Press Room

AAI in the News

Arab American Institute's Zogby Reviews 20 Years of Activism

By Nidal M. Ibrahim
Washington File
Posted on Tuesday December 6, 2005

Worked to integrate Arab Americans into US politics

Washington—During an interview with an Arab-American newspaper, veteran American journalist Ted Koppel was asked about the Arab-American personality with whom he was most impressed. His answer: James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

“I admire Jim only because he was a pain … before it was popular. He really was,” Koppel said. Koppel was referring to Zogby’s willingness to advocate the views of the Arab-American community in the 1980s at a time of public bias against the community.

“Jim Zogby did not wait around to be invited. He did not wait around to be asked. He was a constant presence, and in the early days of Nightline [Koppel’s nightly news program], he was a frequent guest because he was the only one. Nobody else was willing to come out and accept that role. It was a difficult role. In that respect, he has been a pioneer,” Koppel said.

Indeed, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a pioneering Washington-based organization devoted to political empowerment of the roughly 3.5 million Americans who trace their roots to the Arab world.

INTEGRATING ARAB AMERICANS INTO AMERICAN POLITICAL LIFE

AAI “was a continuation of my efforts to work with our people in American politics, in other words, to not do what other groups had done—exile politics—but to do what our generation, the generation born here, needed to do, which is protect our heritage and express our concerns in a very American way,” Zogby said.

Since founding AAI in 1985, Zogby has been one of the key architects in ushering the Arab-American community into the political mainstream. Political parties now seek Arab-American votes and dollars where they once did not. Candidates now eagerly fly halfway across the country to address this audience where they once shunned any such association.

These are major accomplishments for a community whose political donations were returned by 1984 Democratic Party presidential candidate Walter Mondale. As a measure of that change, during the 2004 presidential election eight of the nine Democratic Party candidates for the presidential nomination flew to Dearborn, Michigan, to take meet with and seek the financial and voting support of the Arab-American community.

Today AAI stands at the forefront of Arab-American political organizing, which involves encouraging Arab Americans to volunteer, engage and take leadership positions with both major parties at the local, state and federal levels. It also includes holding regular voter registration drives and informing potential voters of where the candidates stand on various issues of concern. What AAI does not do, however, is endorse any particular candidate, leaving the final choice to individual voters.

That the community is recognized as a unified force at all, Zogby says, stands as one of AAI’s biggest accomplishments.

“I think the major accomplishment is that we’ve created an identifiable community and given it life,” he says. “It’s now recognized in both political parties and in the media.”

Beyond that, AAI also is looked upon as a place where Arab Americans can go for their political education.

“We’ve created a venue for young people to serve the community,” Zogby says. “Nothing makes me prouder than when I see the ‘Yalla Vote’ [Let’s Go Vote] T-shirts on those kids doing registration work. I get e-mails from kids saying I want to work for your group. Kids that started with us now work on Capitol Hill. Some of the kids that worked with us now work in the administration.”

THE FUTURE OF AAI

Zogby recently turned 60, and celebrated the event surrounded by family and friends. Looking to the future, Zogby is talking openly of “institutionalizing” AAI by creating a structure that will transform the organization into more of a grassroots-type forum and give it a presence beyond its well-known founder. (AAI was started by five key individuals, but Zogby’s media presence has made him the best-known of the group.)

Part of that institutionalization process will revolve around identifying, recruiting and training the next generation of Arab-American leaders. How and when that transition takes place figure to be key events in the Arab-American community’s continuing efforts to become a force in American political life.

Compared to other ethnic groups in the United States, the Arab-American community still lags in certain key political functions, such as fundraising and contributing to like-minded candidates. According to Zogby, stresses within and without the community sometimes threaten to fracture the bonds connecting Arab Americans.

“We’ve been able to define a community and now you have to continue to preserve it,” Zogby says. “For us, there is no distinction based on country of origin or religious background.”

Nonetheless, Zogby said, “there is a role in American political life for ethnic networks that provide assistance, that can raise money and do the supportive work for young folks that want to get ahead” in American political life.

FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE

As Zogby celebrated his 60th year and AAI’s 20th, he reminisced about his early, formative years when the seeds of his political activism were planted.

He recalled being a young man researching his dissertation on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and visiting refugee camps in his ancestors’ native Lebanon.

“An old woman I interviewed and stayed with for a while said to me as I left the camp, ‘You’ve heard our stories, now what are you going to do with it?’ I was thinking about her on the plane back and I turned and said to my wife, ‘My life is never going to be the same again.’ And it wasn’t.”

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)