Press Room

AAI in the News

Iowa Arab Americans Plan Caucus Push

By Lynn Okamoto
The Des Moines Regsiter
Posted on Tuesday December 16, 2003

Angered by the way they’ve been treated since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Arab-Americans have taken extra steps this year to get involved in the campaign leading up to Iowa’s Jan. 19 first-in-the-nation caucuses.

“We’re making special efforts this cycle because our issues are everyone’s issues now,” said Valerie Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa organizer for the Arab American Institute. “We want to share the extra knowledge and perspective that the Arab-American community may have on these things to help the U.S. do the right thing.”

That special perspective includes having family members in regions that were affected by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before his capture on Saturday.

“There’s been so much discussion about the trial,” said Bill Aossey, who’s Lebanese and lives in Cedar Rapids. “I think what is overlooked, . . . Europe and America have not directly suffered from Saddam’s rule as the people of Iraq, Iran and Kuwait.”

Iowa is home to 4,365 people of Arab descent, including 1,200 in Cedar Rapids, 900 in Des Moines, 450 in Iowa City, 320 in Ames and 315 in the Quad Cities, according to the 2000 U.S. census. The largest segments of the population are Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian.

Priorities for Arab-Americans have traditionally included the Middle East, civil liberties and immigration.

But this campaign season, interest in those issues has been heightened by the war on terrorism and enactment of the Patriot Act, which expanded the government’s surveillance and wiretap authority and has been criticized as eroding people’s rights. Arab-Americans have faced more scrutiny than most.

“It’s sort of been a blanket dragnet,” Aossey said.

“This whole profiling issue – mainly profiling and stereotyping and putting people in categories – they don’t necessarily belong,” said Sana Akili, 29, a Syrian who teaches marketing at Iowa State University. “It’s not only affecting Arabs and Muslims, it’s affecting anyone that looks like us.”

For the first time in a decade, the Arab American Institute hired a full-time Iowa organizer to register voters and raise awareness before the 2004 Iowa caucuses. The last time the group had a staff member here was 1992.

The group chose Smith, who is not Arab but has a bachelor’s degree in Egyptology and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies and has spent time in Jordan and Yemen. Based in Cedar Rapids, she began her work in July and now has 200 people on her e-mail list.

The outreach effort – called “Yalla Vote 2004,” which roughly translates to “C’mon, Let’s Go Vote 2004” – has its challenges.

Some Arab-Americans have difficulty understanding the United States’ political process, Akili said. The community is also very diverse. Members are Muslim and Christian, Democrat and Republican, fourth-generation and immigrant. In addition, some Arab-Americans prefer not to identify themselves as Arab.

“Fourth-generation Lebanese-Americans, especially at times like this after September 11th when the Arab-American community is feeling some heat, prefer to just blend in,” Smith said.

While Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich trails in most polls, many Arab-Americans in Iowa are supporting him. Smith said they like his call for repealing the Patriot Act, his insistence that the United Nations get more involved in rebuilding Iraq, and his plan for a single-payer health-care system.

“I heard him speak once. That’s all it took,” Akili said. “He’s charismatic. His stand on the war as well as the Patriot Act – as an Arab-American and as a Muslim, that (issue) always concerns me. Also, his stand on the Middle East – I do believe he could be a fair broker.”

Smith said Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean also rank high with Arab-Americans. Nader Halawa works for the Dean campaign as a regional organizer for the 4th District.

However, Smith said Dean ruffled some feathers in September when he referred to the Islamic militant group Hamas as”soldiers,” rather than terrorists. Some Arab-Americans say they are also troubled by Dean’s engaging in “Saudi-bashing.”

“To say that we have to stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia because they send the oil money to terrorists . . . Why are you taking this approach?” Smith asked. “We don’t like the Saudi government, either, but it’s not polite to bash people who are in trouble for having stood by you.”

Dean later clarified in a letter to the head of the Anti-Defamation League that he unequivocally supports Israel’s right to be free from terror, and that he used the word”soldier” to justify the Israeli policy of assassinating Hamas leaders.

Turnout by Arab-Americans at Iowa’s Jan. 19 caucuses is expected to be high. According to the Arab American Institute, people of Arab descent vote in greater percentages and are more politically active than average Americans. A 2000 Zogby International poll showed that 88.5 percent of Arab-Americans are registered to vote.