In light of President Obama’s speech on religious tolerance and the Muslim community, the White House blog has interviewed Muslims who work in the White House. According to the blog, these are “public servants who have faced discrimination and found hope in the people they work alongside and the work they do every day on behalf of the American people.”
Here are some snippets from the interviews:
Rumana Ahmed, Advisor to Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes:
“I believe if you work hard and if you play by the rules, you can make it if you try in America — no matter who you are or how you pray. It’s how a young girl — once mocked and called names — can pursue her dream and proudly serve her country as a head-covering Bengali Muslim American woman in the White House.”
Aadil Ginwala, Assistant Director for Education & Telecommunications Innovation in the Office of Science and Technology Policy:
“.. I feel especially privileged to work for President Obama, whom I have felt, since his speech in the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, has this uncanny way of saying exactly what I feel and believe, only better than I could have said it myself. And I love that there is a generation of children, many of whom are now 10 and 11 years old, for whom a black President named Barack Hussein Obama is in no way strange or a stretch of the imagination.”
Alefiyah Mesiwala, Senior Policy Advisor in Healthcare for the National Economic Council:
“During my last few years working in government and at the White House, I have seen the power the President’s leadership has in bringing people from all different disciplines together to work in government and solve challenging problems.”
Manar Waheed, Deputy Policy Director for Immigration at The White House Domestic Policy Council:
“Given my background and the fact that I speak Spanish, the majority of my clients were immigrants and several of them were Muslim. Witnessing the injustice that my clients faced on a daily basis and the ways in which some of our systems required change to really benefit the people who needed them most, I decided to move to DC and shift over to policy advocacy. Advocacy happens in so many forms, from the inside out and from the top to the bottom.”
Fatima Noor, Policy Assistant for Immigration Policy & Rural Affairs at The White House Domestic Policy Council:
“… I am deeply involved in our Administration’s efforts to welcome and integrate refugees and immigrants from around the world. A few years ago, the President said this at the naturalization ceremony: ‘The basic idea of welcoming immigrants to our shores is central to our way of life — it is in our DNA. We believe our diversity, our differences, when joined together by a common set of ideals, makes us stronger, makes us more creative, makes us different. From all these different strands, we make something new here in America.’
Raheemah Abdulaleem, Associate General Counsel in the Office of Administration:
“One experience that sticks out in my own life took place when I moved here to Washington after the President’s election. While walking not far from my office in downtown DC, a man yelled at me from his car ‘go back to your country.’ He apparently supposed that I was not American because I wore a hijab (a traditional headscarf worn by some Muslim women). The heckler had no way of knowing that I was born and raised in Philadelphia to a family whose history in this country is as old as the nation itself. He was unaware of my family’s contributions to both building and defending our great country. Little did he know that my family, perhaps like his, includes teachers, school administrators, lawyers, nurses, writers, transportation workers, and several members of the Armed Services (one of whom was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for his service during World War II).”
