Desperado
12-19-2001, 03:12 PM
New York Times
December 17, 2001
A New Minority Makes Itself Known: Hispanic Muslims
By EVELYN NIEVES
Gerard Burkhart for The New York Times
A Growing New Minority - Three Hispanic women were among the worshipers
observing the end of Ramadan in Los Angeles on Sunday. By some estimates
there may now be as many as 40,000 Hispanic Muslims in the United States.
OS ANGELES, Dec. 15 — They file into the mosque when Sunday school is over
and the conference rooms are cleared, staking a small piece of turf in the
main hall. For many, Spanish is their only language, and this is a whole new
world. They are new immigrants, new to the big city and new to Islam.
Over the last year, the Islamic Center of Southern California has been
conducting these weekly 90- minute Spanish-speaking sessions for new Muslims
by popular demand. Marta Galedary, who converted after immigrating here from
Mexico two decades ago, has helped lead them. She finds that the group,
which can include 20 to 50 people in any given week, is intensely interested
and a little nervous.
"Something in these Latino meetings that we keep telling people," Ms.
Galedary said, "is that you don't leave your culture because you convert to
Islam. You have to continue to be proud of whatever part of Latin America
you are from."
They come from all over. Each week, immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Peru and Costa Rica — just a handful of the countries represented
— come to the Islamic Center, relieved to find that they are not alone. Far
from it. In recent years, Latino Muslim groups have formed in most large
cities in the United States, stretching from New York to Los Angeles. Latino
Muslim groups have also formed in smaller cities with large Spanish-
speaking populations, including Fresno, Calif.; Plantation, Fla.; and
Somerville, N.J. Though exact figures are hard to come by, since people tend
to drop in at mosques and may not appear on any membership rolls, the
American Muslim Council, an advocacy group in Washington, estimates that
25,000 Hispanics in the United States are Muslims.
It is a small fraction of the nation's Muslims — estimates of the total
number range from 4 million to 6 million — but a figure that appears to be
growing by the year. (Several Latino Muslim organizations say the number is
closer to 40,000, with the largest Hispanic Muslim communities in New York
City, Southern California and Chicago, where Hispanics and Muslims are
plentiful.) Indeed, Spanish-speaking immigrants, the nation's
fastest-growing minority, are converting to Islam to such an extent that a
national organization, the Latino American Dawah Organization, founded in
1997 by a handful of converts in New York, now claims thousands of members
in 10 states.
Why Islam, a religion cloaked in mystery in Latin America — as it was in
this country before Sept. 11 — is attracting so many Latino converts has
several answers. For many women who attend the Islamic Center of Southern
California here, the path is a relationship with a Muslim man. Many others
say they chose Islam because they preferred a religion without the trappings
of a vast hierarchy or the complicated dogma that they saw in the Catholic
Church.
For new immigrants, Latino Muslim leaders say, the close-knit Hispanic
Muslim community is also an attraction, helping Latinos understand the
society as the Latinos help Muslims become more mainstream.
Religion scholars say that Islam also attracts those who prefer a more
rigorous way to worship than what they find here in the modern Catholic
Church.
"There are those in the Roman Catholic tradition who are somewhat discontent
with the modernizing trends of the Catholic Church," said Wade Clark Roof,
chairman of the religious studies department at the University of California
at Santa Barbara. "To those people," Mr. Roof said, "a religious tradition
such as Islam, that attempts to maintain a fairly strict set of patterns and
practices, becomes attractive."
For Nicole Ballivian, 27, an aspiring film producer from Falls Church, Va.,
whose mother is Bolivian and father Armenian, Islam was a natural
progression from Catholicism.
December 17, 2001
A New Minority Makes Itself Known: Hispanic Muslims
By EVELYN NIEVES
Gerard Burkhart for The New York Times
A Growing New Minority - Three Hispanic women were among the worshipers
observing the end of Ramadan in Los Angeles on Sunday. By some estimates
there may now be as many as 40,000 Hispanic Muslims in the United States.
OS ANGELES, Dec. 15 — They file into the mosque when Sunday school is over
and the conference rooms are cleared, staking a small piece of turf in the
main hall. For many, Spanish is their only language, and this is a whole new
world. They are new immigrants, new to the big city and new to Islam.
Over the last year, the Islamic Center of Southern California has been
conducting these weekly 90- minute Spanish-speaking sessions for new Muslims
by popular demand. Marta Galedary, who converted after immigrating here from
Mexico two decades ago, has helped lead them. She finds that the group,
which can include 20 to 50 people in any given week, is intensely interested
and a little nervous.
"Something in these Latino meetings that we keep telling people," Ms.
Galedary said, "is that you don't leave your culture because you convert to
Islam. You have to continue to be proud of whatever part of Latin America
you are from."
They come from all over. Each week, immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Peru and Costa Rica — just a handful of the countries represented
— come to the Islamic Center, relieved to find that they are not alone. Far
from it. In recent years, Latino Muslim groups have formed in most large
cities in the United States, stretching from New York to Los Angeles. Latino
Muslim groups have also formed in smaller cities with large Spanish-
speaking populations, including Fresno, Calif.; Plantation, Fla.; and
Somerville, N.J. Though exact figures are hard to come by, since people tend
to drop in at mosques and may not appear on any membership rolls, the
American Muslim Council, an advocacy group in Washington, estimates that
25,000 Hispanics in the United States are Muslims.
It is a small fraction of the nation's Muslims — estimates of the total
number range from 4 million to 6 million — but a figure that appears to be
growing by the year. (Several Latino Muslim organizations say the number is
closer to 40,000, with the largest Hispanic Muslim communities in New York
City, Southern California and Chicago, where Hispanics and Muslims are
plentiful.) Indeed, Spanish-speaking immigrants, the nation's
fastest-growing minority, are converting to Islam to such an extent that a
national organization, the Latino American Dawah Organization, founded in
1997 by a handful of converts in New York, now claims thousands of members
in 10 states.
Why Islam, a religion cloaked in mystery in Latin America — as it was in
this country before Sept. 11 — is attracting so many Latino converts has
several answers. For many women who attend the Islamic Center of Southern
California here, the path is a relationship with a Muslim man. Many others
say they chose Islam because they preferred a religion without the trappings
of a vast hierarchy or the complicated dogma that they saw in the Catholic
Church.
For new immigrants, Latino Muslim leaders say, the close-knit Hispanic
Muslim community is also an attraction, helping Latinos understand the
society as the Latinos help Muslims become more mainstream.
Religion scholars say that Islam also attracts those who prefer a more
rigorous way to worship than what they find here in the modern Catholic
Church.
"There are those in the Roman Catholic tradition who are somewhat discontent
with the modernizing trends of the Catholic Church," said Wade Clark Roof,
chairman of the religious studies department at the University of California
at Santa Barbara. "To those people," Mr. Roof said, "a religious tradition
such as Islam, that attempts to maintain a fairly strict set of patterns and
practices, becomes attractive."
For Nicole Ballivian, 27, an aspiring film producer from Falls Church, Va.,
whose mother is Bolivian and father Armenian, Islam was a natural
progression from Catholicism.