Stories of Some of the Early “Latino” Muslims (Part 1)

By Wendy Diaz The Message International August 7, 2024 On the scorching summer day of July 9, 2024, high above the clouds at 35,000 feet, I finished the book Alianza Islámica: Spanish Harlem’s Hispanic Odyssey. I was traveling back home to what the pilot called “El Calentón,” the sweltering Caribbean heat of Puerto Rico. The story…

Recently, I pared the Islamic section of an old cemetery.  My father is there. It is a beautiful peaceful place with hundreds maybe thousands of Muslim tombstones. Some simple, others ornate yet each one has a quick synopsis of a life. They all have a few Qura’n versus, some have a crescent and star, and…

Rahim Ocasio’s speech on the history of Alianza Islamica at LALMA‘s Ramadan event in Los Angeles, CA on May 19, 2019.

By Yahya Abdul-Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica Reclaiming heritage lends itself to the false impression of dwelling on the past. The next few lines are about the future flowing from the past. Hopefully a reopening to a humble beginning that accomplished a number of great starts yet confronted many challenges and now must map a…

This lecture shines a light on the problem of racism in the American Muslim community. Its primary focus is on the ways Arabs and Indo-Pakistanis discriminate against Black and Latino Muslims. The examples cited reveal the stark reality of Muslim discrimination and the need for frank and open dialogue. As with most things noxious, prejudice…

By Yahya Abdul-Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica In these next few lines I want to boldly assert that Alianza was truly unique as a voice of Spanish Islam and that its vision and mission must be reclaimed and built again.  I want to stress that other groups today that are attempting to monopolize a Spanish…