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On North Shore, Arab-Americans report few troubles

By TOM DALTON

Staff writer

T.J. Nabbout shakes his head when asked if he had any bad experiences after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Obviously, everybody was concerned about what was going to happen," said Nabbout, a native of Lebanon who owns a gas station in Salem. "We never had any fear. We are in a neighborhood where we know everybody, and it is like a family."

When pushed, however, Nabbout, 38, admitted that he met some isolated hostility.

"A little bit of an incident happened," he said during an interview at his station. Motorists in a passing car "yelled, 'Go back to your own country!' But it's nothing. What are you going to do?"

Nabbout, and other North Shore residents from the Middle East interviewed for this article, said they were, for the most part, treated warmly by customers, neighbors and even complete strangers following the terrorist attacks.

Across the country, there were hundreds of hate incidents over the past year, but that was not the experience of the small sampling of Arab-Americans interviewed by The Salem News.

Dr. Rafik Attia, a physician at North Shore Medical Center in Salem, said he was out shopping when he met two women, one a hospital worker he knew and the other a stranger.

"The first week (after the attack) I was in a supermarket and two women stopped and hugged me," said Attia, a native of Egypt and a Christian. "Clearly, I look like President Sadat ... and they stopped and hugged me and said, 'Is there anything we can do?'"

Against that backdrop, however, there was fear. Some admitted it, and some said they still feel it heading into this one-year anniversary. Several people declined to be interviewed for this article, and others asked to remain anonymous.

While expressing sadness and horror over the terrorist attacks, one, who did not want his name used or his North Shore business identified, said he worried for a while that the U.S. government might take action against all Arab-Americans.

"What the United States did to Japan," he said in reference to the World War II internment camps. "You always think about it and you never know."

That same man, a native of Syria and a Muslim, said his family back home called often to make sure everyone here was safe and unharmed.

"My family was worried about us," he said. "They heard on the news that (people) smashed this business or stoned this mosque, and they worried."

What the past year was like, of course, varied from person to person. The Arab-American community on the North Shore is sparse and diverse.

Lamis Andoni of Gloucester, who grew up in Jordan and Palestine and has been working in this country as a journalist and college lecturer, had a frightening experience right after the attacks.

"After Sept. 11, an anonymous person posted on the Internet a list tied to Islamic terrorist groups in America, and my name was on it with my address," she said during a phone interview.

Also on the list were the names of other Middle-Eastern natives working, writing and lecturing in this country. Andoni knew a lot of them, and many, she said, are Christians.

The Gloucester police did their best to provide protection, and many in the community rallied around Andoni, who had spoken at forums in Gloucester on the crisis in the Middle East.

"When people in the churches and community, including Jewish friends, found out, they rushed to my support," she said. "Whoever did it wanted to hurt us, or silence us."

Many in the Boston-area Islamic community were interviewed by the FBI during the past year.

"We haven't been, but almost everyone we know from the Muslim community has been visited," said Mariam Arena, an American Muslim married to a Palestinian. The Malden couple spoke at a church forum last fall in Topsfield.

They were "not scary visits, but kind of friendly visits for questioning," she said. "But even that was kind of frightening."

Nabbout, a Christian, said he was visited at his Salem gas station by the Salem police, but only to see if he was all right and to provide reassurance that the police were there if he needed them.

"Even the chief came in," he said. "They said, 'Don't answer anybody. If you have any problem, give us a call.'"

Other than the few catcalls from passing cars, Nabbout said he experienced no harassment. If anything, the past 12 months have been good, he said.

"I think my business is better this year than last," he said with a grin.