By Betsy Scheinbart
Dozens of Bangladeshi Americans who live in the Jamaica area gathered on a Hillside Avenue corner last week for a candlelight vigil in memory of the World Trade Center disaster victims.
Small children joined teenagers and adults at the Oct. 3 event, which was sponsored by the American-Bangladesh Friendship Association. The group is based in Jamaica Estates and headed by community activists Morshed Alam and Jharna Choudhury.
Several Queens legislators and Democratic candidates for City Council came in support of Alam, who chairs the Queens County Democratic Party’s New Americans Committee.
The vigil began at 7:30 p.m. and grew larger as neighborhood residents came across it by chance. Mithun Ahmed, vice president of the Combined Cultural Alliance of North America, led participants through a rendition of “We Shall Overcome” in both English and Bangla.
Many wore traditional clothing from their Bangladeshi homeland, which is a predominantly Muslim country. Men, women and children waved American flags and held up signs reading: “We condemn the terrorist acts.”
“We wanted to express our solidarity,” said Choudhury. “I’m a part of this community, I’m directly affected by this event.”
Choudhury had detected some apprehension from his neighbors toward the Bangladeshi community, so he and the organizers decided the vigil was a good way to show that Bangladeshi-Americans are as hurt and angered by the terrorist attacks as any other New Yorkers.
The men who carried out the Sept. 11 attack were members of the Islamic faith but belonged to a fundamentalist sect of Islam.
Bangladeshi-Americans were among those trapped in the doomed Twin Towers and they were among those grieving for lost relatives and friends, participants at the vigil said.
Nusrat Alam, a student at Francis Lewis HS, said she has not been harassed at school because of her ethnicity or religion, but one of her friends was.
“We’re probably victims double,” Alam said of Muslims and Arab-Americans. “Not only did we lose relatives, but now we are getting hated on.”
Those at the vigil said they hoped the event would help convince their neighbors they are not the enemy and that they do not support the terrorists who attacked the city.
“We must focus on showing this society that we condemn terrorism,” said Muhammad Anwarul Islam, president of the Bangladeshi American Public Affairs Front.
“We are Americans and we should not be bothered for any reason as Muslims,” Islam said. “In the Muslim religion, we condemn terrorists.”
At least two of the seven weekly Bangladeshi newspapers in Queens covered the event. The editor of The Weekly Darpon, based in Long Island City, and a reporter from the Weekly Bangalee in Elmhurst attended.
City Council candidates Leroy Comrie, Jim Gennaro and David Weprin, all of whom won the Democratic primary in their respective races, each spoke at the event.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.
