City of Residence:
Columbia Heights, MN
Occupation:
Police officer
Excerpt:
“As a Muslim we have to face the reality that we are Americans, we are the product of where we live. Luckily, we come to the best country in the world which is the United States, which is like a land of immigrants.
When I saw people, police officers, firefighters, going to the buildings that were collapsing to help other people, and I was watching them on T.V. I mean, it kind of encouraged me to be like one of them, to be a police officer because when bad things happen in my country personally I did nothing because I was a young man. All the option I had was to feel hopeless, just go and run away. But when I first saw what happened in 9/11, and I , first it was people were thinking in their mind differently, but my mind, I was thinking about, ‘Wow! Now what you gonna do? Ali, yourself what are you gonna do? When bad things happened in Somalia in the civil war, you run away. Now, what are your options when your own country now as an American in the United States being attacked. Are you gonna run away? Or what are the other people gonna do?’
United States is still the best place to live. American people are the greatest people to live with. And you can practice any religion you believe or not practice a religion and you can still be accepted among other Americans. So, after I become, after that it was one of the, you know, things that encouraged me to become a police officer.”
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