list." We both realised they had been trying to
set us up.
They didn't detain her parents, they just detained her. Later
I found out why they'd taken my dad. After I'd been reported as
a suicide bomber, the FBI started investigating my whole family.
That's how they found out about my dad being here without papers.
The FBI drove us to Pennsylvania, across state lines, without my
parents' permission. We got to the juvenile detention centre late at
night. The female guard told me and Tashnuba we had to get strip-
searched.
I was in tears. My own mother doesn't look at me naked. I said,
"It must be against some law for you to do this to me."
The female guard said, "It's not. You no longer have rights."
She said, "Lift your breasts."
I lifted my breasts.
She said, "Open your legs."
I opened my legs.
She said, "Put your hands in there, to see there's nothing."
I said, "There's nothing there!"
She said, "Just do it."
I did it.
She gave me a blue uniform and told me to take a shower in five
minutes, and then she left. I sat at the corner of the shower and held
myself and cried. I was thinking, I cannot believe what I just went
through. When I got to the cell, I could see Tashnuba in the
corner, praying. There was one blanket, and it was freezing cold. We
stayed up the whole night talking about everything. I don't know how
we fell asleep, but I remember at one point we were both crying.
Nobody told me what was going on. I wasn't brought before a judge
until probably my fourth week there, and it was via video conference.
An article came out in the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/
2006/10/26/nyregion/26suicide.html" title="] about why Tashnuba and I
were there, that we were suspected of being suicide bombers. I never
saw the article while in prison. After that came out we got extra
strip-searches, about three times a day, and the searches got
stricter. They would tell us to spread our butt cheeks, and they made
racist comments. If I talked back, I would be put into solitary
confinement.
Those first three weeks, my family didn't have any idea where
I was. They had to do research to find out, and hire a lawyer.
The lawyer, Natasha, came to see me. She said, "There's a rumour
about you being a suicide bomber." I said, "Are you serious? If
you knew me, you would laugh and say, 'Hell, no.'" She said,
"They're not charging you with anything except overstaying your visa."
My mom came to visit me. It was the worst visit ever because she
didn't want to say anything. When I asked about my dad, she just said,
"He's fine." She knew he was being held in New Jersey.
After a while, my lawyer called. She said she had good news.
"I have a way to get you out of jail. You're going to have
to wear an ankle bracelet."
I said, "I'll wear anything."
The day that I was supposed to be released from the detention centre,
I said goodbye to Tashnuba. I wanted to let her know it was going
to be OK, but I couldn't hug her or it would've been solitary
confinement for her. So I said, "May Allah be with you, and be
patient." I haven't spoken to her since then. As soon as she was
released, it was back to Bangladesh.
I stayed there six and a half weeks. By the time I came out,
I was 17. I thought everything was going to go back to
normal, but I knew deep down things would never be normal again.
I wore the ankle bracket for three years. You can still see my bruises
from it. My heel always hurts. I also had to be under curfew, which
was 10pm and then 11pm. I was only ever charged with overstaying my
visa. I was never charged with anything related to terrorism.
My dad got deported around 2006. I didn't see him for a long time
after I got released from juvie. He was in New Jersey. I wasn't
allowed to go, because it was outside the distance I could travel with
my ankle bracelet. They made an exception to let me travel to New
Jersey just before he was deported. I was crying the whole time.
I had to drop school to work to support my family. I would work three
or four jobs, whatever I could find. For days there would be no food
in the house. Finally we met a social worker who told us we could get
public assistance. Nobody tells you about this stuff. I didn't want my
brother and my sister to work at all. I didn't want them to miss out
on what I missed out on. I feel like it's too late for me now.
In 2007, [http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/6/
plaintiff_in_aclu_suit_challenging_government" title="]Adama was
granted asylum on the grounds that she would face forcible
circumcision if deported to Guinea. In court, her mother gave
testimony on her own harrowing experience of being circumcised. Adama
had the ankle bracelet until she got asylum.
Raed Jarrar, 33, architect, blogger, and political advocate
I always apologise to people when they ask me, "Where are you from?"
because I have a long paragraph to answer that. I am half-Iraqi and
half-Palestinian. My father is a Palestinian from Jenin [http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin" title="], and my mother is an Iraqi from
Hilla [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hillah" title="]. I was born in
Baghdad, but I left when I was 40 days old. After my birth, my
parents moved us to Jordan for a few years. I grew up between Jordan,
Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
I came to the United States in September 2005. Moving here was
extremely easy. From the moment I applied for a fiance visa (my fiance
Niki is Iranian-American), until the moment I became a United States
citizen, I had the most incredible, positive experience
with immigration.
A few days after I arrived in the Bay Area, I started finding my new
political voice: as an Arab in the United States. I'd never thought of
myself in that context before, but it was the only thing that people
wanted to talk to me about. So I started getting more involved in
politics. Once I got my green card I became the Iraq project director
with Global Exchange [http://www.globalexchange.org/" title="], an
international human rights organisation based in San Francisco. My
work was to reach out to Iraqi parliamentarians and put them in touch
with American congressmen.
In the fall of 2006, Niki and I decided to move to DC. Before the
move, I had a trip with Global Exchange to Jordan and Syria, then I
had a speaking event in New York city. My flight back to the Bay Area
was on 12 August, 2006. In the morning I went to JFK. I checked in
everything and I went through the security checkpoint. It did not
beep, but the officers still took me to the secondary checkpoint. It
was the first time I'd gotten a secondary check. They asked me to sit
down, they tested my shoes for explosives, and they asked me for my
driver's licence and boarding pass. They went away with my documents
for a few minutes, and then they came back. I took my driver's licence
and boarding pass back, bought my breakfast, and was eating some
grapes and cheese when this TSA [Transportation Security
Administration [http://www.tsa.gov/" title="]] officer approached me.
He said, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
I walked with him toward the boarding counter. Another two people were
waiting for us there: a woman from JetBlue [http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways" title="] [Airways] and a guy
in a suit. They didn't say anything, so I said, "Hi."
The JetBlue woman was nice. She said, "Hi," but she looked worried.
The first man who took me, I came to learn his name was Inspector H.
He said something to the effect of, "People are offended because of
your T-shirt. People complained."
I looked down at my T-shirt to see which one I was wearing. It was
black, and said in both Arabic and English, We Will Not Be Silent. An
artist group in New York had made the shirt and given it to me as a
gift. For me, the message meant, "We will not be silent about the
murders that are happening in Palestine or Iraq." They had other T-
shirts in Spanish. At the time I'd said, "Whoa, it's such a smart
idea, because the Spanish one makes it seem like it's about
immigration, and the Arabic one makes it seem like it's about wars."
Inspector H asked me, "What does it say?" I said, "It's the same thing
that it says in English. We will not be silent."
He said, "Oh, but we can't be sure that's the translation."
I was so confused that I didn't know how to answer. Then he said, "We
want you to take the T-shirt off, or put it on inside out."
I said, "It's my constitutional right to wear this T-shirt. If
you have any regulations against Arabic T-shirts, show them to me
and I will take it off or cover it."
I was very polite, but it was becoming a scene and people were looking
at us. A fourth guy came ? very hostile. He talked to me without
looking at me. He said, "You've got the nicer guys here, so you should
just do whatever they've told you."
I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa ? where is this going? The woman from
JetBlue saw the escalation, and said, "Why don't we just reach a
compromise? We will buy you a T-shirt and put it on top of this one."
I said, "That's not a compromise. I will cover this T-shirt with the
other T-shirt that you will buy, just because you are not letting me
board. But I will pursue the case with a constitutional rights
organisation as soon as I arrive in California."
They had a conversation about the T-shirt. They said, "What type
of T-shirt should we buy him? Should we buy him the I Heart
New York T-shirt?"
The hostile one said, "No, we don't want to take him from one extreme
to another."
I interrupted them. I said, "Why do you assume that I don't like
New York? Because I have a T-shirt in Arabic?"
The JetBlue woman left and returned a few minutes later with a grey T-
shirt that said New York. I said, "This is not over. I'm going
to pursue this through a constitutional rights organisation."
And the hostile guy said, "Do whatever." They weren't apologetic. I
felt so humiliated. I walked back to my grapes and cheese and sat
there, feeling self-conscious.
After I'd sat there for five minutes, they called me again.
Someone from the boarding counter took my boarding pass and tore it
up. He said, "We need your seat." My seat was in the front of the
plane. He issued me another in the back of the plane.
I asked him, "Why did you change my seat?" I'd booked in the front
because I don't like sitting in the back near the bathroom.
He said, "We need the seat for a toddler. Bring your things and
board the airplane now."
I was the first to board. All of the flight attendants were whispering
and looking at me for 10 minutes. Of course it's not the same
historic equivalent of putting African-Americans on the back of the
bus, but I had just been reading about it. I sat down for the rest of
the flight. I just looked at my TV. I was feeling watched. I later
learned, during the lawsuit, that a flight attendant had been put
behind me to watch my movements, and she was writing down the
channels that I looked at. She had noted that I watched Fox
News and some sports channel or whatever.
I landed and I got out. I was expecting to see an officer, but no one
stopped me. I went to the baggage claim area and Niki was waiting for
me there.
In August 2007, Niki and I filed a lawsuit with the American
Civil Liberties Union [http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-racial-
justice/aclu-client-raed-jarrar-sues-jetblue-and-tsa" title="] (ACLU).
It was both a First Amendment freedom of expression and a
Fourth Amendment due process under law lawsuit against JetBlue
and the TSA. The case took for ever. At a court hearing, the JetBlue
and TSA legal defence argued that it was OK to
humiliate me because I'd grown up in Iraq and I was used to being
humiliated. In his written ruling, the judge said, in a much
more judgely and legal way than I'm saying, something to the effect
of, "Are you serious? This is your argument?!"
The defence had crazy theories about me planning this thing all along.
They said I planned it to take money from them, to make
a political point. They interrogated me for weeks or months to
prove that I went to the airport wearing that T-shirt "on purpose", as
if it's a crime to wear a T-shirt. They harassed me, Niki, and my
friends.
Toward the end of 2008, a year and a half after we filed the lawsuit,
I got a call from my lawyers at ACLU. They said JetBlue and the TSA
wanted to settle out of court, and that the judge wanted us to settle,
too. They said, "They are giving you $240,000, and $240,000 will give
a clear message that what happened to you was wrong."
I have to admit that I was very sceptical about the settlement because
I was afraid that it would be read the wrong way. But my lawyers were
right; it did actually have a huge impact. JetBlue and the TSA at
first tried to make the settlement secret or put some other conditions
on it. How ironic that would be: I go to an airport wearing a T-shirt
saying I will not be silent, then they give me $240,000 and I become
silent. I wasn't going to do that. So they ended up giving me the
$240,000 settlement, which got a lot of media attention. Although
JetBlue and the TSA ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars,
they have not admitted wrongdoing to this day.
After the outcome, I felt more comfortable with staying here. I was
naturalised in DC in the spring of 2009. It was an amazing ceremony.
We were sworn in by a judge who is an immigrant himself. He gave an
excellent speech about how the United States is not a place where it's
all good or all bad, and that he grew up being discriminated against.
There are many of us who will be discriminated against, and who will
have hard lives. But the bright side is that this is still a country
where many of us can fight back.
Yasir Aladdin Afif, 20, student and computer salesman
When my parents split up in 2003, my dad won custody of me and my two
younger brothers, Adam and Sherief. After the divorce, he decided to
move back to Egypt. I was 13 at the time. In 2008, we came back
to the United States together ? me, my dad, my brothers, and my dad's
new wife, an Egyptian woman ? for a week and a half. My dad wanted us
to come back so that my brothers and I could visit our mom, since we
hadn't seen her in so long.
At that time, I was 18 and studying linguistics at Ain Shams College
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain_Shams_University" title="] in Egypt.
But I realised I had better options back in California. So, during
that week and a half in Santa Clara, I set up a job and I found an
apartment for the fall.
Soon after my dad got back to Egypt, he had a heart attack and passed
away. It felt horrible. I went back to Egypt and stayed for almost a
month to get everything sorted out, to make sure my brothers were in
the same school. The plan is to bring them to the US when the
youngest, Adam, turns 18 next year.
I started my first year in college, studying business marketing. I
love it. Now I'm a sophomore. At the same time, I work for a computer
company doing commercial sales. I work full-time because I have
to be financially stable enough to support my brothers in Egypt.
In the spring of 2010, I got a call at work from my roommate. He told
me he'd had two FBI agents knocking on the door who wanted to speak to
me. So I called them and said, "Hi, this is Yasir Afifi. How can I
help you?" The agent said, "Hey, Yasir. Oh, it's nothing, we received
an anonymous tip from someone who said that you may
be a threat to national security."
I didn't think there was an anonymous tip. I was sure it was
just something the FBI said to people. I think I fit some type of
profile for them ? I'm Arab-American, I'm Muslim, I fly to
Egypt a lot to see my family, and I'd recently come
back from Dubai for a computer expo.
I said, "I'd love to co-operate and answer any of your questions,
once my lawyer tells me that's the right thing to do."
He wasn't too happy to hear that. Then he said, "OK, whatever,
that's fine. I'll be waiting for your phone call."
I didn't really have a lawyer, so I called a prepaid legal
service. The lawyer there told me, "You don't have to do anything
unless they have a warrant or some evidence against you."
Once I understood that, I asked her to call the FBI agent and to
push him away. I didn't really care how they'd react. I have no reason
to speak with any FBI agent. Fortunately they never called me again
after that. I thought it was going to be the last I'd hear from them.
About six months later, in October, I took my car to my mechanic for
an oil change. When the car was fully elevated, I noticed this black
device under the back of it. I asked the mechanic to pull it out, and
he handed it to me. He was somewhat freaked out. There was a big,
black rod attached to something that looked like a walkie-talkie. It
looked like a tracking device. I had a feeling it was the
FBI who'd put it there.
When I got home, some of my friends and I Googled the serial number of
the tracking device. "Federal Property Tracking Device GPS, $1,500,
$4,200, $3,200" came up. As we were Googling the information, my
friend posted a blog about it on Reddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/
reddit.com/comments/dmh5s/does_this_mean_the_fbi_is_after_us/"
title="], the social network site. He posted this comment: "Me and my
friend went to the mechanic today and we found this on his car. I am
pretty confident it is a tracking device by the FBI but my friend's
roommates think it is a bomb. Any thoughts?"
Within two or three hours we'd made the front page on Reddit and
received maybe 3,500 comments. We even started getting calls from the
ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union [http://www.aclu.org/" title="]].
One person found out what exactly this device was. It was an Orion
Guardian ST820, made by the company Cobham. Cobham sells the device
exclusively to military and law enforcement personnel.
I think the FBI are as smart as they get, and if they didn't want
me to find the tracking device, I probably would have never found
it. Maybe they were just trying to scare me or somebody else, if
not the whole community.
Two days after I found the device, I came home at around five o'clock
and my roommate said to me, "There are two people standing
next to your car." I walked back outside. There was a man and a
woman standing at the back of my car, exactly where the device
had been.
When I opened the car door, the man said, "Hey, did you know your tags
are expired?"
I replied, "Yes, I know. Does that bother you?"
He just laughed it off and looked the other way, so I got into my car.
As I was leaving the complex, I saw two brown, unmarked SUVs. When I
got into the street they started flashing their lights, so I pulled
over. Then I realised there were three cars: the man and woman from
before were in a black Caprice. I was feeling pretty
intimidated.
A police officer wearing an FBI vest came up to my window and said,
"Did you know your tags are expired?" I said, "Yes. Is that why you
pulled me over?"
After I showed him my licence, registration and insurance, he
asked me to speak to the man and woman from the Caprice.
The man showed me his FBI badge. His name was Vincent, and
the woman was called Jennifer.
Vincent asked me, "Do you know why we are here?"
I said, "No, but I have an idea."
Then he asked, "Where is the device that you found under
the car?"
I asked, "Are you the person who put it there?"
"Yes. We need that device back."
I replied, "Do you have a search warrant or anything proving that this
is your device?"
Then Vincent got a little frustrated, and he said, "Yeah, I can get
you a search warrant. I'll get it for you within an hour."
I asked him, "Why didn't you bring it with you now?"
And then Jennifer started coming into the conversation
with a real soft tone, and she was very charming. She
told me, "We're trying to help you."
I walked them back to my house, went in and picked up the device, and
then I handed it to Vincent. He said, "We'd love to ask you
a couple of questions."
I hadn't spoken to my lawyer, but at the same time, it didn't
make any sense for me not to answer their questions. I knew I wasn't
doing anything wrong, so I didn't want them to say, "Why are you
avoiding our questions?"
What I expected was what happened; the questions were pretty simple.
Vincent asked me, "Have you ever been to Yemen, for any type of
training?" "Never been to Yemen," I replied. Then he asked me if I had
ever been to Syria or Iran, and if I'd ever been in any type of
training. I told him no.
I tried finding out why they were here by asking them some simple
questions myself. The more I asked, the more I understood from
Jennifer how much she knew about my personal life. She told me things
like, "We know you're flying to Dubai in two weeks."
She also knew I was looking for a new job. The only way she could have
known all this was either through my phone or email. So, I was 100%
sure they didn't only have a tracking device under my car ? they also
had my phone and email tapped.
It ended with them telling me, "Sorry to bother you; you're boring. No
need to call your lawyer."
I thought by "boring" they meant that I wasn't too significant to
them. I'd have to say I was more confused than scared, and maybe
a bit pissed, too, about them invading my privacy.
Fortunately I didn't hear from the FBI again, but each time I leave
the United States, I have problems when I come back. I got
stopped when I came back from Egypt about two weeks ago. When I
stepped off the plane, there was an officer waiting for me. When he
saw my passport, he said to another officer, "That's him!"
They searched my bags. I had to stay for almost four and a half
hours before they finally gave me back my passport and told me,
"You're good to go."
I think the FBI are probably still watching me. The total
invasion of my privacy bothers me. Two people, or maybe more
than two people, know my whereabouts every day. As an American
citizen, you're not supposed to be subjected to that. I hope people my
age, or Muslim-American youth, can use me as an example to
understand what their rights are and how to assert them, to be
confident in what they are doing as long as it's not anything wrong,
and to never be intimidated by any federal agency.
- These excerpts are extracted from Patriot Acts: Narratives Of
Post-9/11 Injustice, edited by Alia Malek and published by McSweeney's
Voice Of Witness [http://voiceofwitness.org/" title="].
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
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