City of Residence:
Brooklyn Center, MN
Occupation:
Vice President of Transportation and Logistics at Wells Fargo
Excerpt:
“It was a politically dangerous situation at the time because Idi Amin was threatening the Asian community to be treated no different than the Jewish people that were treated in Germany, and so there was a discussion, or a talk, about putting the Asians that don’t leave the country into concentration camps. So we basically had 90 days to decide and leave.
I’m part of a community that I feel very good that with the help of God we were able to put an excellent community together. While we have the Islamic Center and a lot of other Islamic organizations here, but we were also able to put together one of the largest gymnasiums that is found in Muslim communities. And so it’s a well-established community.
You look at the variety of communities and we find that there are issues in the upbringing of the families. Of course, that’s always been challenging. The youth of the communities seem to be needing all kinds of help and assistance from either the elders of the community or the leaders of the community, which is, I think, very critical that we hear and listen to what they have to say. Many times we, even from a religious standpoint or from cultural standpoint, we bring baggages with us into this part of the country and then when a child, growing child, asks you a question, you tend to bring back how you lived and you need to keep that there; you’re here and you need to help the youth here. It’s all about how we prepare the youth here today and going forward. There are values, there are sentiments, things like that that we can bring with us, but we need to help the children in this part of the country, in this part of the world, actually, to be able to live as Muslims and be proud of that.”
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