Featured in Houston Chronicle: 'There are no options like this' IslaminSpanish center opens doors in Alief to growing community of Latino Muslims
'There are no options like this' IslaminSpanish center opens doors in Alief to growing community of Latino Muslims
Under the shadow of the Alief water tower off Westpark Tollway, an old warehouse transformed into a center for faith education for the area's fast-growing Latino Muslim population.
The location under the tower is significant, said Jaime “Mujahid” Fletcher, who led an Alief gang before joining forces with his father 23 years ago to create a faith organization that has translated the entire Quran into a Spanish audio book.
“In the early 90’s, these streets were like war,” he said. “As teenagers, we didn’t know anything about Islam. Alief was the murder capital. Becoming Muslim helped us fix our lives, and now we get to open the center right underneath the water tower.”
Houston Police Department Commander Mario Clinton, seated right center, sit with Muslim elders and community leaders as Salima Fletcher, standing front left, makes a statement with her mother, Sakinah Gutierrez, and sisters Jalilah and Yasira during the opening celebration of the Latino Islamic Center Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024 in West Houston.
Fletcher spoke on Saturday afternoon to a crowd of about 600 Muslims and Latinos who gathered under a canopy lined with flags from different Latin-American countries for the ribbon-cutting of the new $4 million IslaminSpanish Centro Islámico. The building will serve as a community hub for a tight-knit, expanding group of Latino Muslims in Alief to engage with Islamic education in Spanish and media production.
“The only place in the U.S we can open a Spanish mosque is in Southwest Alief, Texas,” said District F Council Member Tiffany Thomas. “For so long, no one wanted to be like us in the Westside but when I look at this audience, I see the city of Houston.”
Possibly the first of its kind in the country and located in one of Houston's most diverse neighborhoods, the 10,200 square-foot facility includes a 3,600 square-foot production studio and the country’s only 15-foot interactive digital museum designed to tell the story of Islam’s impact on Latino culture, tracing history from 610 AD to today. The inside, designed by IslaminSpanish co-founder Sandy "Sakinah" Gutierrez and Fletcher’s wife, is an intentional production, with symbolic arches drawn from the styles of the Great Mosque of Córdoba in Spain.
To Vincente Notario, who immigrated to Spring from Mexico with his wife, Claudia, a few months prior, the center’s focus on providing Islamic material in Spanish represents "the start of a new movement."
“There are no options like this,” Notario said. He and his wife converted to Islam just this year, and the choice to do so wasn’t easy. But the religion’s values meshed with the Latino culture he was raised in, and the choice felt like freedom, Notario said.
Houston Police Department Assistant Chief Yasar Bashir, standing left center, and Commander Mario Clinton, standing inside right, sit with Muslim elders and community leaders as Councilwoman Tiffany Thomas, left, present a proclamation in recognition of the Only Latino-Led Islamic Center in the U.S. Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024 in West Houston.
“Islam is a religion you choose rather than being brought up in. Every time there’s a new convert in a family, it’s going to be hard, but you feel relief when you see the people here with the same beliefs from different countries.”
An older-root in the community, 57 year-old Lucy Lopez said she remembers when she converted to Islam seven years ago, her loved ones thought Muslims were terrorists. But her steadfast commitment, both to her faith and to the Latino Muslim community, broke down their perceptions.
“My friends and family were scared, but after the change they saw in me, they loved it. They respect me,” she said.
To Lopez, the new center is a testament to how much the community’s grown over the past decade, both in size and resources. While Lopez said she understands the fear the Latino Muslims face right now, with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric in many politician’s remarks, she feels her community aims to focus on their good fortune.
Women wearing the traditional Muslim head covering or hijab, take the opportunity for a quick selfie during the opening celebration of the Latino Islamic Center Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024 in West Houston.
“We try to avoid the politics. This is a positive. It’s a big opportunity for people to know Islam isn’t just for Arabs. It’s open to the entire world,” Lopez said.
Changing stereotypes about the Muslim community has been a long-running effort of Fletcher’s that started just three months after he converted to Islam — and fresh off the attacks of Sept. 11.
But becoming a liaison for a relatively fresh intersection of cultures wasn’t a role he necessarily chose at first; it’s one he stepped into out of the Houston Muslim community’s necessity for a Spanish speaker to talk to Spanish media in the early 2000s.
“The Muslim community didn’t have a way to communicate what we are to the world,” Fletcher said. “Back when I started, the media wasn’t very friendly. Those first interviews were difficult.”
Thomas, the council member, rallied a standing ovation for a teary-eyed Fletcher, who has become a leader, if not also a symbol, for a community that wasn’t always this large and wasn’t always equipped with faith materials in Spanish.
“There are people who may be running away from danger who seek cover at this mosque, and they will interact with you, and you can set them on a better path,” Thomas said.
Nov 16, 2024
Tanya Babbar - Hearst Fellow
- Tanya Babbar is a Hearst Fellow working as a general assignment reporter for the Houston Chronicle.
Original article here: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/trending/article/islam-spanish-latino-muslims-alief-19922104.php