“A Testament to Our Power”: Chicago’s Little Palestine Resists Racism, Disenfranchisement & War

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re broadcasting from Chicago, which is home to the highest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the United States. In the suburbs of the city, residents of the Bridgeview, known as “Little Palestine,” have been hard hit by Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 40,200 Palestinians, including thousands of children, since October, though the true toll is likely much higher.

AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now!’s María Taracena and Hana Elias visited Little Palestine this week to get a tour of the neighborhood.

JENIN ALHARITHI: So, right now we’re driving, and it’s like the southwest suburbs of Chicago. So, this consists of, like, Bridgeview, Little Palestine, which is — it’s called Little Palestine. And just like the other southwest suburbs that are surrounding it, there’s a huge Arab population, there are huge Muslim populations. I think this community really, like, started being established in the late ’80s, ’90s. And there’s a huge diasporic people here of Palestinians, and we’ve been so ingrained in the community here.

There’s a lot of people here directly affected by what’s happening in Gaza and what’s happening in Palestine, in regards to the occupation and in regards to state violence from the U.S. There was a lot of FBI surveillance in the late ’90s, and especially after 9/11, on community leaders here and on the mosques here in the community, that actually traumatized a lot of families in the neighborhoods. And after October 7th, definitely, we’ve seen hate crimes, and we’ve seen a lot of violence. But I think our numbers are so strong, and we’re so powerful. And the fact that we are so big and so present in this city is just a huge, like, testament to our, like, power, our cause, and how strong we are as Palestinians, and also just as just a community that’s very, like, unified here in Chicago.

MARÍA TARACENA: Which business are we standing in front of?

JENIN ALHARITHI: Right now we’re in front of Al Basha Sweets. They are Palestinian-owned.

[translated] Hello. How are you?

RAZAN: [translated] My name is Razan, and I’m the cashier and manager at Al Basha Sweets. Here, we have donations for Gaza. Anyone who wants to donate to Gaza can take a free sweet, then donate. And then the donation goes to a company that sends the money to Gaza. We try to help in whatever way we can, in a simple way. We will try what we can. And these stickers, too, the payment goes to Gaza.

MARÍA TARACENA: So, we’re in Little Palestine. Where are you taking us right now?

JENIN ALHARITHI: So, right now we’re going to one of the biggest coffeehouses here in the neighborhood, in the area. It’s Palestinian-owned. They opened up a few months ago, but they’ve actually been really, really successful.

WASIF IBRAHIM: My name is Wasif Ibrahim. You know, it’s a place for people in the community to come together. We basically started on this project after October 7.

MARÍA TARACENA: Why is it so important to support a Palestinian-owned business during a time where pro-Palestinian voices, Palestinian rights voices have faced so much backlash?

WASIF IBRAHIM: So, when all this happened, we kind of seen where these corporations took their stance, and we believed that we needed alternatives where we could support ourselves, not only in the sense that — from a business perspective, but also being there for each other, for one another, at such a crucial time. Being in Little Palestine, you know, we need that support system to support one another, because you see our politics and our government doesn’t really do a good job of supporting us. So we have to be there for one another.

MARÍA TARACENA: Where is your family from, and how many generations does it go back?

WASIF IBRAHIM: I’m first generation. So, my family is from Burqa, Nablus. So, my parents’ generation were born in Kuwait. And then, for me and my siblings, we were all born here in Chicago.

Enjoy.

NESREEN HASAN: Originally, Little Palestine was on the South Side of Chicago in the inner city. And they actually used to call it al-mukhayyam, which means refugee camp. And so, many Palestinians started to come here after the ’67 War. Some were displaced in ’48, and then they got displaced again in ’67, very similar to my family’s experience.

MARÍA TARACENA: You’ve been a community organizer for at least 15 years. Could you talk about what inspired you to get involved?

NESREEN HASAN: The issues that been having — the Palestinian community has been having has been over 76 years. You know, I actually come from an activist family. When my grandfather came to this country, he wanted a community center, and he actually was one of the founders of the first-ever Arab American community center. So I kind of have it in my family. And so, you know, I would also say Obama’s failed promises motivated me to go into community organizing.

MARÍA TARACENA: How does the rhetoric coming out of the Biden administration in regards to its support of Israel, in regards to Gaza, also the way that Biden officials have described pro-Palestinian protest, a lot of them led by students on college campuses, as antisemitic and other demonizing language — how has this rhetoric translated into violent attacks and targeting of Palestinian community members, including here in Illinois, outside of Chicago?

NESREEN HASAN: After October 7th, he enacted anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. It manifested. People took him seriously, like you just pointed out. Wadea al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old boy, whose landlord knew him, went to his apartment and stabbed him 28 times, because he thought this kid was going to grow up to be a terrorist. We have the three students in Vermont who were shot for wearing their keffiyehs. And Biden gave his sympathies, but it’s empty. It’s really, really empty. How can you give your sympathies when you’re the one who started the fire of this racist rhetoric?

DEANNA OTHMAN: My name is Deanna Othman. I’m from Little Palestine in Oak Lawn and Bridgeview, Illinois. I am a teacher at a local Islamic school, and I’m also a board member of American Muslims for Palestine Chicago.

Many of our students were heavily impacted by October 7th and onward. Many of them regularly visit the West Bank, so they’re familiar with the ravages of the occupation. They’ve seen armed soldiers as they’ve crossed checkpoints with their families. They’ve had family members killed. We have students who are from Gaza who have had family missing, family killed. Some of them have lived there in the past, so they’ve had friends killed, people they’ve gone to school with.

Myself, my husband’s family is in Gaza, and I visited there last summer, in June and July of 2023. So, with my own children, it’s been difficult sort of processing it with them, because their immediate — like, their grandmother is there, their uncle, their aunts, their cousins and people that they — some of them, they just met for the first time last summer, and now they’re worried about losing them. And many of the places where they made memories that summer, lifelong memories, no longer exist anymore.

So, it’s been tough, especially with the younger children, because they can’t quite grasp why this would happen, why any government would allow this to happen. And it’s difficult to explain why our government, the place that we live, is funding this genocide.

So, you know, we’ve had to process this in many different ways as a community, whether it’s through counseling with students in our schools, whether it’s through more educational outreach in the greater community, or even just, you know, psychological trauma processing for people who have, you know, experienced major loss.

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices from Little Palestine. Afterwards, many of them boarded a bus to take part in a March on the Democratic National Convention. Again, Chicago has the largest proportion — the largest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the United States.

When we come back, we’ll talk about Kamala Harris, immigration and Gaza with Texas Congressmember Greg Casar. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “No More” by Eddie Vedder. The song was featured on the soundtrack for Body of War, a documentary that tells the story of Tomas Young, an Iraq War veteran paralyzed from a bullet to the spine. It was co-directed by the pioneering TV host Phil Donahue, who tackled major social and political issues. Tomas Young became a major antiwar activist. Phil Donahue died this past weekend at the age of 88.