Press Room

AAI in the News

Arab-American leader recalls Shenandoah

By Nathan Dickinson
Pottsville Republican
Posted on Saturday September 29, 2001

Whenever his mother, Cecilia Ann, would bring up news about a citizen of Shenandoah, James J. Zogby said he would sit before her and listen, enthralled.

It was a lesson in Schuylkill County’s diversity, Zogby said, adding she would use phrasing that identified the nationality of the citizen’s ancestry, whether Slovak or Polish or Irish.

His mother was born and raised in Shenandoah, but he grew up in Utica, N.Y.

“That’s the best of America, diverse cultures mixing and becoming one,” he said.

But Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, D.C., and his brother, John J. Zogby, president and chief executive officer of Zogby International, a polling firm based in Utica, N.Y., said they’ve been disturbed to read reports from around the United States that people of Middle Eastern or Arab extraction have been the targets of intimidation or hate crimes following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

For instance, at Irving, Texas, someone fired bullets into the Islamic Center, and the weekend after the attacks, an Indian Sikh, a Pakistani Muslim and an Egyptian Copt, all males, were murdered in three different states in attacks apparently spawned in retaliation.

Even young Muslim children are being picked on at school, James Zogby said. “Many are afraid to go,” he said.

“Bigotry is based on ignorance and fear,” Zogby said. “When coupled with anger it is a deadly potion.”

He added, “The terrorism attacked us all. People from virtually every nationality and religion were in (the World Trade Center) and died. We can’t turn against each other – we must turn to each other.”

Following the reports of bigotry many have stepped forward to defend the Arab-American community, he said. President Bush met with Sikhs and Muslims Wednesday in Washington to reinforce his message of tolerance.

“There’s been a tremendous outpouring of support, from the president down to a woman who has an office next door to mine who made brownies for my staff,” he said. “The mood is changing.”

John Zogby said the most recent Zogby poll found that 65 percent of Americans “have a very good and favorable reaction to Arab-Americans.”

“Like everyone else we cry and pray for the victims and families,” John Zogby said. “We cringe when we hear people of Arab descent are involved in terrorism. It’s going to have an impact on where we live and the community at large.”

It’s just a tiny segment of hateful people in society who cause the most problems, he added. “It is those who harass, say stupid and insensitive things, and shoot at innocent gas station owners,” he said.

The Zogby brothers weren’t born and raised in Shenandoah. After their mother graduated from high school she married and moved to Hazleton, and then Utica, where James and John were born and raised.

But as boys they would visit Shenandoah nearly every summer. James Zogby said he considers Schuylkill County to be a highly diverse community today, just as it was when he visited.

“Schuylkill County has a cosmopolitan flavor because of the tremendous diversity of the ethnic groups that have settled in the region,” he said. “And it continues today. It’s a great way to grow up.”