Anyone who’s spent time on Nevada Street can tell you about the variety of cultural houses on our campus. Yet some students believe there needs to be more options represented in our University’s cultural resource centers.
Akram Almasri, senior in LAS, began his goal to create an Arab Cultural House last fall.
Almasri, who attended a Muslim school in suburban Chicago, believes an Arab Cultural House could help defuse some of the Islamophobia he’s seen on campus.
“There’s obviously current events going on with regards to the war on terror, how certain people perpetrate specific acts of terror,” Almasri said. “Of course some people generalize that to an entire people.”
This one-dimensional misunderstanding of his culture, religion and even his people inspired him to make a change. This inspired him to use the LENS Diversity Certificate project to push to create an Arab American Cultural House.
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LENS, which stands for Learn, Envision, Navigate and Synthesize, is an initiative through the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations created to address gaps in diversity appreciation on campus.
Since the project began, Almasri and a few partners have since led a group of 25 students to build momentum for the cause.
They have reached out to administration, religious institutions in the Champaign-Urbana area and Arabic classes to look for support and donations. Almasri also plans to spread the word through a YouTube video and flyer handouts.
However, Almasri said there has been some pushback from the administration. Almasri said Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson was concerned with the precedent an Arab American Cultural House would set for other cultures on campus.
“She [Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson] said we’ll have to give one [cultural house] to everyone that asks for one,” Almasri said in a Facebook message. “To say that we have to give one to ‘everyone’ implies that everyone experiences aggressions the same way and at the same level, which ain’t true.”
Gigi Secuban, Director of the Office of Inclusion and International Relations, believes an Arab Cultural House poses a monetary, not egalitarian, issue for the University.
“I think right now, it’s difficult to create a center when we have no money to do that,” Secuban said. “It’s really easy to talk about creating a center but you also need an infrastructure to maintain a center.”
Secuban said that Arab American students should utilize other cultural houses for the time being.
“For right now it’s important that we incorporate those groups into the work that we’re already doing before we find money and find ways to support those other centers,” she said. “Some [Arab] students have utilized the Asian American Cultural Center to some degree.”
Stephanie Skora, senior in LAS, has worked as an advisor to Almasri and believes the budget isn’t reason enough to eliminate the Arab American Cultural House.
“The University likes to talk a lot about the budget crisis that we’re in, but the reality of the situation is that the University hasn’t received substantial amounts of money from the state of Illinois in a very long time,” Skora said.
She said in the long term the University would save money and make the campus a better place if they agreed on the creation of an Arab American House.
Ross Wantland, assistant director in the Office of Inclusion and International Relations, has helped Almasri coordinate his work. Contrary to Secuban, he and Almasri agree that the Asian-American Cultural Center can’t properly incorporate Arab Americans.
“Continents don’t really determine what we have created as the racial categorizations,” Wantland said. “There’s a way that the lines that we might draw around what these students are talking about for an Arab American Center might not get fully fleshed out by either the African-American Cultural Center or the Asian- American Cultural Center.”
Wantland said the organization has a long road ahead of them before they can even consider donor support.
“I don’t see this as a petition. I see this as an ongoing movement led by students, so I think that we have yet to see what will emerge if students begin having a dialogue with the University at large,” Wantland said.
The students have had no formal conversations so they don’t have a sense of what the opportunities and challenges will be, he said.
Secuban said that the Arab Cultural House is in its early stages, and she doesn’t expect it to come to fruition soon.
“I have not actually seen a formal proposal. I know that there has just been talk from different students talking about a proposal. There’s just been more anecdotal conversations around the center,” she said.
In the meantime, Almasri and his organization meet every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. in Gregory 321.
