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So, hello everyone! Today is May 31, 2022. My name is Helen Pu, And today I will be interviewing Mr. Shariq Ghani on behalf of the Houston Asian American Archive. So, thank you so much, Mr.

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Ghani, for agreeing to interview with us. We'll begin by hearing about your early life and childhood. So, first of all, where and when were you born? I was born in Houston, Texas, in the early 1980s.

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I was born in 1981 here, right here in Houston, Texas. My parents immigrated from Pakistan. My dad arrived in Florida, from Karachi to do his studies at Florida International University.

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He did a double masters. And he came in the early 70s. My mother came in the late 70s, and she emigrated straight to Queens. Okay, very cool. And do you have any siblings?

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I do. I have two younger sisters, Babinda (?) and Buba (?). They're both younger than me. I'm the eldest. So I was the guinea pig of the family, especially for first generation immigrants.

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[HP: Right.] I was a test subject. And were your siblings also born and raised in Houston? They were. Okay. Very cool. So, how would you describe the household that you grew up

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in? So, like, what family values did your parents emphasize on or whatnot? The dynamic? Fiercely, I would say it was fiercely Pakistani, very regimented. But it was–it was a culture of—the

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only way that I can describe it as a culture of success. Meaning we were–we were raised and taught that we can do anything that we want, as part of the American dream, that we can do anything we want as long as we make good grades,

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and we focused, and we worship God, right, as long as we've got God in our hearts, and we're making good grades, then–then we're going to be—we're going to do well in life, right, along with staying connected with family.

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But it was, you know, growing up because my parents are first generation immigrants, they were used to—they were raised in a village type atmosphere, where there was many aunts, uncles, there's different relatives, even the neighborhood friends were like part

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of family. So everyone took part in raising the children. But we were out on our own in a portion of Fort Bend County that was right on the line of Alief. There's no other, you know, there's just not many—there's one other South

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Asian family on the road. There's really no one for my parents really to—there's definitely no Muslims in the area apart from this one South Asian family. So it was just sort of, my parents were fending on their own, learning as they went along. We wanted

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burgers and pizza for dinner and they wanted biryani and samosas. And so it was just a–just a generational clash, there was a cultural clash. But we got through it.

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Yeah. And what was, I guess the most difficult thing, I guess having the two generations, two cultural, like, forces in one household? The most, most difficult thing was just communicating how we felt.

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I was—that was just a hard part. It's what we' were going through in school, what–what it meant to get good grades, what it meant to be included, what it meant to be excluded in social circles and in groups at school just because you looked and you acted differently.

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You know, I grew up pre-9/11, you know, I graduated class in '99. And so I was the only South Asian, I was the only Muslim in the school at times. But I was the only South Asian that I knew of in elementary school; in middle school, there was one more; in high school,

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there's several. But it was just—people didn't know who you were. I— people just always thought I was Latino. And then for my parents not to understand, you know, just the daily struggles, the daily things I struggles,

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I guess was always a little difficult. Yeah. And did it ever get better, or was it kind of just like that? Just growing— I mean, for me it got better when I took things in my own hands.

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You know, my–my parents came from Pakistan. And that was a pretty heavily colonized area by the British, right? And so, my–my parents' perspective on whenever I would get—excuse me—whenever I would get bullied or whenever there were problems was just look

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the other way, ignore them, just forget about it. But they didn't understand how much it just kept mounting and mounting. Look the other way, and 10 other kids will just start jumping on you, and then it just be, like, the whole bandwagon concept.

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So, I think it was seventh or eighth grade, this one kid kept calling me "Gandhi boy." And "Gandhi boy" at that time—I don't know if it's a slur now, but it was a big slur at that time, you know. And it doesn't help that my last name was also Ghani,

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G-H-A-N-I, which is one letter off from Gandhi. But I turned around in class as a nerdy looking kid with big glasses, you know, like—anyways, traditional South Asian type parted hair, dressed in a traditional good boy South Asian way—I turned around and I broke the

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kid's nose. And I was like, "Don't ever call me that again." And then no one messed with me again after that. That was nice. But apart from that, it was–it was–it was definitely a little difficult, I guess.

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Yeah. And I know—I mean, still today, there's a lot of Asian American families who are struggling with this, because I know, like, communicating with Asian American, or Asian parents, especially immigrant parents is quite difficult.

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So, what would you kind of recommend or, like, advise those children who are under those type of parents? So we–we still, I mean, in our community, in our Asian community, there's still people who are immigrating over, right? [HP: Sure, right.]

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And I see immigrant parents who are my age, who have kids who are born and raised here. But their immigrant parents that are my age was like seeing my parents in real time, like the same mistake with the kids, I'm like,

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"Bro, that's not gonna work." [HP: Yeah.] And so it's two parts. It's one, it's advising immigrant parents who are my age, around my age, right, giving them the do's and the don'ts, like, this is—and let me tell you, unequivocally,

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almost none of them believe what I have to say. They're all going to be home, they're all going to get it the wrong way, and they're going to remember, right. But for the kids, when we talk to the kids, it's just rem—saying,

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like, I went through the same thing you're gonna go through, it's inevitable. But the main thing to remember is that your parents love you so much, that they're trying to do the best that they can. And the best that they can, is by making sure you've got the best grades,

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that you're focused on the mosque, that you're—that they're limiting friend time, just because they don't want you to go slumber party every night, and they watch what kind of friends you have. They watch everything that you eat, it doesn't mean that they hate you or

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they're upset with you; it's just that they love you so much. [HP: Yeah, that's—] That's–that's the main thing that–that I want to make sure that kids know. Yeah, I agree. Yes. So I guess we'll talk a little bit about your education.

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So, you grew up in Houston, what schools did you attend? So, I went to—I grew up in the Fort Bend environment. And so I went to Stephen F. Austin High School, I was the first graduate in class, out of Stephen F. Austin High School.

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My goal was to go into the Marine Corps. That didn't happen. It was during the—I think it was either the first or second Gulf War. I went, and I talked to an Imam or a Cleric in our community. And he was a senior clergy and I was like, "Listen." Because my parents and I were

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having the struggles. They envisioned me to be an engineer, a doctor, an [inaudible], something to do with step and height. [HP: Right.] And I was an ROTC in high school for four years. All I wanted to do was go in the military.

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That's partly my dad's fault, 'cause I grew up on Clint Eastwood and World War II movies, okay. It's, like, every single weekend, if not every other weekend, some kind of military action movie, [HP: Yeah.] because my dad, like, romanticized it.

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So it just—it stuck, right. And so I wanted to go in the Marine Corps, that was–that was the goal. I had lined up scholarships at A&M. They had an appointment for Naval Academy.

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But I just wanted to enlist. I didn't even want to do the officer route. And so they said, "Okay, look, we'll do it. Just go talk to this guy.

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Go talk to this cleric." And so it was either first or second Gulf War, when I talked to the guy, someone I very respected. And he said, "Will you be killing other Muslims?" And I said, "There's a chance I might be put in that situation." And then he gave me the rulings,

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essentially, the fact was he doesn't know what happens when you kill other Muslims. And I was like, "Yeah, I don't think I can do this anymore." And so, I got out of it, went to HCC–went to–went to HCC, landed a tech job when I was 18.

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I was a network engineer by the time I was 19. STEM, just like my parents wanted, right? So I was a network—I was the youngest network engineer in Southwestern Bell—Southern—Southwestern—but they don't exist anymore—SBC Global,

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or SBC. Worked in the Network Operation Center, did network security. Did UT Arlington at the same time, that was in Dallas, that shifted to Dallas. Didn't do well in school.

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I was doing way too good in the tech bubble, way too good for—I was 19 years old and making more money than most people my dad's age and it was just too much. There's no–no kid should make that much money. It was ridiculous.

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I didn't do well in school because I was like, "You know what, I can make this kind of money. What do I need school for?" And then the tech bubble burst, I got laid off. And then every job that I had after that, I was the last one in,

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and then I was the first one to get laid off, because I was the last one in, [HP: Yeah.] less amount of seniority. And then I just started my own business. But why I started my own business? I came back to Houston to U of H, took me about eight years to graduate,

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eight years to graduate with a history degree, but I did it. Yeah, so I guess, like, what kind of took you so long in the process? Well, I didn't really have a focus on education.

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I wasn't really care about school. I didn't do well in school. Even in high school, I didn't do well in school, because my thing was, "I'm going to the military anyways, I don't need to do good at school. So, what's the point?" So I just coasted through. My whole thing was,

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I'm gonna go to the Marines. I already have an appointment at the Naval Academy. I've got an ROTC scholarship, I had others–I had other options on the table as well, and they were all guaranteed, no matter what my outcome in high school would have been, essentially. So, I was good,

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I didn't really have to—so, that habit sort of went into college, and in college, I was making money. I was doing good in business. I didn't really need to graduate, right?

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Yes, I really didn't need to focus on school. But that was something that I really regretted later on, because just a couple years ago, I was like, "I want to go back to school, I want to learn more." And so I was applying

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to different universities for master's programs: rejected, rejected, rejected, because my GPA was horrendous. I have enough of a GPA to graduate, right? When I say the bare minimum, I mean the bare minimum to graduate U of H,

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and that just didn't happen. And by some miracle, I was able to get into A&M with some stellar recommendation letters and experience to the Foro at A&M—graduated in Homeland Security, finished my homeland security studies at A&M

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at the Bush School, and now I'm at Columbia, doing the master's program in New York, [HP: Oh, very cool.] hybrid program in conflict resolution negotiation. But, 21-year-old me would have never imagined that I'd be–that I'd be an

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Ivy Leaguer one day. That shy guy could just have his mind completely blown, said, "Why are you wasting your life and your time? Why are you doing that?" Yeah, so I know, you, like, touched on, like,

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your faith and how that has played a role in your upbringing, especially in your, like, schooling and, you know, deciding not to go to the Marine Corps or whatnot. So could you speak a little more on how faith was kind of

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there when you were growing up? Like, what was it like? Faith was very present when I was growing up. I remember waking up to songs—or not songs, like–like–like,

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gospel type, gospel equivalent in–in Islam, of songs. But then my mom would always have the Quran playing in the background. Cassette tapes, 'cause we didn't have CDs like that. So it was playing on cassette tapes, and then—but I

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grew up as a Pakistani Muslim. And that's important for people to understand, who don't understand the immigrant experience. I didn't grow up as an American. I grew up as a Pakistani kid who happens to live in America.

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And as a Pakistani kid, I had specific cultural requirements that I would have to fulfill, that have respect that I give to my parents. I've even speak to my parents in Urdu in public in front of my teachers and my principal. In front of my peers, I'd speak to them in Urdu,

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I wouldn't speak to them in English, and we only spoken Urdu at home. And because I was a Pakistani, I was also a Muslim. And as a Pakistani Muslim, I did X amount of prayers a day, I did X amount of supplications.

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I had a regimented schedule of things that I would do that were very Pakistani. And it doesn't—and the reason that I say that is because I was Muslim because I was Pakistani, it's important–it's important to mention that. I also believed in God, I believed in Allah, I believed in Quran.

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But I was mostly Muslim because I was Pakistani, because it was a Pakistani thing to do. Anyhow, that all changed after 9/11. When the towers fell, I started to question who I was,

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and I wanted to know more about my identity. And that's when I started to really research. My parents had done everything, they put me in the Sunday school, I think they put me in the Saturday school. They had–had hired private people to–to help me out with my Islamic Studies.

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None of it really stuck, though. Because again, I was–I was a Pakistani kid, or I was an American kid trapped in a Pakistani body trying to understand and sort out this cultural, you know, just this whole cultural fusion that just wasn't happening.

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But 9/11 really just—whoosh, brought everything together. That's when I started to understand that I'm an American of Pakis—I'm an American Muslim of Pakistani heritage. And when I started to make that distinction, I started to understand better who I am,

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and the role that I have to play in life. In a way, my identity will drive me moving forward. And I'm still, in–in many ways, I'm still learning what that means. But, when I started to question, and I started to understand who

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I was, in terms of an American, a Pakistani, and a Muslim, I was able to apply my American culture, question everything that I knew about Islam. Because before, I wasn't able to ask how do I know God exists,

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why do I—why is this the right way? Because that's a very American thing, too. That's an American experience. In a Pakistani household, you don't question. That's like blaspheme, never mentioned that.

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So after 9/11, I was able to do all that questioning, I was living on my own in Dallas, so I had free rein. And I sort of, you know, I–I told many people, it's almost like a born-again experience, right?

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I started to reconnect, I went to different conferences, started listening to CDs, we had CDs. And reading the translation of the Quran instead of just the Arabic version, which I had no idea what I was reading.

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So I started coming into—becoming, like, who I am today. And that's when I started to understand what role God played in my life, what role the Quran will play in my life, the Holy Book of the Muslims, and how I need to move forward.

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And so from–from that moment, Islam has played a pivotal role in everything that I do. Yeah, so I guess, like, maybe briefly, what do you think—so what does, like, God and the Quran and Islam kind of play as

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a role in your life, what— The main thing is, is that God will be in my life as much as I want it to. [HP: Okay.] There's this–there's this verse in the Quran, [in Pakistani] "Remember me, and I will remember you." And that's one of

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my favorite verses in the Quran, which says that "I have to take the first step, remember Him; and if I take the first step in remembering Him, then God will remember me." And it's the same thing with–with the story that we're told about Moses. Moses was told to strike the sea with his stick.

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If God had wanted, he could have parted the seas, but he told Moses: "Strike the sea with–strike the sea with the stick," and then he parted it. "Remember me and I will remember you" in the Quran,

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we're told of a story where the Virgin Mary is in the pains of labor, and she's told to strike the trunk of the tree, and, you know, and then strike the ground, and so what happened was olives fell, and then water, like, a spring of water came out of the

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ground. But if God didn't wanted both of those, he could have just made both of those happen. What he's trying to tell us is that we have to do our part, and then he'll do his. So whenever I'm in a moment of struggle, or a moment of happiness,

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it's just always trying to be mindful of God's presence and calling upon him and thanking him, and–and understanding who I am, according to Him and that, I'm just a wanderer in this life, and I'm doing everything according to His will.

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Yeah, that makes sense. Very cool. So I guess moving on, I know that you founded your Minaret Foundation as an interfaith organization. So can you kind of speak, give, like, a brief background of what it is

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and maybe how you came to create it? Sure. When–when I had found Islam again, in–in–in a different–in a different, like an American Muslim identity context, I came back to Houston and I started a youth organization called Crescent Youth.

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And one of the key reasons I started that organization was to help other kids who were going through the same journey as me, help them to have a better relationship with Islam, better relationship with God, and help them to understand in many ways, the cultural and the generational differences between them and their parents.

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So, I grew up in a time where it was, like, if there's a kid, he was probably born here, and the elders were probably born over there, right. But now it's a little different, we still have, we have guys like me, who were born over there that immigrated

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here. So it was easy to bring them together at the mosque on Friday, there's a void of youth programs. There's a void of any kind of youth understanding of what Islam was.

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And most people that I encountered, were still Pakistani or Indian or Egyptian or Saudi Muslims who happen to be American and not the other way around. So shifting that identity and really helping forge an American Muslim identity in Houston was something that I was committed to doing.

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I did that on my volunteer time, on my free time, which ended up being really, like, 30 or 40 hours a week [HP: Wow.] in addition to the business. But I started to age out of youth work and everyone who works in youth work

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has that story of when they know that, "Okay, we're done with." We'll say you've aged out, is essentially what happens, you age out. And at that time that I was aging out, I was being called—and this was sort of the peak of the War on Terror during Obama's

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time, and–and I was being called to churches, mosques—I was being called to churches mosques for interfaith events, schools and rotary clubs to speak on Islam, because my background is why I–I ended up shifting from IT to public relations, website design,

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communicat—is essentially digital communications. So I had a way that I could pitch Islam in a very PR sense. By the way, I spoke English. I was born and raised here.

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So I understand context. And that's what people wanted. And at that time, most of the moms here either speak English, they weren't from here. You know, there's–there's a lot of differentiations, so I kept getting called.

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And one–one pastor who I call him, like, the godfather of interfaith work to me, the Reverend Steve Quill, Lutheran Church, he took me on a trip with him to the former Yugoslavia. It was–it was, I was a Muslim, we had a–we had a rabbi who was a soul Jew,

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there was one Episcopalian and everyone else was Lutheran. It was, like, 12 of us, I think. And we went to Macedonia and Croatia. And our goal was to understand the role faith played in the reconciliation efforts, post-Yugoslavia and war, which was a nasty,

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absolutely, just nas— everywhere is nasty. But this was–this was, like, the second genocide in Europe after–after the Holocaust. Excuse me. So

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we—part of–part of what we did was we sat with civic leaders, faith leaders, we sat with all sorts of people to understand from the perspective of what happened in the war, how people started coming back together. And some people that we met were war criminals.

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And one of the individuals that we met told us that—you know, he was the typical from the–from the Rocky movies or from any of the movies back in the late 80s, early 90s, where the Soviets are the enemy.

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He was the typical looking Slavic guy, that will cut jaws, cut cheeks, you know, just, like, flat top hair Jews. A guy that you wouldn't get stuck in an alleyway with, and he had that Slavic accent, right.

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Like Dove London had in Rocky. Anyways. And so he told me, he grew up, he has a Macedonian Christian, because all Macedonians are pretty much Christian, all Albanians are Muslims because they're ethnically divided. And so the the Macedonians created,

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he said, he grew up on one side of the street was Macedonians, and the other side of the street, they're Albanian Muslims. And they never interact with one another. They went to their own places of worship, they went to their own schools, they spoke their own language, they ate their own food,

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they even played on their own football leagues, there's no reason for them to interact with one another apart from when the football would go to the person's yard. Right, then you'd have to go retrieve it. That was the only interaction. They didn't even go to same swimming pools, nothing.

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There's no, like, connection, was no interaction ever. Their whole lives, zero interaction. And so when the TV heads started to talk nonsense about the Muslims, it was easy for them to believe it, because they didn't know the others. Right?

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[HP: Yeah, yeah.] When the call to war came out—he looked at me, and he said, it was easy for me to kill your people like dogs. Right? That's the moment where I understood what I needed to do moving forward.

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Because here in the United States, it's not—I know, it sounds like a stretch, but it's really not unlike what happened in Macedonia, or in Croatia, or in Bosnia or Slovenia. So we don't really know each other.

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We're so proud to have this diversity scale. We're proud to do X, Y, and Z. But how well do we actually know one another? I'm not saying we have to be invited into people's homes. But do we actually know one

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another? And this–this was pre-Trump, right? During Trump's years, we really got to understand, we don't really know one another at all. We had no idea that these thoughts and these ideas even existed,

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which really underscored the work of Minaret Foundation. So Minaret Foundations, our focus, in the early years was just about bringing the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities together. That's it. That's our focus on interfaith

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engagement. Later on, a few years ago, what it turned into is, well, you know, we've had our dodgeball tournaments, we've had our barbecues and our dialogue discussions, what do we do next? And for the next step is,

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let's leverage our faith traditions to change the world around us. And that's through civic engagement through policy work. And so the areas that we focus on are food insecurity, child welfare, and religious freedom.

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But all of this, even these policy areas comes back to the Macedonian. These are all vehicles for us to get in a car together, and to take a road trip, and learn more about one another and to deep dive into our relationship, learn more about our kids,

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learn more about our futures, our past, our struggles, our funny stories, but just to understand one another. That way—because what happens in–in any country, including Yugoslavia, it's the people in power who divide us,

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we don't go out in the streets and say "we hate you." There's always a catalyst. And that catalyst is usually followed by these talking heads or these random people who are like, "You should hate this guy. This guy is so different from you. Don't even talk to him." But if we know one another,

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if we have communication, especially at the leadership level, we can stand together and dispel the myths and the rumors about one another and say, "No, this dude is my friend." Very cool. That's very cool stuff you're doing.

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I guess, do you have any examples of, like, what type of events you guys do together, or, like, put out? For example, like your civic engagement events? Well, I'll talk about the interfaith event real quick,

00:26:12.420 - 00:26:29.950

is we have a signature interfaith event called the Muslim Jewish Christmas, which sounds really strange. But, you know, after–after the Yugoslavia trip, me and Rabbi Gross, like one of my best friends, me and Steve sat together at a Pakistani restaurant on Hillcroft,

00:26:30.540 - 00:26:42.910

and I—he was having traditional Pakistanian foods with me. And he asked me what we do on Christmas. We have nothing to do on Christmas. You know, we just hang out, go to the movies or do something like that,

00:26:42.910 - 00:26:57.430

eat at a Pakistanian restaurant. He goes, "Oh, we also go to the movies and eat Chinese food." I thought—see, I didn't know any Jews growing up. I grew up in a part of Fort Bend County—there's no Jews there. There's none. Even it's in—even in Fort Bend County to this day,

00:26:57.750 - 00:27:08.200

there's one synagogue in all of Fort Bend County. Right? This just wasn't a big Jewish presence or maybe they just didn't say it, "I'm Jewish." But he was really, I think, I met him at, like,

00:27:08.320 - 00:27:23.540

29, 30, 31 years of age as a first Jew I've ever sat down with, and actually talked to, right. That's what I'm talking about. It's, like, the whole talking to one another bit. Anyway, so he told me to go to movies, eat Chinese

00:27:23.540 - 00:27:37.970

food. I always thought that was, like, an anti-Semitic trope. So I was so surprised, like, Oh my God, that's a real, that's something that—we realized our communities had nothing to do on Christmas Eve, so that year, we planned to get our communities together.

00:27:38.680 - 00:27:50.740

And the question was, do we bring in Christians? Since it's Christmas Eve, what are the Christian going to do? The first year we had Pastor Quill—Reverend Quill come out. And he gave, like, a 10 minute talk, and then he left after that.

00:27:49.650 - 00:28:02.180

But the Muslim Jewish Christmas is about bringing the Muslim community and the Jewish community together, right. On Christmas Eve for dialogue and discussion. And we have a second follow-up part in the spring. And that's–that's been going on 12

00:28:02.210 - 00:28:18.000

years strong. I think we started off with just us and his synagogue, and now it's, like, five, six synagogues, five, six mosques. And this year, actually, in the year 2022, we hope to expand it to 20 cities throughout the country,

00:28:18.050 - 00:28:33.640

and that's–that's like a signature program. And we just had a dodgeball—or no, we just had a kickball tournament weeks ago, and that was a lot of fun. Muslims versus Jews versus Christians, and the Jews really upped their game this time. That was really good.

00:28:35.120 - 00:28:48.420

And then in–in late summer and August, September, we're gonna have a program called competing goodness, where it won't be just limited to Muslims, Jews, and Christians, but we'll be with faith centers. Faith centers will compete against one another. So imagine the Buddhists competing against the

00:28:48.510 - 00:29:02.610

Muslims, competing against the Jews, competing against the Zoroastrians maybe, to raise the most amount of food for the Houston Food Bank, because September is National Hunger Awareness Month. And then at the end of it, it culminates into this giant potluck in Hermann Park,

00:29:03.120 - 00:29:17.430

where we have all the faith centers bring the congregants together for this gigantic potluck, and we literally, you know, the whole month we spent, raising bread for those in need, and then we're going to end it with breaking bread with one another.

00:29:17.840 - 00:29:33.960

[HP: Very cool.] And–and so we leverage those relationships to do more work in policy field. So for instance, Fort Bend County, we're able to get fit communities together to argue for increased rental assistance and that was at the beginning of COVID. We got imams and ra—and that was very successful,

00:29:33.960 - 00:29:52.580

went from 5.1 million to 19.5 was we were able to get. In—at the beginning of the George Floyd incident during his murder, we got all of the imams in Houston, all the rabbis in Houston to sign a letter asking the mayor and Chief Acevedo for meaningful police reform,

00:29:52.630 - 00:30:11.000

and to take 1, 2, 3 steps towards—and those steps happened and myself and the president of the Rabbinical Association at the time were appointed to the police reform task force. And we've created multifaith advisory councils for HPD for the Fort Bend County

00:30:11.000 - 00:30:28.480

judges office. And we—and–and recently we lobbied together to create a food insecurity board for the city of Houston, which is also successful. And so, it's identifying these small policy points, which we all have in common, because all of us can say we care about those

00:30:28.520 - 00:30:41.980

who are hungry, all of us can say we care about our children, all of us can say we want to be able to worship in a way that we choose, like religious freedom. And these are three commonalities that we can just get together on without any qualms.

00:30:42.200 - 00:30:56.930

Yeah, that makes sense. That's very good. So I guess, like for those who are kind of stubborn in their faith in the sense that they're very strong in their faith, and they think their faith is the right way, how do you think—like,

00:30:57.860 - 00:31:14.680

I don't know if you've ever encountered someone who's like that—so how can you kind of help them see eye to eye with other faiths? ... Oh, I think you're muted.

00:31:15.400 - 00:31:30.010

Yep. I think the first thing that we have to do is always tell our community, this is sometimes hate and confusion, and stereotypes have been presented to us, all of us, every one of us, on a silver platter.

00:31:32.060 - 00:31:49.170

It's been beautified, made to look nice, and it's also been made digestible. So the talking heads and the people who peddle racism and–and prejudice, they don't necessarily just do it and say "Muslims are all terrorists." We say Muslims are different from us,

00:31:49.340 - 00:31:59.620

you say Muslims do things differently. Muslims believe differently. Muslims believe in Sharia. Muslims say and they take it step by step by step by step.

00:31:59.620 - 00:32:09.700

You know, our hate becomes inculcated, subconsciously, we don't even realize sometimes. You're driving down a road, look at someone from a different ethnicity or a group like, all those people, right?

00:32:09.700 - 00:32:19.830

And all of us have said these things, right? We've all fall into these tropes at one point or another. Whenever I talk to a faith leader who's never met a Muslim,

00:32:20.500 - 00:32:35.200

I start off by talking about our children. I talk about how we like our steak. I talked about the time I smoked dino ribs on my–on my new smoker. I talk about surfing, I talk about X-Files and different top—you

00:32:35.230 - 00:32:49.240

know, I find ways to create commonality between us. And once we can see each other as humans—and I know that sounds strange, because sometimes, you know, we see a million—we interact with a million people throughout the year, we may interact with dozens of people,

00:32:49.240 - 00:33:06.140

including our UPS guy, our mail guy, the lady at the McDonald's, the person at the Chick-fil-A—and we just let these people pass on by in our lives, right? We have these touch points, that God puts these people in our lives for a reason. But they just—everyone just passes on by for whatever reason.

00:33:06.900 - 00:33:17.770

We can't interact with everyone in a meaningful way. But we can try to slow down and say, "Hey, how's your day? How's it going with you? My name is this. What's your name?" You know,

00:33:17.770 - 00:33:32.520

"is your day going well?" Just small, little interactions, once we're able to slow things down and start to see each other as people, instead of just touch points or interactions throughout the day, I think that's when a shift in relationships,

00:33:32.520 - 00:33:49.790

that's the shift in community ties starts to occur. So whenever I meet new faith leaders, it's just trying to get them to see me as a regular dude. And for me to see them as regular people as well, right? And after we can see each other with

00:33:49.860 - 00:34:05.250

commonalities, that's when we can start talking about our differences. And differences is a conversation that we have to have, we have to talk about how Jesus plays different roles in our live, or no role in our life. Right, we have to talk about a role Muhammad peace be upon and plays,

00:34:05.250 - 00:34:19.460

or what role faith plays in my life. What role the common cultural discussions that are happening right now in the United States? What role they play in our lives? And that's how we under—start to understand and unravel all this mysticism,

00:34:19.460 - 00:34:33.960

that's—that we've been enshrouded–that we've been shrouded in, by either our subconscious mistakes or by people in charge, who want to keep us separate. So in a long winded way, I would tell people to deliberately get to know your neighbor,

00:34:33.960 - 00:34:47.660

because at the end of the day, your children will be playing tag with them, regardless of the color of the skin, who they worship, or how they think. They will still be playing tag and hide and go seek together, so, might as well get to know one another a little.

00:34:48.860 - 00:35:02.880

Yeah. Right, very good. So I guess, what about for those who are non-religious or opposed to religion at all, have you—has your foundation ever tried to kind of reach out to them? Well, that's–that's a really good question.

00:35:02.880 - 00:35:22.130

And we don't necessarily interact with people who are irreligious or agnostic or have no faith. Our organization's focus is to interact with people of faith. That being said, the policy work that we do in child welfare and food insecurity oftentimes intersects with organizations that have

00:35:22.230 - 00:35:35.630

no faith tradition, which is–which is fine in the NGO space, right. And that works. And we—and oftentimes we interact with people who have no faith, or are looking for a different faith.

00:35:36.170 - 00:35:49.930

But that doesn't really come up. Because what we're focused on is how can we make our children's lives better? How can we–how can we ensure that all people have access to healthy, nutritious food? So faith comes up with our faith partners,

00:35:50.350 - 00:36:04.620

when we're deliberately talking with the Methodists, or the Lutherans or the Baptists or the Jews or the Hindus, or the Sikhs, or the Buddhists, that's when faith comes up. But when we're talking about policy, if we're not with our faith partners, we don't necessarily bring up—people know

00:36:04.840 - 00:36:20.650

that we carry our faith on our shoulders, and it guides us in everything that we do. But it doesn't necessarily need to come up because we're talking about: how do we ensure that no child has to face trauma? Very cool. Yeah. And I guess, going a little

00:36:20.720 - 00:36:33.840

backwards, what was your planning process for the foundation? So how did you come? How did you, like, organize the planning of it, get support for it, et cetera? What was the process like?

00:36:34.320 - 00:36:48.660

Well, I was lucky in that I was exiting Crescent Youth and I had name recognition in the Muslim community. And so it was easier for me to create an organization, Minaret Foundation and the Muslim community because people sort of had an understanding

00:36:48.660 - 00:37:05.960

who I was, what I wanted to do, what my reputation was like. And outside of the community, I had–I had Reverend Quill, I had Rabbi Gross, and I had developed this entire network of individuals. And it was a vacuum at the time when I had started—mean,

00:37:05.960 - 00:37:21.990

there's no other organizations that are focused on interfaith work. And still to this day, Minaret Foundation is the only organization in the city that has a focus on interfaith work in the Muslim community. And so it's easier for people to find us, rather than us to find them,

00:37:22.030 - 00:37:34.620

especially because during–during the Obama years, and especially during the Trump years, people really wanted to know who these Muslims were. "Who are these crazy neighbors of ours that are joining Al-Qaeda and ISIS?" Not true.

00:37:35.110 - 00:37:51.810

"Who are these crazy neighbors joining and doing all this stuff? Let's get to know them a little bit." So they'd find us on–they'd find us on the interwebs and Google us and reach out. We had so many contacts or calls, our phone would be ringing continuously

00:37:51.890 - 00:38:08.950

throughout the week, booking speaking engagements. And so, again, it comes back to because our focus is the American Muslim identity is just, just like it was in Crested Youth and now it is in Minaret Foundations. How do we get people to understand who we are as a people?

00:38:09.290 - 00:38:26.880

Not to come or be invited to our faith, but just know who your neighbors are? I think that approach has been meaningful, and approach has been welcomed by other people. And that's what's helped us grow and become who we are today. Yeah, was there anyone or any organization that kind of was

00:38:26.880 - 00:38:41.010

opposed to your idea that you encountered? I think any NGO that starts off will always go through that. There's gonna be other NGOs. They're gonna–they're gonna be opposed to it.

00:38:41.600 - 00:38:52.890

There's some NGOs that are gonna say, "We're so big, we're the largest, we should just be doing everything. Come under us or just eliminate yourself." We still have that issue. You know, there's organizations that are still like,

00:38:52.950 - 00:39:06.400

"We're the biggest, we're the baddest, we should, you know, X, Y, and Z." And it's like, all right. But the world is–is—you know, I'm often remembered of the—did you ever see the Hubble telescopes?

00:39:06.840 - 00:39:19.660

It's, like, it looked back on Earth from Saturn's rings. That we're just this little speck, little speck. It's like, okay, world is big enough, man. [HP: Yeah.] It's—the world is big enough.

00:39:19.660 - 00:39:27.470

There's—Houston is so big. It's bigger than, I think, Rhode Island and Connecticut or something like that, or Vermont. I don't know what it is.

00:39:27.860 - 00:39:37.050

It's–it's–it doesn't matter. There's just so much room to do the work. And there's so much work to be done. There was a dozen Minaret Foundations out there,

00:39:37.050 - 00:39:52.810

I don't think that would be enough. Yeah, very cool. And so what year did you start the foundation? That's a little sketchy. [HP: Oh.] I guess it depends on what year did I start doing speak—'cause when I first started doing speak engagements, I was still with

00:39:52.810 - 00:40:06.310

Crescent Youth and I would call myself an interfaith activist, transition to interfaith coordinator, did an interfaith director stint for a little bit. I just had these made up titles. I didn't ask people. When you get invited to a church or a synagogue,

00:40:06.310 - 00:40:22.970

or, you know, social club, people want to know, this guy is what's his title and what's his organization. So, on the way to South Padre Island with–with a dear friend of mine, we came up with the name Minerat Foundation,

00:40:23.040 - 00:40:37.360

and that was in 2010. And so afterwards, I created a website, put up content, created a business card and said, "I am with Minaret Foundation." But I was a one man show for a long time. [HP: Yeah, yeah.] For eight years, I was a one man show.

00:40:37.360 - 00:40:48.070

But I had friends with me who would go on speaking, they would do their own speak engagements, all do it under the Minaret name. We had volunteers, we have programming. But for the most part, it was just me.

00:40:49.440 - 00:41:02.970

And so what does Minaret mean? Well, Minaret is like a—it's like a spike that's attached to a massive—you got a mosque, in traditional mosques settings overseas, you'll see, like, there's a giant pole or, like,

00:41:03.060 - 00:41:15.050

a giant [HP: Okay, yeah.] tower next to the mosque. That's called the Minaret. So it's part of the architecture. Okay. And why did you—? [SG: Okay—repeat...] Okay, so is that kind of why you chose that

00:41:15.050 - 00:41:26.940

name? Because— No, actually–actually, I didn't realize the importance of that name until maybe last year when an Imam, Dr. Muhammad Huck, of the Webster area said, "Oh,

00:41:26.940 - 00:41:38.930

Minarets, this, and you–you do the peak type of work. You're like, hey, all of this now, [HP: Oh, wow.] like, at the time, when I was trying to figure out a name, I just wanted something unique. [HP: Yeah.] I just want to think of something

00:41:38.930 - 00:41:49.150

unique, something I hadn't been taken out as a ".com". And something that no one else was using. And that was my main motivator, something sounded cool that I could make a nice logo around. [HP: Right.] That's really,

00:41:49.150 - 00:42:02.360

it was just because we're just on such a pressure to find an organization name. And then, even like, just a few years ago, I realized I should never have chosen the name Minaret Foundation. Whenever we go into meetings, especially with NGOs,

00:42:03.260 - 00:42:15.910

who go into meeting with–with another nonprofit, and their development director will be there, or development associate, or one of their board members will be there. And then in the beginning, it was–it was, like,

00:42:15.910 - 00:42:31.330

"Oh, that's cool. Why is there a fundraiser here?" People started to see—people thought that we were a grant making-organization. That we wanted to meet with them 'cause we wanted to give them a lot of money. Because it's a "foundation." Foundations are not—and I wasn't that much in the nonprofit.

00:42:31.380 - 00:42:46.810

I just thought it was cool name. [HP: Yeah.] But now, now, when any of our staff anywhere, our policy analysts or administrator will go into meeting and there's a development person there. It's like, okay, we want to start spinning off by letting you know we are an ordinary

00:42:47.060 - 00:43:03.010

organization. Yeah. So, like, where did you get most of your funding from for the organization? Or how do you, like, continuously gather funding? Most of our funding comes from individuals within the Muslim community. We have a

00:43:03.090 - 00:43:19.110

growing base of donors outside of our community as well, especially as we scale the Muslim Jewish Christmas. If the events get a little larger, we're doing a lot of work for the Uyghur people. You see there's a little Uyghur scarf right

00:43:19.230 - 00:43:33.140

there. So as we do more activism for an advocacy for that activism, as we do more advocacy, for the Uyghur people, we get a lot more funds from outside of the community as well. Because people identify with the Uyghur cause,

00:43:33.610 - 00:43:49.820

it hurts them. And a lot of people don't know how to counter the CCP. So our work is done through our national partners in Washington, D.C. And as we do our advocacy for the Uyghurs more, and more people learn about us and they start to become monthly donors.

00:43:49.820 - 00:44:02.970

And so most of our bases are monthly donors, and most of our–most of our donors right now are Muslim. And what have–what have been some of the things you've done for, like, the Uyghur population?

00:44:03.770 - 00:44:17.690

So, we work with two partners in Washington, D.C., "The campaign for Uyghurs," and "The Uyghur Human Rights Project." Because our focus is Texas. As Minaret Foundation, we're not focused on the big show, which is–which is the federal work.

00:44:17.880 - 00:44:32.660

Our focus is on Texas. And in many ways Texas is the bellwether state. And what–what that means is, it's–it's to say if it can—if a law or policy can get implemented in the state of Texas in bipartisan fashion,

00:44:33.130 - 00:44:49.670

it can be done anywhere throughout the country. So our focus has been Texas, the Texas congressional delegation, and whenever there's a bill that UHRP or CFU are working on in D.C., they throw it to us so we can start getting congressperson in Texas signed on

00:44:49.670 - 00:45:05.430

to those bills. More importantly, our focus with Uyghurs here is the grassroots movement. In order to–in order to create more awareness about the genocide, and the pains of the Uyghur people, we have to ensure that people at all levels

00:45:05.480 - 00:45:23.860

of government are aware of what's going on, especially because the CCP is so entrenched. And our trade partners, China is—I think Harris County did $4.6 billion of trade two years ago with China. So our issue isn't with the Chinese people, our issue is with the government,

00:45:23.980 - 00:45:43.400

the CCP, the communist, the Chinese Communist Party. And so what we're doing at the local level, is we're introducing resolutions and policies in Commissioner's courts at City Councils to not only recognize the Uyghur genocide, but to also–also–also watch where they're

00:45:43.400 - 00:45:57.680

budgeting and how much of their budgeting comes from overseas. Very cool. Yeah. My mom was actually born in the Xinjiang area, which is, like— [SG: Oh she was!] Yeah, because my grandparents, they're from Shanghai, but they were set by the—like,

00:45:57.680 - 00:46:12.880

back then they had government projects, so they were, like, sent to the area. Yeah, my mom grew up there for, like, a decade of her life. [SG: So your mom is Han?] Yeah, she's Han, but they grew up there. And she has, like, a lot of memories there.

00:46:12.910 - 00:46:25.520

But she always tells me how she's—kind of like you what you said about the, like, Macedonians and your friend. Like, she never talked to a single Uyghur. They kind of just lived in their bubbles.

00:46:25.630 - 00:46:35.860

[SG: The food is good.] Yeah, no, it is. We always go to, like, Uyghur restaurants. Yeah, very cool. But this area has always been, like, an interest of mine as well.

00:46:35.920 - 00:46:51.190

So very cool to see, like, you guys are doing that. Now, another question I had is, like, running this foundation as an Asian American, I guess. It kind of was like an automatic thing, since you did say, like, you're a Pakistani,

00:46:51.190 - 00:47:07.810

and that's why you're Muslim. So, but how do you think it would be different if maybe, like, a non-Asian American ran the organizations? I don't know if it would make a difference, if any? I don't think it would make a difference. Because our focus isn't

00:47:07.810 - 00:47:22.380

Asia or Pakistan. It's not—meaning our base and our roots are Muslim and Islam. I'll give you an example, half of our staff are not Muslim, half of our staff are actually Hispanic Catholic. [HP:

00:47:23.000 - 00:47:36.990

OK.] At a point, there was only two Muslims in the organization, and everyone else was Hispanic Catholic. And so 33% or 20% of us, were the only Muslims that were–that were part of the organization.

00:47:37.610 - 00:47:53.450

I think, if I wasn't, if I wasn't Asian, if I was, say, Middle Eastern, or if I was African, or if I was just a Caucasian Muslim, I don't think it would make any difference in terms of the reach. In fact, if I was a Caucasian Muslim might even

00:47:53.450 - 00:48:11.800

actually help me [HP: Right.] move things a little bit faster. But as–as a South Asian, as a South Asian Muslim, that's leading Minaret foundation, the key difference between myself and maybe another ethnicity is how we're perceived by the wider community.

00:48:12.210 - 00:48:27.420

But it wouldn't really make a difference. Because our focus isn't, you know, the subcontinent or Asia proper. It's here in the United States. And that's all we're focused on, with the exception being making sure that we're having advocacy and the voices of Uyghurs are heard.

00:48:27.570 - 00:48:48.710

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess that's—we're coming close to the end. Is there anything else that you would like to add, or advise? You know, I–I always end any discussion by encouraging everyone who's watching, or listening, or reading, to make sure that they're deliberate about

00:48:48.710 - 00:49:02.910

reaching across the aisle, talking to their neighbors, and especially talking to people that they violently disagree with. Not just disagree with, but violently, ferociously, they just disagree with them. And just to share an apple pie,

00:49:03.600 - 00:49:17.920

just to share a glass of water, or a cup of tea, or just to go shake their hand and say, "My name is this, what's your name?" If that's the only conversation. Create these minimal, like, to create these mini touch points to

00:49:18.030 - 00:49:34.300

build on top of and create a relationship. Because at the end of the day, we all want a good roof over our heads, our children to be fed, peaceful lives. We all want to watch Obi Wan Kenobi, these next three to four seasons.

00:49:34.550 - 00:49:43.470

We all want to go to Disneyland and go to the beach. We all want the same things. It's the little things that we differ on. And we have to put that into perspective.

00:49:43.800 - 00:49:58.390

It's the little things that we differ on, not the big things. And when we create these touch points and relationships with people that we differ with, it's easier to see that, it's easier to contextualize it. Yeah, thank you so much.

00:49:58.410 - 00:50:04.170

Well, it was very nice speaking with you and meeting you. Thank you for everything again! Absolutely, thank you, Helen!