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California Muslim mayor confronts racism by expanding inclusion for all citizens 

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Updated 12 August 2024
RAY HANANIA
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California Muslim mayor confronts racism by expanding inclusion for all citizens 

Updated 12 August 2024
RAY HANANIA

CHICAGO: Farrah Khan, the woman of color and the first Muslim to win the mayoral seat in Irvine, California, was inspired to run for public office while volunteering on a campaign by the remarks of the husband of a candidate she was helping, who told her a Pakistani Muslim could “never win.”  

Provoked by the comments, Khan ran for a city council seat two years later in 2016 but was beaten back by an onslaught of racism that saw Muslims, Arabs and Pakistanis as portrayed as “terrorists.” 

Refusing to allow hate to win, Khan ran again and won a council seat in 2018. Two years later, she challenged and defeated Irvine’s incumbent Mayor Christina Shea, whose campaign resorted to stereotyping to push Khan back. 

 

“Through that (volunteer) work, I got to really be involved in the community, which kind of sparked my interest in politics but always behind-the-scenes. It wasn’t until 2014, I was volunteering on a campaign and after an event we were kind of all sitting around talking and I mentioned that I really would look forward to more diversity when it came to leadership roles and elected officials. And the candidate’s husband at the time said to me, ‘Well, I hope you are not thinking about running.’ And I said, ‘You know, I am not. But why not?’”  

Khan said she was shocked by the casual comment. 

“He said, ‘People like you with names like yours are unelectable.’ That was 2014. No one in the room said anything. No one said that is wrong or that is not true. It was just complete silence. And so, I am driving home, and I am talking to my husband, and I am talking to my sisters, and I am just so enraged, like how are we, even today, hearing comments like this and thinking that it is ok? And it just didn’t settle well with me.” 

Khan said she could not get past the casual racist comment and decided to run for a seat on the Irvine City Council. 

“So, I ran, for the first time, for the city council in 2016. I didn’t win that year. I lost. But I was fourth out of 11 candidates that were running and gained a lot of local attention. And then folks … really encouraged me to run again. And so, in 2018, I ran again and came in first out of 12 candidates for city council,” Khan said, adding she was prompted to run for mayor two years after that. 

“And then of course (in the) 2020 (mayor’s race), we not only had the pandemic but the social injustice issues that we were faced with. And a mayor at the time that just didn’t get the community’s needs and was responding to people with, ‘If you don’t like the city I live in, go find another city to live in.’ And that was in the LA Times. It really bothered me that no one was stepping up to challenge her only because she was not only an incumbent but a 20-year incumbent (mayor and council member) and she had never lost any of her campaigns.” 

After winning a city council seat in 2018, Khan went on to challenge the city’s new mayor, Shea, in 2020. The campaign saw Khan subjected to a barrage of racist attacks. Instead of giving up, however, Khan said she “pivoted” and championed the need to bring diversity to Irvine’s government. 

 

“I think it was all that driving force of all the negativity. In 2016, I will tell you I didn’t want to run again after that campaign because it was just so brutal. There were signs throughout the city that basically said that I was a terrorist, that linked me with the Muslim Brotherhood, that I was supported by all of these (Muslim and Arab and Pakistani) organizations and made me out to be a scary person,” Khan recalled, saying she was stunned by the intensity of the anti-Muslim hate thrown her way by the mayor at the time, Donald P. Wagner, and his supporters. 

“I was just like, my gosh, for people that know me, I am just the shyest person there. It was me fighting against that. (During) most of that campaign, I would come home and just cry my eyes out and just be like, ‘What is this?’ I heard politics was nasty and it was bad but I didn’t know how horrible it got where people that you considered your friends when it comes to politics are not your friends, and there is so much of a struggle.” 

Khan defeated Shea and two other candidates in the November 2020 general election, winning with 56,304 votes or 46.7 percent of the total votes cast. She led Shea by nearly 15,000 votes. 

The racism she faced in politics, Khan said, would change who she was, prompting her to offer voters an alternative environment of inclusion and acceptance. 

“You do have to fight back and stand up for yourself,” she said. “If you don’t, politics eats you up alive.” 

Khan said she did not win because Muslim, Pakistani or Arab voters dominated the election. They were a small minority in a city that was nearly 43 percent Caucasian and 40 percent Asian. Khan estimated that Irvine’s population was only 5 to 8 percent Muslim and 2.5 percent Black. 

 

“I ran (in 2018) on making sure that we were going to make our community more inclusive. Because of the hate that I faced, I wanted to make sure that no one else in our city was pinpointed. Just the xenophobia, the bigotry, all that stuff needed to be dealt with. And so those were some topics that I spoke of. And I think those also resonated with our API (Asian and Pacific Islander) community as well. 

“But when it came to 2020, it was totally different,” Khan said, referencing the COVID-19 pandemic and public anger over police killings of African Americans like George Floyd in Minneapolis. 

“We have about an 11 percent Hispanic American population and probably a 2.5 percent Black population. When they came out, especially the Black community during the Black Lives Matter rallies, I was at the very first rally and several others after that.” 

Khan said that she continued to face racism in each election, adding that the stereotypes were intended to frighten voters and undermine her growing popularity and reputation of embracing diversity for all. 

“And I remember our mayor at the time really pointing me out using my pictures at the rally, saying ‘Oh, she is out there trying to incite violence,’ that I was against the police and I wanted to eliminate safety in the city … (She was) targeting me as one person, but that is how our communities get targeted, day after day,” Khan said. 

“And so, I really made an effort to uplift the community’s voices and make sure that their issues were being heard. So that campaign was all about doing the right thing for the pandemic, and of course, … standing up and speaking out for social injustice issues.” 

After becoming mayor, Khan created the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee to “uplift the voices” of diversity and be inclusive of everyone in the community regardless of race or religion. 

 

“Through that committee, we have done so much as far as being able to outreach into our general population and making sure were celebrating each other. For the first time in our city’s history, we celebrated Juneteenth. We celebrated Hispanic Heritage. And we celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival,” Khan said, referring to a festival celebrated in Chinese culture. They had prepared for only 200 attendees, but more than 2,000 came out. 

“And last year, I held a Ramadan event at City Hall, and it brought our Muslim community together … Those are ways we really bring our communities together to understand each other, to learn our cultures and our religions and not to be afraid, and I think that is something that has really sparked an interest in our committee members.” 

“That told us that when you make even the smallest effort to bring people together, they come out because they are craving it. So we just ran with it year after year since then … I will tell you, I get so much hate on social media ... The last time we celebrated Hispanic Heritage, there were so many comments (saying) … they are such a small population, it’s only 11 percent, why are we so focused on them? That’s exactly why we are so focused on them. And I don’t care if you are .5 percent of the population in our city, we are going to celebrate you and we are going to make sure you feel you are a part of this city.” 

Khan grew up in northern California and began her career in the biotech and innovation industry as a regulatory manager focusing on streamlining complex products and international research. In 2004, she and her family moved to Irvine, where her two sons have attended schools since kindergarten. She and her husband also serve as legacy partners with the Irvine Public School Foundation. 

Khan said she is planning to run for Orange County California supervisor in 2024 by spreading her message of inclusion and promising to build upon her record of addressing the environment and issues involving essential services for residents including housing, jobs, education, and transportation. 

In her short time as mayor, she has launched several new strategies leading to Irvine becoming the first city in Orange County to spearhead COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in local neighborhoods and senior centers. She passed HERO pay, which provides bonuses of up to $1,000 for frontline grocery workers who were employed during the pandemic, created a new committee focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, and adopted a resolution with strategies to support achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. 

Khan made her comments during an appearance on “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” broadcast Wednesday Oct. 4, 2023 on the US Arab Radio network on WNZK AM 690 radio in Detroit and WDMV AM 700 Radio in Washington D.C. 

You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.

Topics: Ray Radio Show Ray Hanania Show California US Arab Americans

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President of Chile denies sexual harassment complaint

Updated 6 sec ago
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President of Chile denies sexual harassment complaint

Updated 6 sec ago
Santiago: Chilean President Gabriel Boric was accused in a criminal complaint of sexually harassing a woman over a decade ago, an allegation he “categorically” denies, a lawyer said Monday.
“The president ... rejects and categorically denies the complaint,” attorney Jonatan Valenzuela said in a statement, referring to an alleged event in 2013.
The complaint was filed on September 6 in the local prosecutor’s office of Magallanes, in the far south of Chile where Boric is from.
Cristian Crisosto, who heads the Magallanes prosecutor’s office, confirmed “there is a criminal case related to the facts listed,” adding that there was a special team at the agency investigating the complaint.
According to Valenzuela, the complaint was filed by a woman who at the time sent Boric 25 emails that were “unsolicited and non-consensual,” including one with explicit images.
More than 10 years later, the woman “filed a complaint without any basis whatsoever against now-president Gabriel Boric.”
Boric, now 38, was 27 at the time and had just completed his law degree.
“My client never had an emotional relationship or friendship with her and they have not communicated since July 2014,” Valenzuela added.
The accusation against Boric comes as his administration is dealing with a separate scandal over sexual abuse after former crime czar and ex-deputy interior minister Manuel Monsalve was arrested this month on suspicion of raping his subordinate.
Boric, who is ineligible to run for reelection after his four-year presidential term ends in 2026, has special immunity and must first be subject to an impeachment trial by the justice department to be formally investigated.

South Korea holds memorial for forced laborers in Japan after boycotting Japanese event

Updated 15 min 27 sec ago
AP
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South Korea holds memorial for forced laborers in Japan after boycotting Japanese event

  • South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that it had decided not to attend the Japan-organized memorial largely because the contents of the government speech
  • Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Monday that Japan held the ceremony in line with its pledge at the UNESCO World Heritage committee meeting
Updated 15 min 27 sec ago
AP

SADO, Japan: South Korea commemorated wartime Korean forced laborers at Japan’s Sado gold mines in a ceremony Monday, a day after boycotting a similar event organized by Japan, as tensions over historical atrocities continue to strain relations between the two sides.
Monday’s ceremony at a former dormitory near the mines on Sado Island, which date to the 16th century and were listed this year as a UNESCO World Heritage site, was organized by South Korea’s Foreign Ministry and attended by nine family members of Korean wartime laborers, the country’s ambassador to Japan and other officials.
Japan on Sunday held a memorial service for all workers at the Sado mines, including Koreans. It thanked them for their contributions at the mines but did not acknowledge their forced labor or issue an apology.
At the Korean-sponsored memorial on Monday, participants in dark suits observed a moment of silence and offered white chrysanthemums in honor of the South Korean laborers, along with offerings such as dried fish, sliced apple and pears.
In a short speech, South Korea’s Ambassador to Japan Park Choel-hee offered his condolences to the forced laborers and their families, expressing hopes that the memorial would bring comfort to families. He said South Korea and Japan should both make efforts to ensure that the painful wartime history is remembered.
“We will never forget the tears and sacrifices of the Korean workers behind the history of the Sado mines,” Park said.
“I sincerely hope that today will be a day of remembrance for all the Korean workers who suffered indescribable pain under harsh conditions, and that this memorial service will bring comfort to the souls of the deceased Korean workers and their bereaved families,” Park added.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Monday that Japan held the ceremony in line with its pledge at the UNESCO World Heritage committee meeting after thoroughly communicating with South Korea. “It is disappointing that South Korea did not participate,” Hayashi said.
About 1,500 Koreans were forced to labor under abusive and brutal conditions at the mines during World War II, historians say.
Sunday’s ceremony, which was supposed to further mend wounds, renewed tensions between the two sides. South Korea announced Saturday its decision to not attend the Japanese-organized ceremony, citing unspecified disagreements with Tokyo over the event.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that it had decided not to attend the Japan-organized memorial largely because the contents of the government speech at the event were expected to fall short of the agreement between the two sides over the Sado mines’ World Heritage site listing.
Holding a separate memorial ceremony was an expression of “our government’s firm resolve not to make a compromise with Japan on history issues,” it said.
There was speculation that South Korea boycotted the event over the Japanese government’s representative, whom a since-withdrawn report had linked to Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Japanese lawmaker and former entertainer Akiko Ikuina is controversial among Japan’s neighbors in part because of a Kyodo News report — later withdrawn as erroneous — that she visited the shrine, which commemorates 2.5 million war dead including war criminals, after she was elected. China and Korea view Yasukuni as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
Ikuina has denied visiting Yasukuni since her term began, and Kyodo News on Monday published an apology saying it had erroneously reported Ikuina was among some 20 lawmakers who visited Yasukuni on Aug. 15, 2022, a report widely quoted by Japanese and South Korean media and noted by the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
Hayashi on Tuesday criticized Kyodo over the erroneous story and for causing confusion over the Sado ceremony, adding that the government plans to seek further explanation from Kyodo. He said “there was no problem” with the government’s decision to send Ikuina, who is tasked with culture and public affairs.
Hayashi, noting the importance of cooperation between the two countries in the current security environment, said, “Though there are difficult problems between Japan and South Korea, we plan to continue our close communication.”
The Sado mines were registered as a UNESCO cultural heritage site in July after Japan agreed to include an exhibit on the conditions of Korean forced laborers and to hold a memorial service annually, after repeated protests from the South Korean government.
Signs, including one at the site where South Koreans held their ceremony, have been erected indicating former sites of Korean laborers’ dormitories. A city-operated museum in the area also added a section about Korean laborers, but a private museum attached to the main UNESCO site doesn’t mention them at all.
The site of South Korea’s memorial was the former Fourth Souai Dormitory, one of four dorms for Korean laborers without families. A newly erected sign there reads, “Workers from the Korean Peninsula lived here during the wartime.”
On Saturday, the families visited a former housing site where Korean laborers lived. They also briefly saw the city-run museum and an exhibit on the Korean laborers as they listened to explanations through a translator.

Topics: Japan South Korea

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Indonesia digs out as flooding, landslide death toll hits 20

Updated 36 min ago
AFP
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Indonesia digs out as flooding, landslide death toll hits 20

Updated 36 min ago
AFP

JAKARTA: Rescue workers in western Indonesia used heavy equipment on Tuesday to dig out from weekend flooding and landslides that have killed at least 20 people, the national disaster agency said.
In North Sumatra, the bodies of five people listed as missing had been pulled from under a mountain of mud and debris, agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said in a statement.
“All victims have been found dead,” he said Tuesday, adding that 10 people in all had been killed in a Karo district landslide.
Beginning Saturday, heavy rain pounded four districts across northern Sumatra, producing the deadly floods and landslides.
Juspri Nadeak, disaster chief in hardest-hit Karo district, said the discovery of victims not yet reported missing to authorities remained a possibility.
“The landslide area provides access to hot springs, so there’s a possibility that tourists were hit by it,” he told AFP Tuesday.
“We are still cleaning up the mud and debris from the landslide while anticipating the possibility of discovering more victims.”
In a village in Deli Serdang district, where four people have been found dead and two more were missing, piles of mud, logs and rocks were scattered around the village where a rescue operation was underway.
“The electricity was cut off and there is no cellphone reception, making it difficult for us rescuers to communicate,” Iman Sitorus, a local search and rescue agency spokesman, told AFP.
Authorities also have deployed heavy equipment to clean up the debris, he said.
Indonesia has suffered a string of recent extreme weather events, which experts say are made more likely by climate change.
In May, at least 67 people died after a mixture of ash, sand and pebbles carried down from the eruption of Mount Marapi in West Sumatra washed into residential areas, causing flash floods.
The disaster agency on Monday revised downward its tally to 15 dead and seven missing following an earlier report that listed one more killed.
The death toll climbed to 20 on Tuesday following the discovery of the five bodies in Karo district.
The rest of the victims were found in South Tapanuli, Padang Lawas and Deli Serdang districts.

Topics: Indonesia floods landslide

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Large fire at Japan rocket test site

Updated 39 min 17 sec ago
AFP
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Large fire at Japan rocket test site

Updated 39 min 17 sec ago
AFP

TOKYO: A huge fire erupted Tuesday at a Japanese rocket testing station, sending flames and smoke soaring into the sky, in the latest mishap for the country’s ambitious space program.
There were no reports of any injuries in the incident, in a remote area of Kagoshima in southern Japan, where a solid-fuel Epsilon S rocket was being tested.
Footage on national broadcaster NHK showed towering balls of fire and white fumes rising from the Tanegashima Space Center.
Journalists stationed around 900 meters (yards) away reported a large explosion shortly after after the combustion test began at 8:30 am (2330 GMT).
“There was an abnormality during today’s combustion test. We are trying to assess what happened,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) told AFP in a statement.
“No injuries have been reported at this point. The cause is also under investigation.”
The Asahi Shimbun daily reported that the agency’s plan to launch the Epsilon S — the successor to the Epsilon — by March was now nearly impossible.
In July 2023 one engine of an Epsilon S exploded during a test around 50 seconds after ignition.
In that incident a piece of metal from the ignition melted and damaged the thermal insulator covering the engine, allowing fuel to catch fire, Kyodo News reported.

SETBACK
That was one in a string of setbacks for Japan’s space program, including launch attempts for its next-generation H3 launch system.
JAXA managed a successful blast-off in February this year for the H3, which has been mooted as a rival to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
But that followed a failed attempt in February 2023 when the ignition process failed. The following month a destruct command was issued shortly after blast-off.
“Including the Epsilon S, the development of flagship rockets is extremely important for the independence of Japan’s space development program,” top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters at a regular briefing on Tuesday.
In January, Japan successfully landed an unmanned probe on the Moon — albeit at a crooked angle — making it just the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
But in March a rocket made by a private Japanese company exploded seconds after launch.
Tokyo-based Space One’s 18-meter (60-foot) Kairos rocket blasted off in the coastal Wakayama region of western Japan, carrying a small government test satellite.
Around five seconds later, the solid-fuel rocket erupted in fire, sending white smoke billowing around the remote mountainous area as orange flames raged on the ground, live footage showed.
Burning debris fell onto the surrounding slopes as sprinklers began spraying water, in dramatic scenes watched by hundreds of spectators gathered at public viewing areas including a nearby waterfront.
Space One said at the time that it had taken the decision to “abort the flight” and details were being investigated.

Topics: Japan space accident

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Trump threatens to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on first day in office

Updated 26 November 2024
AP
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Trump threatens to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on first day in office

Updated 26 November 2024
AP

NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China as soon as he takes office as part of his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs.
The tariffs, if implemented, could dramatically raise prices on everything from gas to automobiles. The US is the largest importer of goods in the world, with Mexico, China and Canada its top three suppliers, according to the most recent Census data.
Trump made the threats in a pair of posts on his Truth Social site Monday evening in which he railed against an influx of illegal migrants, even though southern border crossings have been hovering at a four-year low.
“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25 percent Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” he wrote, complaining that “thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before,” even though violent crime is down from pandemic highs.
He said the new tariffs would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country! ”
Trump also turned his ire to China, saying he has “had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail.”
“Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10 percent Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America,” he wrote.
It is unclear whether Trump will actually go through with the threats or if he is using them as a negotiating tactic before he takes office in the new year.
Arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico have been falling and remained around four-year lows in October, according to the most recent US numbers
The Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests in October, less than one third of the tally from last October.
Much of America’s fentanyl is smuggled from Mexico. Border seizures of the drug rose sharply under President Joe Biden, and US officials tallied about 21,900 pounds (12,247 kilograms) of fentanyl seized in the 2024 government budget year, compared with 2,545 pounds (1,154 kilograms) in 2019, when Trump was president.
Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, if confirmed, would be one of several officials responsible for imposing tariffs on other nations. He has on several occasions said tariffs are a means of negotiation with other countries.
He wrote in a Fox News op-ed last week, before his nomination, that tariffs are “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy objectives. Whether it is getting allies to spend more on their own defense, opening foreign markets to US exports, securing cooperation on ending illegal immigration and interdicting fentanyl trafficking, or deterring military aggression, tariffs can play a central role.”
If Trump were to move forward with the threatened tariffs, the new taxes would pose an enormous challenge for the economies of Canada and Mexico, in particular.
They would also throw into doubt the reliability of the 2020 trade deal brokered in large part by Trump, which is up for review in 2026.
Spokespeople for Canada’s ambassador to Washington and its deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, who chairs a special Cabinet committee on Canada-US relations to address concerns about another Trump presidency, did not immediately provide comment.
Trump’s promise to launch a mass deportation effort is a top focus for the Cabinet committee, Freeland has said.
A senior Canadian official had said before Trump’s posts that Canadian officials are expecting Trump to issue executive orders on trade and the border as soon as he assumes office. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department and Economy Department also had no immediate reaction to Trump’s statements. Normally such weighty issues are handled by the president at her morning press briefings.

Topics: Trump Returns Donald Trump

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