DOCSLIB.ORG

Being Muslim in America

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Being Muslim in America UNITED STATE S DEPARTMENT OF STATE / BU REA U OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAM S Being Muslim inAmerica INTROD U CTION “I AM A N AMER I C A N WI TH A MUSL I M SOUL ” ........... 2 PHOTO Ess AY he young women pictured on our cover BUILDING A LI FE IN AMER I C A ........... 4 are both Muslim. They live near Detroit, TMichigan, in a community with many Arab- ROFILE S American residents. Each expresses her faith in P her own way, with a combination of traditional YOUNG MUSL I MS MA KE THE I R MA RK ........... 30 and modern dress. Here, they compete fiercely on the basketball court in a sport that blends RE S O U RCE S individual skills and team effort. They — along A STAT I ST I C A L PORTR ai T ........... 48 with the other men, women, and children in this E I GH B ORHOOD OSQUES publication — demonstrate every day what it is N M ........... 52 like to be Muslim in America. TIMELINE OF KE Y EVENTS ........... 56 BibLIOGRapHY ........... 63 SU PPLEMENT DID YOU KNO W ?/PERFORMERS MI N I -P OSTER 1 of Hindu temples. In fact, there are now more Ages, my soul spread to the East and West, Muslims in America than Episcopalians, the praying in the mosques and studying in the faith professed by many of America’s Found- libraries of the great medieval Muslim cities ing Fathers. of Cairo, Baghdad, and Cordoba. My soul whirled with Rumi, read Aristotle with Aver- One hundred years ago, the great African- roes, traveled through Central Asia with Nasir American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois warned Khusrow. In the colonial era, my Muslim soul that the problem of the century would be the was stirred to justice. It marched with Abdul color line. The 21st century might well be Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars in dominated by a different line — the faith line. their satyagraha to free India. It stood with The most pressing questions for my country Farid Esack, Ebrahim Moosa, Rahid Omar, (America), my religion (Islam), and all God’s and the Muslim Youth Movement in their strug- people may well be these: How will people gle for a multicultural South Africa. who may have different ideas of heaven in- teract together on Earth? Will the steeple, the In one eye I carry this ancient Muslim vi- minaret, the synagogue, the temple, and the sion on pluralism; in the other eye I carry the sanga learn to share space in a new city on American promise. And in my heart, I pray a hill? that we make real this possibility: a city on a “I AM A N AMER I C A N WI TH A MUSL I M SOUL ” hill where different religious communities re- I think the American ethos — mixing tolerance spectfully share space and collectively serve love America not be- in Winthrop’s Christian and reverence — may have something special the common good; a world where diverse na- cause I am under the faith, and no doubt he to contribute to this issue. tions and peoples come to know one another illusion that it is per- imagined his city on a in a spirit of brotherhood and righteousness; I America is a grand gathering of souls, the a century in which we achieve a common life fect, but because it allows hill with a steeple in the me — the child of Muslim center. Throughout the vast majority from elsewhere. The American together. immigrants from India — centuries, America has re- genius lies in allowing these souls to contrib- Author Eboo Patel is executive director of the In- to participate in its prog- mained a deeply religious ute their texture to the American tradition, to terfaith Youth Core in Chicago, Illinois. He is a ress, to carve a place in its country, while becoming add new notes to the American song. leader in the interfaith movement. Eboo Patel promise, to play a role in a remarkably plural one. its possibility. Indeed, we are the most religiously devout I am an American with a Muslim soul. My soul nation in the West and the most religiously carries a long history of heroes, movements, John Winthrop, one of the earliest European diverse country in the world. The steeple at and civilizations that sought to submit to the settlers in America, gave voice to this sense the center of the city on a hill is now sur- will of God. My soul listened as the Prophet of possibility. He told his compatriots that rounded by the minaret of Muslim mosques, Muhammad preached the central messages of their society would be like a city upon a hill, the Hebrew script of Jewish synagogues, the Islam, tazaaqa and tawhid, compassionate a beacon for the world. It was a hope rooted chanting of Buddhist sangas, and the statues justice and the oneness of God. In the Middle 2 3 BUILDING A LI FE IN AME RI C A Abdul and Majida Alsaadi shop at a Wal-Mart in Dearborn, Michigan. mmigrants have come to America from every Their initial reception was frequently mixed. corner of the globe. The people are diverse but These new Americans found a vast new land hun- I their reasons similar: Some sought to escape an gry for their labor. But some, unfamiliar with these old way of life, others to find a new one. Some newcomers’ customs and religions, treated the new were escaping violence, others the shackles of cus- Americans as outsiders and believed they could tom, poverty, or simple lack of opportunity. They never be real Americans. They were wrong. With came largely from Europe in the 19th century and freedom, faith, and hard work, each successive from the rest of the world — Asia, Africa, the Mid- wave of immigrants has added its distinctive con- dle East, and Central and South America — in the tributions to the American story, enriched our so- 20th and 21st. ciety and culture, and shaped the ever-dynamic, They arrived with hope, and often little else. always-evolving meaning of the single word that 4 5 PHOTO ANY DA Y GA LLERY binds us together: American. And today, this story is the Muslim-American story too. arrived in a nation very different from the one ex- perienced by 19th-century immigrants, but today’s n 1965, a new immigration law reshaped pro- new Americans face the old immigrant challenge of foundly the inward flow of new Americans. No defining their place in America’s social, economic, Opposite page: Top left, Sadaf Butt adjusts her longer would national-origin quotas determine and political fabric. I hijab; above left, In 2008, Rashida Tlaib is the first who could come. In their place were categories Consider two sisters, Assia and Iman Bound- Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan legislature. based on family relationships and job skills. With aoui. Their parents are from Algeria, and the girls This page: Above, clothing designer Brooke Samad this change, immigration numbers soared, bringing were raised near Chicago, Illinois, as Muslim compares fabric swatches; right, Tahqiq Abbasi at the first significant numbers of Muslims from South Americans. As reported by National Public Radio his textile shop in Union City, New Jersey. Asia and the Middle East to the United States. They (NPR), Assia and Imam grew up watching both the 6 7 children’s Nickelodeon station and the news chan- nel Al Jazeera. When they got takeout food, they sometimes chose Kentucky Fried Chicken and some- times their favorite falafel restaurant. “In America, we would say we’re Muslim first, because that’s what makes us different, I guess,” Assia, age 20, told NPR. “But in another country, like in a Muslim country, we would say we’re Amer- ican.” Their story is both remarkable and not so, for there is nothing more American than new genera- tions — from kaleidoscopic combinations of ethnic- ity and religion — defining themselves as Ameri- cans. “America has always been the promised land for Muslims and non-Muslims,” observes Iranian- American Behzad Yaghmaian, author of Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Jour- ney West. She told the New York Times, “They still come here because the United States offers what they’re missing at home.” The tales of Muslim Americans track a familiar arc, but individually they add immeasurably to the vibrant diversity of a nation founded not on com- mon ancestry, but on the shared values of freedom, opportunity, and equal rights for all. “In every era of U.S. history, women and men from around the world have opted for the American experience,” writes historian Hasia Diner. “They ar- rived as foreigners, bearers of languages, cultures, and religions that at times seemed alien to Ameri- Clockwise from left, Abdi Mohamed says evening ca’s essential core. Over time, as ideas about U.S. prayers in his Omaha, Nebraska, grocery store; culture changed, the immigrants and their descen- at home in Brooklyn, New York, a family searches dants simultaneously built ethnic communities and the Internet; Susan Fadlallah prepares the meal to participated in American civic life, contributing to break the Ramadan fast. Center, butcher Nehme the nation as a whole.” Mansour grinds halal meat in Michigan. 8 9 uslim Americans possess a diversity that is extraordinary even by American M standards. In sharp contrast to other im- migrant groups, Muslim Americans cannot be de- fined by race or nationality; in this sense, they more closely resemble the Hispanic Americans whose ori- gins lie in Spain, the many nations of Latin America, and the islands of the Caribbean.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rmte6 MAY 16 1978
    THERMAL DELIGHT IN ARCHITECTURE by Lisa Heschong B.Sc., University of California at Berkeley 1973 submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June, 1978 Signature of Author ............. Department of Architecture Februa. 14, 978 Certified by......................................................... Edward B. Allen, Thesis Supervisor Associate Professor of Architecture Accepted by...0. ..... ... Ch ter Sprague, Chairman Departmental Committee for Graduate Students Copyright 1978, Lisa Heschong RMte6 MAY 16 1978 Abstract THERMAL DELIGHT IN ARCHITECTURE Lisa Heschong Submitted to the Department of Architecture on February 14, 1978 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture. This thesis examines the broad range of influences that thermal qualities have on architectural space and peoples' response to it. It begins with the observation that proper thermal conditions are necessary for all life forms, and examines the various strategies used by plants and animals to survive in spite of adverse thermal conditions. Human beings have available to them the widest range of thermal strategies. These include the skillful use of building technologies to create favorable microclimates, and the use of ar- tificial power to maintain a comfortable thermal environment. Survival strategies and the provision of thermal comfort are only the most basic levels of our relationship to the thermal en- vironment. Our experience of the world is through our senses, in- cluding the thermal sense. Many examples demonstrate the relation- ship of the thermal sense to the other senses. The more sensory input we experience, and the more varied the contrasts, the richer is the experience and its associated feelings of delight.
    [Show full text]
  • Campus Prophets, Spiritual Guides, Or Interfaith Traffic Directors?
    Campus Prophets, Spiritual Guides, or Interfaith Traffic Directors? The Many Lives of College and University Chaplains The Luce Lectures on the Changing Role of Chaplains in American Higher Education Based on a Lecture Delivered on November 13, 2018 John Schmalzbauer Department of Religious Studies Missouri State University 901 South National Avenue Springfield, MO 65897 Email: [email protected] What roles do chaplains play in contemporary American higher education? Drawing on the National Study of Campus Ministries (2002-2008), this paper contrasts the post-war chaplaincy with its twenty-first century successor. While a relatively young occupation, the job of the college chaplain has shifted greatly over the past sixty years. Vastly different from the 1950s, the demographic profile of college chaplains has also changed, reflecting the growing presence of women clergy and the diversification of the American campus. Accompanying these shifts, changes in American religion have transformed the context of the profession. Though some things have remained the same (chaplains still preach, counsel, and preside over religious services), other things are very different. On the twenty-first century campus, chaplains have increasingly found themselves occupying the roles of campus prophets, spiritual guides, and interfaith traffic directors, a combination that did not exist in the mid-century chaplaincy.1 In chronicling these changes, it is helpful to compare accounts of post-war chaplaincy with the twenty-first century profession. Historian Warren Goldstein’s work on Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr. looms large in this comparison. For a whole generation of mainline Protestants, Coffin modeled an approach to chaplaincy that emphasized the public, prophetic components of the role, accompanying the Freedom Riders and protesting the Vietnam War.
    [Show full text]
  • Title:​ Never Forget: Ground Zero, Park51, and Constitutive Rhetorics
    Title:​ Never Forget: Ground Zero, Park51, and Constitutive Rhetorics Author:​ Tamara Issak Issue:​ 3 Publication Date:​ November 2020 Stable URL: http://constell8cr.com/issue-3/never-forget-ground-zero-park51-and-constitutive-rh etorics/ constellations a cultural rhetorics publishing space Never Forget: Ground Zero, Park51, and Constitutive Rhetorics Tamara Issak, St. John’s University Introduction It was the summer of 2010 when the story of Park51 exploded in the news. Day after day, media coverage focused on the proposal to create a center for Muslim and interfaith worship and recreational activities in Lower Manhattan. The space envisioned for Park51 was a vacant department store which was damaged on September 11, 2001. Eventually, it was sold to Sharif El-Gamal, a Manhattan realtor and developer, in July of 2009. El-Gamal intended to use this space to build a community center open to the general public, which would feature a performing arts center, swimming pool, fitness center, basketball court, an auditorium, a childcare center, and many other amenities along with a Muslim prayer space/mosque. Despite the approval for construction by a Manhattan community board, the site became a battleground and the project was hotly debated. It has been over ten years since the uproar over Park51, and it is important to revisit the event as it has continued significance and impact today. The main argument against the construction of the community center and mosque was its proximity to Ground Zero. Opponents to Park51 argued that the construction of a mosque so close to Ground Zero was offensive and insensitive because the 9/11 attackers were associated with Islam (see fig.
    [Show full text]
  • Bosnian Muslim Reformists Between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 1901-1914 Harun Buljina
    Empire, Nation, and the Islamic World: Bosnian Muslim Reformists between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 1901-1914 Harun Buljina Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2019 © 2019 Harun Buljina All rights reserved ABSTRACT Empire, Nation, and the Islamic World: Bosnian Muslim Reformists between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 1901-1914 Harun Buljina This dissertation is a study of the early 20th-century Pan-Islamist reform movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, tracing its origins and trans-imperial development with a focus on the years 1901-1914. Its central figure is the theologian and print entrepreneur Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević (1870-1938), who returned to his Austro-Hungarian-occupied home province from extended studies in the Ottoman lands at the start of this period with an ambitious agenda of communal reform. Čaušević’s project centered on tying his native land and its Muslim inhabitants to the wider “Islamic World”—a novel geo-cultural construct he portrayed as a viable model for communal modernization. Over the subsequent decade, he and his followers founded a printing press, standardized the writing of Bosnian in a modified Arabic script, organized the country’s Ulema, and linked these initiatives together in a string of successful Arabic-script, Ulema-led, and theologically modernist print publications. By 1914, Čaušević’s supporters even brought him to a position of institutional power as Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Reis-ul-Ulema (A: raʾīs al-ʿulamāʾ), the country’s highest Islamic religious authority and a figure of regional influence between two empires.
    [Show full text]
  • Music App in AZ
    An exhibition for children and families to celebrate the diversity of Muslim cultures in America and around the world through art, architecture, design, music, travel, trade, and more! February 2016 – Present By the Children’s Museum of Manhattan New York Cultural Series Raonale Start Early “Research clearly shows that children not only recognize race from a very young age, but also develop racial biases by age three to five.” Winkler, E.N. “Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race” HighReach Learning Inc., 2009 Offer Variety “When children are taught to pay aenon to mulple aributes of a person at once, reduced levels of bias are shown.” Aboud, F.E. (2008) in Winkler, E.N. “Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race” HighReach Learning Inc., 2009. Provide Time to Pracce “Understanding a point of view other than your own takes knowledge, skills, perspec)ve and values. Developing these four also takes pracce – learning to apply and transfer these four from one topic to another.” UNESCO’s Educaon for Sustainable Development in Acon Teaching young children to have mulple perspecves “…is likely to reduce problems involving prejudice or discriminaon and is an important component of early childhood educaon.” United Naons Educaonal, Scienfic and Cultural Organizaon. “Exploring Sustainable Development: A Mulple-Perspecve Approach.” UNESCO: Educaon for Sustainable Development in Acon Learning & Training Tools Number 3. 2012 Exhibit Goals 1. Introduce families to the beauful and joyful diversity and commonalies in contemporary Muslim communies in New York City, the United States, and around the world. 2. Immerse children in interacve, fun and accessible ways so as to give families a new posive forum in which they can discuss Muslim cultures 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Other Social Effects Report
    OTHER SOCIAL EFFECTS REPORT City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa - Flood of 2008 Created on June 7, 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Abbe Center for Mental Health Cedar Rapids Community School District Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce Corridor Recovery Cedar Rapids Downtown District City of Cedar Rapids Departments - Community Development - Public Works - Utilities (Water Department and Water Pollution Control) - Parks and Recreation - Finance - Police Department - Fire Department - Code Enforcement - CR Transit - City Manager‘s Office Dennis P. Robinson Gerry Galloway JMS Communications & Research Linn County Long Term Recovery Coalition Ken Potter, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin Red Cross Salvation Army Sasaki Associates The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation United States Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District Other Social Effects Report TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary .................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 4 Overview ................................................................................................................................. 4 Scope of Report....................................................................................................................... 6 Key Messages ........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Portrait of Cedar Rapids
    Portrait of Cedar Rapids One of the oldest mosques in America, and the first Muslim cemetery in the U.S., can be found in a surprising place: Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Cedar Rapids is one of the least ethnically diverse cities in the U.S.,1 and Iowa, a largely agricultural state, has more cows than people.2 Here, the “heartland” of America, is home to five generations of Muslim Americans. In the late 1800s, immigrants from Syria and Lebanon made their way across the U.S. Their main business was selling goods to the farmers as pacK-peddlers; they later established small stores, and many settled in Cedar Rapids. These early Syrian-Lebanese immigrants, both Christian and Muslim, slowly grew in number; once they began having families, they recognized the need for places of worship in Cedar Rapids. The earlyPost Muslim and Christian immigrant families were close-knit and supportive of each other: after the completion of St. George’s Orthodox Church, the Muslim community purchased a cross for the new building; shortly after, the two communities would celebrate the establishment of the mosque in 1934. Today, the “Mother Mosque of America” is on the National Register of Historic Places. The small, simple structure is an unassuming landmark, surrounded by a chain linK fence and tucKedOr into a modest neighborhood of Cedar Rapids. The green awning, dome, and crescent announce its presence as a mosque, yet the one-story building evokes a prairie schoolhouse. Over the years, the building went by many different names: in the early days, some referred to it as the nadi (“club” in Arabic),“The Rose of Fraternity Lodge,” and “The Moslem Temple”; later, it was Known as “The Islamic Center.”3 The community sold the building in the 1970s in order to build a new center; the original structure later fell into disrepair and was abandoned.
    [Show full text]
  • The Year of the River Incredible Damage
    THE YEAR OF THE RIVER Long before the floodwaters arrived, Cedar Rapids had designated 2008 as “The Year of the River” to celebrate the city’s connection to the Cedar River. The slogan also commemorated the 100th anniversary of the city’s purchase of May’s Island, a downtown, midchannel slice of land about the size and shape of a battleship. But the phrase quickly took on a new meaning after the river crested at over 31 feet above flood stage — and more than 11 feet above the previous record of 19.66 feet set National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. in 1961. About 60 percent of Iowa’s total 2008 flood damage occurred in Cedar Rapids. Rising Above the Waters is a documentary of the floods of 2008 produced by KGAN-TV in Cedar Cedar Rapids is an industrial city founded on a Rapids. In it, U.S. Representative Bruce Braley said, floodplain. It is also Iowa’s second-largest “One of the most vivid memories I have was flying metropolitan area with a 2008 population of about down the Cedar River from the Waterloo airport to 125,000. It has no upstream flood protection. the Cedar Rapids airport and seeing from the air Much of its manufacturing and chemical industries, the devastation all along the river and particularly governmental and public buildings, and historic the overwhelming devastation to downtown Cedar residential and commercial neighborhoods are Rapids.” low-lying. Depending on their location, they were either unprotected from flooding in 2008 or The flood affected every aspect of Cedar Rapids: shielded by a patchwork of modest levees that Commerce.
    [Show full text]
  • American Stories by Kambiz Ghaneabassiri
    Presented by National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with American Library Association and Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University new world of almost limitless potential. When the Khan. By the sixteenth century, this empire had painting is seen from this perspective, virtually faded into distant memory. But in our painting, the only possibility the artist seems to exclude is its cultural legacy can still be seen in the sweeping the presence of any people other than the Spanish zigzag of the landscape, and the angular energy of themselves. And in this sense, for all its exuberance, the rocks and trees—both features highly evocative his painting conveys an image of history that is of Chinese visual styles. anything but connected, one in which Europeans are the only real protagonists, and the world exists only Such details helped to ensure that our painting for them to explore—and, eventually, to conquer. would appeal to Sultan Murad, a famously generous patron of the arts with the tastes of a connoisseur. But look again—for this painting, much like But why, from the comfort of his palace in Istanbul, history itself, holds many lessons to uncover, some would the sultan have been interested in a book obvious at first glance and others scribbled in the about Spanish America in the first place? The answer margins or hidden just beneath the surface. To begin is to be found not in the painting itself, but in the with, look at the unfamiliar writing at the top of the sweeping political events of that moment in world page.
    [Show full text]
  • American Protestantism and the Kyrias School for Girls, Albania By
    Of Women, Faith, and Nation: American Protestantism and the Kyrias School For Girls, Albania by Nevila Pahumi A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in the University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Professor Pamela Ballinger, Co-Chair Professor John V.A. Fine, Co-Chair Professor Fatma Müge Göçek Professor Mary Kelley Professor Rudi Lindner Barbara Reeves-Ellington, University of Oxford © Nevila Pahumi 2016 For my family ii Acknowledgements This project has come to life thanks to the support of people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is now the time and my great pleasure to acknowledge each of them and their efforts here. My long-time advisor John Fine set me on this path. John’s recovery, ten years ago, was instrumental in directing my plans for doctoral study. My parents, like many well-intended first generation immigrants before and after them, wanted me to become a different kind of doctor. Indeed, I made a now-broken promise to my father that I would follow in my mother’s footsteps, and study medicine. But then, I was his daughter, and like him, I followed my own dream. When made, the choice was not easy. But I will always be grateful to John for the years of unmatched guidance and support. In graduate school, I had the great fortune to study with outstanding teacher-scholars. It is my committee members whom I thank first and foremost: Pamela Ballinger, John Fine, Rudi Lindner, Müge Göcek, Mary Kelley, and Barbara Reeves-Ellington.
    [Show full text]
  • Summary of Sexual Abuse Claims in Chapter 11 Cases of Boy Scouts of America
    Summary of Sexual Abuse Claims in Chapter 11 Cases of Boy Scouts of America There are approximately 101,135sexual abuse claims filed. Of those claims, the Tort Claimants’ Committee estimates that there are approximately 83,807 unique claims if the amended and superseded and multiple claims filed on account of the same survivor are removed. The summary of sexual abuse claims below uses the set of 83,807 of claim for purposes of claims summary below.1 The Tort Claimants’ Committee has broken down the sexual abuse claims in various categories for the purpose of disclosing where and when the sexual abuse claims arose and the identity of certain of the parties that are implicated in the alleged sexual abuse. Attached hereto as Exhibit 1 is a chart that shows the sexual abuse claims broken down by the year in which they first arose. Please note that there approximately 10,500 claims did not provide a date for when the sexual abuse occurred. As a result, those claims have not been assigned a year in which the abuse first arose. Attached hereto as Exhibit 2 is a chart that shows the claims broken down by the state or jurisdiction in which they arose. Please note there are approximately 7,186 claims that did not provide a location of abuse. Those claims are reflected by YY or ZZ in the codes used to identify the applicable state or jurisdiction. Those claims have not been assigned a state or other jurisdiction. Attached hereto as Exhibit 3 is a chart that shows the claims broken down by the Local Council implicated in the sexual abuse.
    [Show full text]
  • BY the NUMBERS Cedar Rapids Flood Damage $384,514,096 In
    BY THE NUMBERS 7,749 properties were flooded, including: Cedar Rapids Flood Damage • 5,900 residential (56 percent of these were owner-occupied and 34 percent were rental units) • 1,049 commercial units • 84 industrial units • 51 agricultural units • 41 units of other types 6,580 properties were assessed for damages as of July 21, 2008. Of these: • 47 were destroyed • 457 had major damage • 4,340 had minor damage • 1,636 were damaged but habitable 1,356 properties were bought out, including 1,259 funded entirely by CDBG grant money. May's Island, FEMA Photo 700 businesses were affected by the flood. $384,514,096 in CDBG-Disaster Recovery funding was administered by IEDA to help 700 National Guard personnel secured the Cedar Rapids recover. (For a graph illustrating perimeter and brought their own vehicles, how the funds were spent, see “Where the trailers, and supplies. Money Went” in the resources area of the Cedar Rapids page). 310 city facilities were affected, costing an estimated $500 million to repair and rebuild, 10+ square miles of Cedar Rapids were flooded including: — 14 percent of the city’s land area. That • Veterans Memorial Building (then home to amounts to 1,126 city blocks, half of which City Hall) were severely damaged. Districts affected • Central Fire Station included Downtown, Czech Village, New • Police Station Bohemia, Oakhill Jackson, Rompot/Cedar • Animal Control building Valley, the Taylor School neighborhood, and • Public Works building Time Check. • Ground Transportation Center, the city’s transportation hub (Cedar Rapids Transit was back in modified operation one week 4 football stadiums worth of flood debris was after the flood) removed from Cedar Rapids neighborhoods by • Main public library the end of 2008 at a cost of $9 million.
    [Show full text]