I wrote this piece in 2006. Back then, the stereotypes disturbed me. After 9/11 there were too many of them. I traveled to New England and talked with many people for the story and felt it was worth telling.
Islamic schools in United States
About a five-minute walk away from Mansfield station in Massachusetts lies an old structure. It is a church, at least on the outside. The cross on the top looks dismembered with just one beam pointing upwards, the horizontal shaft is missing. But the cross at the back is still intact. A small board on the wall identifies it as Al-Noor Academy. A tiny green-colored flag with Arabic letters on it peeps out of one of the windows on the side of the building. A crescent moon, which looks out of place and context, stands at the top of the entrance. There are no minarets, no pronounced external symbols. There is nothing that can tell a passerby that this is an Islamic school.
I came here, to this small town in New England, looking for terrorism. I stand outside, stare at the simple red-brick building, circle the structure, alert, looking for something, trying to hear something that will show me if terrorism is indeed being taught here. The idea itself is elusive. It is anything, a sound, a map where Israel does not exist, or a phrase in a textbook calling for Jihad. May be it is formless, just an idea that echoes within the school’s walls.
Inside the building it is different. On the cream-colored walls hang numerous posters, frames and drawings. There is a consistency in this variety, something that ties it all. One idea that casts its hue on the blue, green and red of the drawings, most of which have been done by students. All have Arabic letters on them. They are there on the blue sky with a silver moon, shining down on a navy river. They squeeze themselves in the concentric rings of a multi-colored chakra, a Buddhist symbol. The kaba or the black stone of Mecca in rich velvet hangs at the end of the corridor. It is difficult to not see it.
Girls hurry to their classes in their navy blue long-flowing gowns, the mandatory uniform. Their heads are covered. They chat, crack jokes, and discuss basketball. Boys are already in their classes. They wear trousers and sweaters and are clean-shaven. No mixing of students here.
This is far removed from the madrasa in Old Delhi, near Jama Masjid, where children wearing their pathani kurtas, skull caps and pyjamas, carrying the books under their arms, walk toward an old building where in one of the numerous alleys the old bearded teacher waits for them. Or in Patna, my hometown, where I saw teenage boys with beards, sitting against the crumbling walls of an old dome-shaped building, a madrasa, reflecting. These are places where a student learns religion only excluding all else that matters in the world. Religion is a responsibility of these madrasas in Asia and Middle East, to pass it on to children so that they live it, feel it, and promote it.
Madrasa is an Urdu term for school. These have existed since the 11th century when Nizamiyah, a learning center, was established in Baghdad. Mostly residential and providing free food and lodging to students, these essentially taught religion and prepared scholars to interpret the Shariat, the law, and Hadith, a secondary source of religious codes for Muslims. Students learned through recitation. Koran was memorized, which is a way of preserving the original text. Translations are not considered sacred, and if one has to pray, one has to do it in Arabic, the language of Muhammad.
There are more than 234 Islamic schools in United States and the numbers have increased post 9/11 because of negative stereotype of Muslims that they are terrorists and out if concern to practice and understand their religion, and so has the interest in them. Islam is the fastest growing religion in United States and it is estimated that there are more than 6 million Muslims in America.
The madrasas in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan have come under a lot of fire from the media for promoting terrorism. Mullah Mohammed Omar, a student of a Pakistani madrasa called Darul Uloom Haqqania led the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1960s. Since then terrorism, fanaticism and madarasas have been linked and so have been identities.
Once inside the school, I pull my head scarf lower to cover any strands of hair on my face. As I sit outside the office of the principal, Robert Mond, I flip through the pages of Islamic Horizons. I come across Hadia Mubarak’s piece. She writes in ‘Living as a Muslim American’ how being American and a Muslim at the same time is an oxymoron, like the idea of the moon and the sun appearing in the sky at the same time. How the faith and nationality have come to mean parallel lines that never meet, casting a doubt on Muslim-American’s loyalties. She wonders how their identity has come to mean fanatics through books like American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, a book by Steven Emerson that says militants are living in America, or films like Dateline showing honor killings of seven women.
The first female president of the group, Muslim Students Association, Mubarak is born to immigrants. Her mother is from Jordan, while her father from Syria. She writes, “I am a child of two cultures with a tongue of two languages and a belief that is universal. My roots belong somewhere in the vast Atlantic Ocean, linking a world my parents left behind with the world into which I arrive…I am neither Jordanian nor Syrian, for tradition rules that you belong to the soil that testifies to your birth and childhood.”
The connections or the desire thereof to keep the links intact have given rise to many Islamic schools in the west. And though some of such madrasas have been promoting extremist attitudes, the branding of all such institutions is unjustified and ignores the cause, the need for preservation of identity.
When Mond comes in, he asks if I want to attend a class. The social science class is just starting. The 10th grade girls in this class seem curious about me. I open my notebook and fidget with the recorder.
They are doing presentations on Japan today. One girl starts the presentation and after the lights are dimmed, I look around. The word ‘Geisha’ catches everyone's attention. The girls stop talking and stare at the pretty Japanese woman on the screen. I try to look at the map on the wall, trying to see if Israel is part of their world. The cover of Gossip Girl, a novel by Cecily Von Ziegesar, on a girl’s lap distracts me. The cover has a scantily clad woman’s bust on it. I look at the teacher. She looks away.
The girls are American. They talk about fashion, dating and proms. It is only the hijab that sets them apart from others.
The girls want to talk to me too. So, after class we go to sit in an empty classroom. They sit around me, three of them. There are hardcover Arabic books on the desks. Perhaps this is where they have their Arabic class.
The girls are skipping their class because they have the principal’s permission or so it seems. Sono Ghori, Zainab Mehtar and Fatimah Mahdee are all too eager to talk, sometimes cutting the other one off. They love their hijab, their religion and America too. This is where they were born. Ghori took up the hijab when she was very young. Her mother doesn’t wear it. But she does not stop her daughter from wearing it.
Ghori, 14, has big eyes, which light up when she speaks. Covered from head to toe in a blue gown with a matching hijab, she is born to Pakistani immigrants. She tells me how she wants to be a lawyer and change the politics of America, her country. She is upset when she sees Iraqi children orphaned by the war, she is disturbed about the Israel-Palestine conflict. And yes she knows Israel exists.
“I love America but there are certain things…,” she says, her voice fading off.
Zainab Mehtar, 14, wants to be a journalist, to write the truth, she says. Unlike Ghori, Mehtar is reserved. Both her parents are from Burma. Mehtar tells me how Sunday schools at the mosque are not enough to learn or connect with their faith. Her father taught them at home too. But in schools like these, she has come to learn more and freely practice her faith. She says she is shocked when I mention about the reports and how Islamic schools promoting terrorism.
But she has an idea. Everyone must come to these schools to see what exactly is going on. When the bell rings, she rushes out to perform afternoon prayers, her blue gown trailing behind her.
The third girl, Mahdee, is less talkative. Her parents converted to Islam before she was born. Though she was born into the faith, some of her siblings were not. They still live different lives. They party, go out and do other things that she would never do. But she says she understands. It is America and life is like this here.
Mahdee, 15, wants to be a cardiologist and work for the black community, her community.
None of them wants to be terrorists. And nothing seems unusual except the hijab and the Arabic letters on posters on the walls.
All the girls were born here or have been here for the major part of their lives. America is their home. Even though fitting in is difficult. Ghori has been called names at times. “Are you Osama’s daughter or wife?...they say,” she says.
They go on. Ghori thinks if she had gone to a public school, she would have been influenced, had gone out partying with guys, if she had been surrounded by non-Muslims, she would have done things that are against the religion and would have offended her parents, which is a sin in Islam. They say the paradise is at your mother’s feet.
What about the war? War is Haram for us. When The Koran says kill them, it does not mean kill them physically, but kill the faith in their hearts, kill the influence in their hearts, they explain. Islam is peace for them, literally and otherwise.
Normal conversations, normal choices, normal girls.
I first came across the dilemma of Muslim parents at the Sunday school at the local mosque here. The parents, who came and settled, are worried about the moral corruption of their children. And perhaps the fear has led them to enforce religion in their lives in a way that the west views as isolation and extremist. A Muslim child is expected to start praying from the age of seven. So, he is expected to learn the basic suras or prayers by heart. And then learn the language, Arabic, itself to understand the Koran, Mir Hussaini, the secretary of Islamic Society of Central New York says. In South Asia or Islamic countries in the Middle East, parents teach their children the basic tenets of Islam. But in America both parents are working and have very little time so the mosques have started these schools to pass on the religion to the children, Hussaini explains.
“They are necessary for the same reason that Catholic schools are. We want to teach them our religion,” says Karen Keyworth, director of League of Islamic Schools of America.
But many others do not think these schools are just trying to offer a protective environment or teach their values and religion.
Stephen Schwartz writes in his ‘What are they teaching in these Saudi-financed Schools’ that most of these Islamic academies are teaching the Muslim children to hate Christians and Jews. He uses Islamic Saudi Academy as an example. Keyworth says, “That (Islamic Saudi Academy) is the embassy school, it is for the embassy officials,” she says over the phone.
Many such schools run on donations or tuition money. Sometimes, they have fund-raising events in order to keep running. Al-Noor is also a non-profit organization. “My school does not get even $1 from outside the country,” says Dr. Saeed Shahzad, who is also one of the founders of the school and on the board of the Islamic Society of New England.
I also attended the Sunday school at the local mosque at Islamic Society of Central New York, which has around 120 students. Because the mosque is small, classes are now held in the basement. Earlier, the classes were held at Levy Middle School and the mosque used to pay the school $200 a day for the use of its classrooms on Sundays. When the new school superintendent came, the school raised the fee to $1,600, which the mosque could not afford.
It is definitely small. There are too many people. During the break at 11:15 a.m., the children ran around, chatted and ate their lunch. While the younger ones played, the slightly older ones like Anika Azad, 13, sat quietly on the stone steps and waited for the class to resume.
I sat with a group of girls in the Musallah, the first floor, marked for women, while Samina Masood, a volunteer, tried to teach them the Five Pillars of Islam. The girls, who are in hijab, did not seem convinced of Allah’s benevolence and one asks Masood why her wish was not granted, even after praying.
Masood, who is from Pakistan, tells me how difficult it is to preserve the religion in United States and Sunday schools at the mosques are trying to instill the values of Islam in children, who go to public schools and live in a world that is different from where their parents come from. “We can only try,” she tells me.
For one, the hijab, the modest dressing, doesn’t stick out at these schools. Little girls at Sunday school told me how they did not wear the hijab in their schools because they look different. The child is often living two lives in two different worlds. The weekdays are spent in public schools, in a secular world. The Sundays are spent trying to connect with their faith. The girls wear the hijab on Sundays.
“I wore it to my regular school one day and everybody stared at me. I felt weird,” said Samila Alemic, a student at the Sunday school.
Islam requires its followers to follow a code of conduct. That knowledge and practice is essential to being a Muslim. In India and Pakistan or Iran, Islam has been a religion for many centuries. The culture itself, the sound of the muezzin five times a day, the commonness of hijab and burqa and community prayers on Fridays on the roadside or wherever the Muslims can spread a carpet and others will understand, is defined by it. Talk about any town or city in India, a mention of an Islamic monument or food will come up. Personal laws exist for religious groups in terms of marriage, divorce and inheritance laws.
But it is different here in America. Though immigration of Muslims began in 1600s, it was not until the 1960s when immigration rules changed and many people from Asian countries starting coming in that the community really grew in terms of establishing their institutions. A mosque is the first to be established. A religious school next. Most mosques have the Sunday schools that impart the basic religious education. But these schools can’t fill in for culture or environment that is missing here.
All her life, Salma Kazmi, assistant director of Islamic Society of Boston, went to a public school. One of her friends forced her to eat when she was fasting during Ramadan. “You have to explain…you always feel different. I was asked what I got for Christmas. I felt left out,” she says. She had to go to school during Ramadan. The Islamic schools are closed during the month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays.
The experiences are numerous. Keyworth tells me at a community college in one of the towns in Michigan where she teaches, students ask her if she has cancer because she covers her head. “These girls attended public schools. The public school material is biased…incorrect and missing diversity. Why would every one of my students think I have cancer?,” she asks.
These stories, plenty of them, of isolation and insecurity, made parents and educators feel the need for Islamic schools that provide Islamic environment, where children see others like themselves and hijab is not outwardly. This seemed the best way to keep the faith, while living as an American.
But absorption and acceptance in America is still to come. Dr. Saeed Shahzad, one of the founders of Al-Noor Academy, was at a hospital in New Jersey helping patients when the two planes struck the two towers of the world trade center. “Islam was introduced to the world that day as never before,” he says.
The Muslim community has been a victim of negative stereotyping since then. Ameen Sheaffer, who converted to Islam in May 1994, says after he converted, he started facing prejudices.
“My managers said- ‘what do you guys do at the mosque? Build bombs in the basement’? I have heard people referring to solution of the Muslim problem, saying that Yemen should be bombed and made into a parking lot,” he says.
Though, the Muslims condemned the act or did not agree with it, they were isolated, branded and misunderstood and so were there institutions. So, Muslim parents feel insecure and want to protect their children from stinging comments, of which there are many, and teach them Islam.
That’s why Al-Noor was established. It is an American-style religious school. It can well be called Al-Noor Madrasa, says one of the founders, Dr. Saeed Shahzad. The tuition is higher than public schools, around $3,800 per year. In that, these are different from the madrasas in Islamic countries.
Everyone asks me why I chose this school. May be because they let me in. Why am I doing this story? Because I am curious to know what terrorism is, how it is taught in Islamic schools and whether it is part of the curriculum. I am intrigued with the rhetoric that almost always puts Islam and terrorism together. I have been warned too. “They are dangerous people, take care,” I have been told. Don’t they all hate us Hindus? Isn’t the Jihad against us too?
All through January, February, and half of March, I had been calling schools to see if I could visit them. Many declined; some put me on hold. Perhaps they do not trust me enough. Then finally, I get an e mail from Robert Mond, the principle of Al-Noor Academy High School. He asks me to visit the school. So, I travel to Boston, take the commuter rail to Mansfield, lose my way a couple of times, but finally make it to the school on 20 Church St.
Al-Noor means truth in Arabic. It is the only Islamic high school in Massachusetts. Founded in September 2000, it has around 75 full time students. Students come from as far as Rhode Island and Dorchester, traveling for more than an hour to attend school. It was an outcome of parents’ desire to have a high school where their children, who were already attending religious school in lower grades at Islamic Academy of New England at Sharon, could go. So, St. Mary’s Church was bought in Mansfield and the school shifted form Quincy, where it was first established, to the more spacious property. The building, which was a Catholic church, dates back to at least 1920s. It had been abandoned for around 30 years before the school bought it, says Mond. They bought it, renovated it, put an elevator, added the third floor to serve as a mosque for the students and the locals to pray, put in ceramic tiles, and fixed the outside windows that were broken. Mond says limited funds restricted too much of change in the building, inside or outside. Was it done deliberately?
He disagrees, “That it looks like a church…that’s fine.” I ask about the cross at the back. He says it does not exist. I have a photograph of it. I don’t push.
Born a Catholic, Mond converted to Islam, traveled the Middle East, Oman and Syria. Islam, he says, aroused his curiosity. When he was looking for a job, he consciously chose to join an Islamic school. The money was far less compared to what he would have earned as a technician. But faith beckoned.
So Mond applied and got accepted. He explains the mission as providing an education that is rooted in Islamic faith.
“It is trying to develop a sense that they are in front of God, they would fear God and would be up to any bad things,” he says to me, later on the phone.
“Who is an American Muslim?” I ask him. Did the want the students to be one? This is important to me. This is the conflict, it is in the identity. “I remember that time John F. Kennedy said I am an American who is a Catholic. I tell them they are Americans first and then Muslims,” he says.
Identity is the key to understanding terrorism. Because terrorism is important for what it does to an identity. At times it defines individuals, even countries and sometimes it defines religion.
I was not able to meet with Dr. Saeed Shahzad, a neurologist and one of the founders of the school, but we talk on the phone later when I am in Syracuse.
Shahzad is from Pakistan. His daughter went to a private school until 4th grade. In 1994, when the Islamic Academy of New England was established, he transferred his daughter here. They started with just 26 students in a rented building in Quincy. It aimed to serve the Muslim population that he estimates to be around 30,000 in and around Boston. They, later, extended the school to 8th grade because the parents did not want their children to go to public schools or non-Muslim schools.
“We might lose our Islamic values, the way and the morals,” he says. He considers himself American now and is married to a Christian.
“In this country they have separation of Church and State. A Muslim child does pray. We start our assembly from the holy Koran. This was not available in public schools,” he says. “A Muslim prays five times a day…If you go to public schools you have to give up your religion for that period of time…Why God has been thrown out...I don’t know?”
I met Raja Abou-Samra at Al-Noor. She wanted her two children to learn the Islamic way of living. So, she put them in Al-Noor Academy. Her two older children, who she put in Christian private schools, were getting confused. Her husband was one of the community members, who were active in establishing the school so that the children could study in an Islamic environment. “My son was getting confused in the Catholic school. The values at schools were different and at home he was seeing different things,” she says.
Samra’s husband then decided to put their other two children in the Islamic school. The daughter, who is elder, just completed her high school.
“Her personality is stronger. My son…he becomes weaker. In his school, he is different from others, he avoids others. My daughter is one of them. She is open and confident,” she says.
Samra teaches Arabic and Koranic memorization to children at Al-Noor. She is from Syria. She tells me how religion was never a problem because Arabic being their first language, she could always pick up the Koran and read. She thinks children lack values and respect here. That’s missing.
At the Friday prayer meeting at Harvard University that I am invited to attend, I also meet Habeh Ismail, who is the vice-president of the university’s Muslim Students Association. She went to an Islamic school in New Jersey. “We were taught the same books. But the biggest emphasis was on values…you got into trouble for cheating,” she says.
After getting back from Boston, I wonder if I have searched enough. So, I called Abdeelah Ahmed of Al-Ihsan Academy, an Islamic school in Syracuse, and asked him if I could come to his school again.
I have been there once. The school is in an old building on West Onondaga Street. When I got there in the afternoon, I saw Ahmed, who is from Egypt, teaching children how to add and subtract.
I sat there for a while, peeped into the classrooms and chatted with the receptionist. It is just like any school- children looked bored in their classroom, teachers tried to get the calculation correct, parents waited outside for their children. It was around 3:30 p.m. and school was over.
I had borrowed their textbooks, pored over them, searching for terrorism, finding nothing.
But I want to go again and check. So, I walk to the school after work one day. At the corner of West Onondaga Street, I think if I will ever find the little terrorists in these schools. I call the school and tell them I am not coming. They have lined up a few children who could talk to me. But I am done. Maybe some other day, I tell them.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
leftovers from Utica - the first Karen Church in United States, the changing religious landscape of the city
While in Utica, I had been working on a story on the changing religious landscape of Utica. I did the reporting in my own time on the weekends becaise I thought the story was important. Much of the story (still incomplete) was written over cups on coffee in parking lots and in the confines of my apartment. I am posting it here because it reminds me of Utica ...
The day before I left, I went to the site of the mosque and saw Avlim Tricic, the president of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica, putting the cresecent moon on top of the former church. To me that was symbolic ....
The story ...
Every Monday, Julius Wandover walks into the former St. Mary's Church chapel and scrubs the floors clean, polishes the windows and makes sure everything is fine. He has been the caretaker for 18 years and was a member once, too. But when the church closed about two years ago, he started attending St. John's. Now he doesn't. But he hasn't given up on St. Mary's. When he pushes the doors open and walks into the familiar chapel, you can tell Wandover is experiencing a mix of emotions.
There's excitement, but there's also a sense of loss much like when you have to sell your ancestral house to a new neighbor because you can't keep it anymore for whatever reason.
In this case, the reason was the church's dwindling population. Almost nobody came to the church anymore. Maybe a few elderly women and some old-time members, Wandover recalled.
Now with the new Karen congregation, a lot has changed. While he is happy the church is not one of those abandoned buildings, he misses the worship services when fellow Catholics were around. It used to be lot quieter then and faith was much stronger unlike these days, Wandover said.
Now the church is packed to capacity, and in way it is reminiscent of old times. But the worship service is different. It is longer and there's too much singing. The Karen refugees have a different culture, he said.
The two confessional cabins are no longer used. The Karens admit to their sins in front of the whole congregation and ask for forgiveness, he said.
"It must be so embarrassing," he said.
But then, with so many other things, Utica is changing and so is its religious landscape. Gone are the days when you would see churches, mostly Catholic, full of people on Sundays. They would be dressed in their fine clothes and come to the church for some serious praying, Wandover said.
He is one of that generation, he said, wiping off his thick glasses.
And while the church is a leftover from the past that Wandover must stick to and preserve even though it has a new character, for many of the ethnic Karen, the church is the symbol of a new era.
Wandover is very proud of the stained glass windows that members had paid for in the old days. And then there are stations of Christ on the wall, a Catholic thing, he said.
So the church itself is suspended between two identities, its former self still prsent in the architecture, in the stations of the cross, in the stained glass, Wandover said.
But for Saw Kler, it doesn't matter. It is the house of God, he said.
But on Sundays, the Karen enter the church dressed n their traditional woven shirts, and talk in their ethnic language. To them, having their own church is the first step toward calling the new country home, Kler said.
The Utica Karen Church, the first of its kind in United States, is sort of a statement - We are here. This is us, And its ours and for our children.
For many years, the Karen worshipped at the Tabernacle Baptist Church.
But it wasn't their own place. Yes, the church welcomed them, and helped them but the church's traditions were different, Saw Kler said.
So, about 80 members left the church and for almost two years carried worship services at each other's houses. Then they bought the church on South Street with a loan of $125,000 from the Wesleyn Diocese in Syracuse. Two weeks ago, the church held its dedication ceremony. The loan carries no interest for the first five years and the 250-member church hopes to pay it off soon, Kler said.
Over the years, Utica has seen many changes. In the 1970s and 1980s, population halved. Many of the manufacturing units shut shop, and moved elsewhere. The city's landscape with its boarded-up brick buildings is still a reminder of the days when it was a booming factory town with a working class citizenry. Then with the refugees
who came to the city to rebuild their lives, Utica saw a revival of some sort.
As they moved into old houses that the city had given up on, some of them also filled the empty pews in area's churches. They became the new congregations.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church that has a large Karen population started offering worship services in Karen and has a Karen pastor, the Rev. Daniel Htoo.
As the refugees started to adapt to a new country, taking on its customs and values and practices, they also wanted to preserve their own tradition. They didn't want their children to forget who they were.
And religion was the first on the list.
It first began with the Cambodians who built the first temple on Steuben Street and Monk Chamreun Khorl left Cambodia to serve the community here. Buddhism, he said, is a way of life for them and they need to practice it.
Then the Burmese Buddhists established their own temple in small apartment building. But then as the community grew, they began looking for a bigger place. Finally, they bought 1005 Miller Street earlier this year to serve as a monastery and a community center.
But the biggest transformation was when the Bosnians bought a former Central Methodist Church on Court Street next to the City Hall to convert into a mosque. The Bosnians, like Somali Bantus and Burmese muslims, worshipped at the Kemble Street mosque for years before breaking away from it to form their own mosque in a one-room building at the corner of Mary and Albany streets last year to serve as a place
of worship until they found a bigger place.
The church that was listed on the Urban Renewal Agency's Web site was perfect. It was large enough for the congregation's needs and could house a community center and a religious school, too.
In June, after taking possession of the church building, the community members started to repair the structure and make necessary changes to it like taking off the cross, putting up velvet hangings that depicted Mecca, and inscriptions in Arabic.
In the future, they would like to have minarets, too, members of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica said.
For experts, this is the coming of age for immigrant groups. Mosques or other religious places of worship with a particular cultural flavor isn't uncommon, they said.
But it isn't just that newcomers are changing America's religous landscape. Their own practices have changed, too.
In Myanmar, a monk has no material possession. He is a spiritual leader, the "son of Buddha" who must rely on alms to survive.
But here, Pyinnyar Nanda drives an old Toyota Camry, buys and sells property and organizes fundraisers. He has to. Who else will do it if not him, Nanda said.
The Bosnians build their own mosque
From the outside, the old brick building on Court Street is still a church. The cross is still intact. There are no pronounced external symbols - no crescent-shaped moons, no splash of green, nothing yet - that can tell a passerby that the this is the site of Utica's first big mosque.
But the transformation has begun. In the mornings, and through afternoons and evenings, Bosnians park their station wagons or trucks in the parking lot that still says 'Church Parking" and disappear into a tiny door that leads to a damp basement. It's there you can hear them at work.
In the big hall where once a congregation sang hymns from the Bible, the change slowly begins to unfold. The cross on the wall behind the pulpit has been taken down. On the shafts, carefully carved crecsent moons and stars, the symbols of Islam, are hard to miss.
Some Bosnian Muslim men sat on the long benches, chatting and smoking, while a man in the corner relentlessly worked on fixing a door. They have all been volunteering their time to help repair the structure and convert it into a house of worship similar to what they had known in their lives before the war when they left the familiar to come to America to start all over again. This is their mosque where they can follow their customs and the Bosnian ways.
But in the midst of all this, the church itself remains in a limbo. The cross is gone but the other symbols of its former self remain.
Burmese Buddhist monks work on a new monastery
A few blocks away, on Miller Street, a 62-year-old monk is busy drilling holes into logs. For years the Burmese Buddhist monks worshipped in a small building on Kemble Street, where the community members jostled for space in the tiny living room where the deity was housed.
In March, the community members, through donations and small personal loans, raised enough money to buy 1005 Miller Street. And in July, the monks moved to the new place. The windows are broken, the floors creak, and the paint is coming off but they hope to fix everything on their own.
They have big dreams. They want to build a monastery, a school where the monk can teach the children their language and religion, and a community center, too.
"We are going to keep trying," Soe Htut, a Burmese refugee said.
Without a temple, it was difficult connecting with their new country. The temple is the anchor. They needed the temple, he said.
The day before I left, I went to the site of the mosque and saw Avlim Tricic, the president of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica, putting the cresecent moon on top of the former church. To me that was symbolic ....
The story ...
Every Monday, Julius Wandover walks into the former St. Mary's Church chapel and scrubs the floors clean, polishes the windows and makes sure everything is fine. He has been the caretaker for 18 years and was a member once, too. But when the church closed about two years ago, he started attending St. John's. Now he doesn't. But he hasn't given up on St. Mary's. When he pushes the doors open and walks into the familiar chapel, you can tell Wandover is experiencing a mix of emotions.
There's excitement, but there's also a sense of loss much like when you have to sell your ancestral house to a new neighbor because you can't keep it anymore for whatever reason.
In this case, the reason was the church's dwindling population. Almost nobody came to the church anymore. Maybe a few elderly women and some old-time members, Wandover recalled.
Now with the new Karen congregation, a lot has changed. While he is happy the church is not one of those abandoned buildings, he misses the worship services when fellow Catholics were around. It used to be lot quieter then and faith was much stronger unlike these days, Wandover said.
Now the church is packed to capacity, and in way it is reminiscent of old times. But the worship service is different. It is longer and there's too much singing. The Karen refugees have a different culture, he said.
The two confessional cabins are no longer used. The Karens admit to their sins in front of the whole congregation and ask for forgiveness, he said.
"It must be so embarrassing," he said.
But then, with so many other things, Utica is changing and so is its religious landscape. Gone are the days when you would see churches, mostly Catholic, full of people on Sundays. They would be dressed in their fine clothes and come to the church for some serious praying, Wandover said.
He is one of that generation, he said, wiping off his thick glasses.
And while the church is a leftover from the past that Wandover must stick to and preserve even though it has a new character, for many of the ethnic Karen, the church is the symbol of a new era.
Wandover is very proud of the stained glass windows that members had paid for in the old days. And then there are stations of Christ on the wall, a Catholic thing, he said.
So the church itself is suspended between two identities, its former self still prsent in the architecture, in the stations of the cross, in the stained glass, Wandover said.
But for Saw Kler, it doesn't matter. It is the house of God, he said.
But on Sundays, the Karen enter the church dressed n their traditional woven shirts, and talk in their ethnic language. To them, having their own church is the first step toward calling the new country home, Kler said.
The Utica Karen Church, the first of its kind in United States, is sort of a statement - We are here. This is us, And its ours and for our children.
For many years, the Karen worshipped at the Tabernacle Baptist Church.
But it wasn't their own place. Yes, the church welcomed them, and helped them but the church's traditions were different, Saw Kler said.
So, about 80 members left the church and for almost two years carried worship services at each other's houses. Then they bought the church on South Street with a loan of $125,000 from the Wesleyn Diocese in Syracuse. Two weeks ago, the church held its dedication ceremony. The loan carries no interest for the first five years and the 250-member church hopes to pay it off soon, Kler said.
Over the years, Utica has seen many changes. In the 1970s and 1980s, population halved. Many of the manufacturing units shut shop, and moved elsewhere. The city's landscape with its boarded-up brick buildings is still a reminder of the days when it was a booming factory town with a working class citizenry. Then with the refugees
who came to the city to rebuild their lives, Utica saw a revival of some sort.
As they moved into old houses that the city had given up on, some of them also filled the empty pews in area's churches. They became the new congregations.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church that has a large Karen population started offering worship services in Karen and has a Karen pastor, the Rev. Daniel Htoo.
As the refugees started to adapt to a new country, taking on its customs and values and practices, they also wanted to preserve their own tradition. They didn't want their children to forget who they were.
And religion was the first on the list.
It first began with the Cambodians who built the first temple on Steuben Street and Monk Chamreun Khorl left Cambodia to serve the community here. Buddhism, he said, is a way of life for them and they need to practice it.
Then the Burmese Buddhists established their own temple in small apartment building. But then as the community grew, they began looking for a bigger place. Finally, they bought 1005 Miller Street earlier this year to serve as a monastery and a community center.
But the biggest transformation was when the Bosnians bought a former Central Methodist Church on Court Street next to the City Hall to convert into a mosque. The Bosnians, like Somali Bantus and Burmese muslims, worshipped at the Kemble Street mosque for years before breaking away from it to form their own mosque in a one-room building at the corner of Mary and Albany streets last year to serve as a place
of worship until they found a bigger place.
The church that was listed on the Urban Renewal Agency's Web site was perfect. It was large enough for the congregation's needs and could house a community center and a religious school, too.
In June, after taking possession of the church building, the community members started to repair the structure and make necessary changes to it like taking off the cross, putting up velvet hangings that depicted Mecca, and inscriptions in Arabic.
In the future, they would like to have minarets, too, members of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica said.
For experts, this is the coming of age for immigrant groups. Mosques or other religious places of worship with a particular cultural flavor isn't uncommon, they said.
But it isn't just that newcomers are changing America's religous landscape. Their own practices have changed, too.
In Myanmar, a monk has no material possession. He is a spiritual leader, the "son of Buddha" who must rely on alms to survive.
But here, Pyinnyar Nanda drives an old Toyota Camry, buys and sells property and organizes fundraisers. He has to. Who else will do it if not him, Nanda said.
The Bosnians build their own mosque
From the outside, the old brick building on Court Street is still a church. The cross is still intact. There are no pronounced external symbols - no crescent-shaped moons, no splash of green, nothing yet - that can tell a passerby that the this is the site of Utica's first big mosque.
But the transformation has begun. In the mornings, and through afternoons and evenings, Bosnians park their station wagons or trucks in the parking lot that still says 'Church Parking" and disappear into a tiny door that leads to a damp basement. It's there you can hear them at work.
In the big hall where once a congregation sang hymns from the Bible, the change slowly begins to unfold. The cross on the wall behind the pulpit has been taken down. On the shafts, carefully carved crecsent moons and stars, the symbols of Islam, are hard to miss.
Some Bosnian Muslim men sat on the long benches, chatting and smoking, while a man in the corner relentlessly worked on fixing a door. They have all been volunteering their time to help repair the structure and convert it into a house of worship similar to what they had known in their lives before the war when they left the familiar to come to America to start all over again. This is their mosque where they can follow their customs and the Bosnian ways.
But in the midst of all this, the church itself remains in a limbo. The cross is gone but the other symbols of its former self remain.
Burmese Buddhist monks work on a new monastery
A few blocks away, on Miller Street, a 62-year-old monk is busy drilling holes into logs. For years the Burmese Buddhist monks worshipped in a small building on Kemble Street, where the community members jostled for space in the tiny living room where the deity was housed.
In March, the community members, through donations and small personal loans, raised enough money to buy 1005 Miller Street. And in July, the monks moved to the new place. The windows are broken, the floors creak, and the paint is coming off but they hope to fix everything on their own.
They have big dreams. They want to build a monastery, a school where the monk can teach the children their language and religion, and a community center, too.
"We are going to keep trying," Soe Htut, a Burmese refugee said.
Without a temple, it was difficult connecting with their new country. The temple is the anchor. They needed the temple, he said.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Delhi - lost dreams
In the creased cracks of his face
you can see the years
the years full of dreams, pulsating with the drive
but he was powerless
the might of the city claimed him
he now slogs, carts stones
his eyes look into the space
they don't see beyond the daily wages
too caught up in their crumbling lives to care even
it's getting beyond the present
the future is too distant and the smog too thick
when he left the village nine years ago
it was the lure of the city, the temptation of opportunity
but he was lost
in his rickshaw, he still dares to dream
every now and then
he talks about the plans
he wants to buy his own rickshaw
then maybe he will save more
maybe then he can walk into stores
buy a nice cell phone and eat in restaurants
he isn't asking for too much
he askes me if that's a lot
I don't know
who knows
but he is optimistic
nine years of driving the auto
nine years of handing over most his wages towards the rental
nine years of waiting for better times
have not embittered him
he shows me the development
the ugly development that is haphazard
it is crawling into little spaces, eating up personal lives
it is spilling on to the narrow streets
it is taking on the skies too
the high rises are competing with the horizon
the eyes tire and finally give up
they can't see beyond the 50th floor or maybe the 70th floor
something is happening to the city, to the people
but the auto-wallah is happy
afterall, now a farmer's son can get to Delhi
and maybe find a peon's job and maybe through generations
and over the years, join the ranks of the middle class
isn't that something?
he asks me
I don't know
I can only look at the man on the margins
into the deep creases of his face and I am lost for words
you can see the years
the years full of dreams, pulsating with the drive
but he was powerless
the might of the city claimed him
he now slogs, carts stones
his eyes look into the space
they don't see beyond the daily wages
too caught up in their crumbling lives to care even
it's getting beyond the present
the future is too distant and the smog too thick
when he left the village nine years ago
it was the lure of the city, the temptation of opportunity
but he was lost
in his rickshaw, he still dares to dream
every now and then
he talks about the plans
he wants to buy his own rickshaw
then maybe he will save more
maybe then he can walk into stores
buy a nice cell phone and eat in restaurants
he isn't asking for too much
he askes me if that's a lot
I don't know
who knows
but he is optimistic
nine years of driving the auto
nine years of handing over most his wages towards the rental
nine years of waiting for better times
have not embittered him
he shows me the development
the ugly development that is haphazard
it is crawling into little spaces, eating up personal lives
it is spilling on to the narrow streets
it is taking on the skies too
the high rises are competing with the horizon
the eyes tire and finally give up
they can't see beyond the 50th floor or maybe the 70th floor
something is happening to the city, to the people
but the auto-wallah is happy
afterall, now a farmer's son can get to Delhi
and maybe find a peon's job and maybe through generations
and over the years, join the ranks of the middle class
isn't that something?
he asks me
I don't know
I can only look at the man on the margins
into the deep creases of his face and I am lost for words
Dilli
It's only when you start to look beyond the dust and the might and potential of Delhi, that you begin to see the lives trapped in the debris of failed dreams and unending struggles.
On the margins of the wide roads, the daily laborers sweat profusely. Their emaciated hands shaking, they pull the cart loaded with stones. The pain is too evident in one man's gait. The creases on his face are deep, almost as if each has its own share of woes tucked in carefully. He was limping but he continued to pull the cart.
On the wide roads, cars whisk by you. You glance at the women in the back seat, and the men in the front seat. They are the rising middle class of India. They are ones who the city will accomodate. The poor will be pushed to the margins on the outskirts and in the urban villages where four or five share a small room and wait eternally for small things like a small loan so that the rickshaw puller I met today. It's hard negotiating. You sympathise, even try to empathise.
The slums rear their head and in all their ugliness, they overpower the city's elitist hubs, the choice neighborhoods and the designer boutiques. The city has changed so much.
I decided to come back to Delhi after six years because the city intrigued me. Bombay is ruthless, conniving and yet enchanting. People flock to it only to realize later the city will utlimately consume them. But like a long lost lover who keeps coming back to understand why the lover shunned him, denied him and belittled him, people remain. Then they die. And the city moves on, sharpens its claws for yet another bunch of dreamers and lovers.
But Delhi is different. Delhi makes you believe. Delhi doesn't crush your dreams. But Delhi is tough, too. The heat is oppressive, the dust blinding, and the people rude. They don't care. They have their won worries.
On the margins of the wide roads, the daily laborers sweat profusely. Their emaciated hands shaking, they pull the cart loaded with stones. The pain is too evident in one man's gait. The creases on his face are deep, almost as if each has its own share of woes tucked in carefully. He was limping but he continued to pull the cart.
On the wide roads, cars whisk by you. You glance at the women in the back seat, and the men in the front seat. They are the rising middle class of India. They are ones who the city will accomodate. The poor will be pushed to the margins on the outskirts and in the urban villages where four or five share a small room and wait eternally for small things like a small loan so that the rickshaw puller I met today. It's hard negotiating. You sympathise, even try to empathise.
The slums rear their head and in all their ugliness, they overpower the city's elitist hubs, the choice neighborhoods and the designer boutiques. The city has changed so much.
I decided to come back to Delhi after six years because the city intrigued me. Bombay is ruthless, conniving and yet enchanting. People flock to it only to realize later the city will utlimately consume them. But like a long lost lover who keeps coming back to understand why the lover shunned him, denied him and belittled him, people remain. Then they die. And the city moves on, sharpens its claws for yet another bunch of dreamers and lovers.
But Delhi is different. Delhi makes you believe. Delhi doesn't crush your dreams. But Delhi is tough, too. The heat is oppressive, the dust blinding, and the people rude. They don't care. They have their won worries.
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