Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2019, p. 53
Arab American Activism
By Delinda C. Hanley
The National Arab American Women’s Association (NAAWA) held its fourth annual dinner on April 7 at the Tysons Corner Sheraton Hotel in Virginia, featuring guest speakers Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Phyllis Bennis, from the Institute for Policy Studies. Emcee Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and assistant professor at George Mason University, started the evening with a fitting Mahmoud Darwish poem, which includes the lines:
I am from there. I am from here.
I am not there and I am not here.
I have two names, which meet and part,
and I have two languages.
I forget which of them I dream in...
Erakat went on to charge the Trump administration with “ripping families apart” at our borders and denying desperate refugees a safe haven in the United States. Then she recounted the unprecedented strides made by Arab American women, like Tlaib, in this country.
Past presidents of NAAWA, including Najat Arafat Khelil, Ph.D., described how NAAWA is empowering women and helping build the Arab American community. Mona Sadeq-Omar, the current president, talked about NAAWA’s programs for new immigrants, outreach to local schools, efforts to improve social studies curriculums, and getting out the vote.
Tlaib shared her life story. Growing up the eldest of 14 children in Detroit, she said she’s always been a mama bear who wouldn’t let others mess with her siblings. Now she uses that same drive to unapologetically care for people in her district. For example, she told a story about a “rich guy” who built a fence near his house on public park land. She made him take it down. Her constituents bragged, “our representative is Palestinian. You can’t just occupy our land!”
Tlaib said she is speaking out for everyone, including “children who are caged at our borders, locked up, like Palestinian children.”
Tlaib’s mother is worried about her, so afraid that President Donald Trump walks the halls of Congress. “I tell her— mom—he should be afraid of us!” She concluded by promising Arab American women she’d have their back, and urging them to have her’s!
Phyllis Bennis described needed changes in U.S. foreign policy. “We have the right to determine how $3.8 billion of our tax-payer’s money is spent,” she said. “Israel needs to be held accountable for violations of human rights and international law.”
