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While President Trump's attacks on one of the first Muslim women to sit in Congress continue to reverberate, dozens of Muslims gathered this week in the Great Hall Sunny State House to convey a fundamental message to legislators: "American Muslims are not going anywhere. "
For example, Nazia Ashraful, director of government affairs for the Massachusetts Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-Massachusetts, summarized Tuesday's mission to 50 participants at the group's second annual lobby day.
The civil rights group was there to advocate for a series of Massachusetts-centric laws, including legislation to increase funding for kindergarten to grade 12 education, to create 'Medicare for All', to impose a moratorium on the use by the government of facial recognition software, State police agents do not perform the functions of immigration officers.
More generally, organizers and speakers encouraged participants to be more vocal in state policy. A document distributed to participants reminded them: "Be confident. You have the right to meet with your legislators, "and noted that elected representatives represented all members of their district, regardless of citizenship or voting status.
"Quite honestly, many of my colleagues start from the beginning. . . There are not many Muslim Americans in our districts, but in reality, it really increases, "said state Senator Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat from Acton who spoke with the group.
Despite the focus on State House, national politics lurked in the background, especially because of Trump's aggressive criticism of Democratic representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali refugee who in 2018 became one of the first Muslim women elected in Congress.
"I'm terrified," said 17-year-old Kawtar Abouyoussef of Quincy, one of many young people who took part in the lobby day, when asked about President's rhetoric against Omar and 'other.
Last week, Trump tweeted a video from an excerpt from a recent speech by Omar at a national event organized by CAIR, in which she described the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack as "one person did something ". the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The video insinuates that Omar was rejecting this devastating event, a message that the president stressed in his accompanying tweet: "WE WILL NEVER FORGET."
The video omits the broader context of Omar's comment about the Muslim community's concern that it "was beginning to lose access to our civil liberties" as a result of the attacks. Omar said that the tweet of Trump's video resulted in an increase in death threats against him.
"This underscores the need for communities that support [Omar] and people who look like this come to push for laws that protect them, "said a participant in a lobbying day in the states, who declined to give her name.
Fawaz Abusharkh, a Salem-based activist and board member of the North Shore Islamic Society in Lynn, said he did not link the importance of Muslims to civic engagement in politics national. Negative stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims predate the present moment, he said.
He called it a "duty" for Muslims to defend themselves and seek to correct these misconceptions, as well as lobby for the world to be a better place for all.
"If you do not prove yourself, if you do not go out and tell people what you believe and what you want to accomplish, people will not ask you or approach you," he said.
But other participants in the protest said their political activism was directly linked to Trump's rise to power, whose long list of inflammatory remarks and political proposals addressed to Muslims back in the early days of his campaign, including the call for a total closure of Muslims entering the United States ", and engaging in bitter exchanges with the Muslim parents of an American soldier who died in the performance of his duties.
Anisul Chowdhury and his wife Salina, of Foxborough, decided to embark on local and state politics after Trump's election. The couple joined the Democratic Committee of their city, attended the Democratic State Convention as delegates and also strives to ensure that more Muslims of the state register to vote.
"When we [saw] this is happening – you know, 2016 – we said we had to be involved. Because we have to meet our children, "he said, pointing to his two 10- and 15-year-old sons at a nearby table. "They will ask me after 20 years what you did at the time. This is what we do. Make sure we are involved. We try to raise awareness, "said Chowdhury.
Hassan A. Aden, a Somali immigrant, has lived in Brockton for 16 years. He's an American citizen, he owns his own business and home, but now his family – especially his wife wearing a hijab – no longer feels completely safe in his community, he said. . Teens recently drove her car against her car while she was picking up their sons at school.
Aden, who raised concerns in Washington earlier this month at a CAIR lobbying event in the Capitol, said he believed Trump's rhetoric was the most important factor in the growing Islamaphobia he faced. "His words affect human lives."
On Tuesday, he took three of his four sons – Dahir, 11, Elmi, 10, and Yousof, 6 – to State House. "I want them to be activists," he said.
Victoria McGrane can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @vgmac.
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