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RANKS OF LATINOS TURNING TO ISLAM ARE
INCREASING
Many
in City Were Catholics Seeking Old Muslim Roots
By DANIEL J. WAKIN, The New York Times, 1/2/2002
The Alianza Islamica has bounced from East Harlem to the
Bronx, buffeted by local resentments. Like its
green-lettered sign, hanging crookedly close to the ground
in front of its brownstone, it is keeping a low profile for
now.
But the Alianza endures as a touchstone for Latino
Muslims, a little-known but growing population and one of
the more surprising examples of the kaleidoscopic nature of
Islam in America. It is a population trying to assert
itself through community organizations like Alianza
Islamica, Web sites and publications. It is also a subset of
American Islam that endures a particular set of pressures,
and presents an unusually diverse set of paths to the
faith.
Alianza Islamica, founded in 1975, is one of the oldest
organized Latino Muslim groups in the United States.
It found a home on Lexington Avenue, off 107th Street, in
East Harlem in 1985, serving as something of a community
center as well as a mosque. It took a stand against crime in
the neighborhood and tried to spread the word of
Islam......Nationwide, Latino Muslims number in the low tens
of thousands, according to their own estimates and those of
national Islamic bodies. They are mainly converts,
concentrated in Southern California, Chicago, Miami and New
York. They span the spectrum of Hispanic people, from recent
Mexican arrivals to Puerto Ricans born on the mainland to
Central American immigrants.
They are making their presence felt through groups like
Alianza Latino, Piedad, which tries to bring together Latino
Muslim women, and the Latino American Dawah Organization,
which promotes the faith through a newsletter and a Web
site, Latinodawah.org. Another site, HispanicMuslims.com,
also tries to link people through the Web. The Islamic
Society of North America has a Latino coordinating
committee. Other groups publish the Koran and educational
materials about Islam in Spanish...
..The process is similar to how some blacks view the
adoption of Islam as an invocation of their African roots,
said Hisham Aidi, a political science graduate student at
Columbia University. He has studied Latino Muslims as part
of a university project examining Muslim communities in New
York City.
At the same time, there has been a movement among
scholars of Islam in recent years to show the religion's
influence on Spanish culture, Mr. Aidi said. "These scholars
are taking on these works of art and literature, considered
unassailably Western, sacrosanctly Spanish, and showing how
there's a strong Islamic influence, an Arab component, a
Moorish component," he said.
For many Hispanics, turning to Islam is also a way of
countering feelings of being downtrodden. "Islam
historically has always started with slaves and moved up to
kings," Mr. Aidi said. "In New York, you find a similar
phenomenon. Islam is entering America through the streets,
through the inner city, the ghetto, the prisons...
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