Broken Window "Pains"
By Ray Hanania

Our success is now our handicap. Arab Americans are more identifiable today than they were a few years ago.

In the last three years, we've seen a dramatic growth in the Arab American small business community in the Chicago area.

The small Arab businesses were grounded for a long time in the deteriorating area of 63rd Street while the community itself was already moving very quickly into some of the more affluent Southwest Suburban communities such as Orland Park and Palos Hills.

The main community stretches from the Southwestern-most tip of Chicago through the Suburbs in one long and wide swatch of land about 8 miles long. There are about 180,000 Arab Americans in the six county region around Chicago and about 100,000 of them live in this Southwest Suburban corridor that continues to grow.

I would say that around 1997 and 1998, we started to see more and more Arab American businesses sprouting up in this region. I think they have tripled, with maybe around 100 to 150 store fronts that boast Arabian services that range from food, travel to insurance, real estate, coiffures, clothing stores, furniture stores and even home building.

This year, we saw our first Arab bank open, the United Trust Bank, right in the Middle of this community. They are opening a branch downtown this Friday right on Wacker Drive.

We have about 165 restaurants that feature Arabian food menus in Chicagoland. We've seen a rise in the profile, for example of realtors who are of Arab American heritage. Large advertisements in local newspapers, buying the place card holders on CTA buses and even on the Jewel shopping carts promoting themselves by name ... names that are obviously Arab.

There was a real pride happening that we were becoming more and more a part of America.

Just as we are witnessing an explosion in this Arab business base, this happens. It's a great tragedy for the American people, but I think that as time goes on, we'll see these Arab businesses suffer.

In the first few days after the attacks, "Americans," and I put that word in quotes, rampaged through this region breaking large window panes of at least 18 of these Arab businesses. At locations where Arab Americans are visible as employees, they were attacked right at their counters working at gas stations and food stores.

Last Tuesday, I stopped to get gas at a Citgo Station and the man behind the counter was a long time friend and I spent several minutes speaking with him. We talked about family, his parents and his brothers and sisters, where they were and how everything was so good. That night, I heard that his gas station had been attacked and he was the target of the attack.

When I went there the next day, he wasn't working there any more and the owner, who is Pakistani, was there working behind the counter in his place. He said that Mohammed, my friend, was just too depressed to come back to work.

Arab businesses will see repercussions on a lot of levels.

        For example, American owned stores that employ Arab Americans are pushing these employees to the background away from point-of-sale contacts with customers.

        Arab Americans who were thriving in their businesses and relying heavily on advertising are now rethinking those ad campaigns, and asking if promoting themselves as Arab Americans is a good idea any more.

        Arab American business owners are now wondering what will happen to their customer base. Furniture stores. Restaurants. Business centers. Will non-Arabs now patronize their stores?

        And large corporations that employ Arab Americans have come down hard on their employees who are of Arab heritage and who maintain low, medium and high profiles in their community. It's an issue that every business is discussing with their employees, I am sure out of concern for the safety of these Arab American employees, but also to insure that our presence doesn't harm their own businesses in a serious way. (I'm fortunate, my company has been very supportive.)

We're taking a hit as hard and as bad as the World Trade Center was destroyed. Obviously, our suffering does not even come close to theirs, but we will suffer.

I think this pattern of animosity and concern is only going to grow and become worse in the next few days.

We're Americans, too. I served during the Vietnam War in the US Air Force and then 9 years in the Illinois Air National Guard. My dad served in the US 5th Army and in the O.S.S. in Europe fighting the Nazis, and my uncle served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, also.

I didn't have to go out and buy an American Flag on the day of the terrorist attack. I have one that I have proudly displayed at every American holiday.

None of that seems to mean anything any more. And I don't think anything can make me feel like an Arab American more these days than the negative stares and looks I receive every day since.

This terrorist attack has changed a lot of lives.

(Ray Hanania is founder of the National Arab American Journalists Association. He is a veteran journalist who has covered Chicago's City Hall and politics for 17 years for several newspapers including for the Sun-Times. Hanania is an award-winning Middle East Affairs columnist for Creators Syndicate.)