YALLA VOTE ‘08 Our Voice. Our Future.

This afternoon I had an amazing opportunity to be interviewed by Al Jazeera English, for a story on Arab American voters in this year’s election. They were interested getting some video footage of me doing my work as an AAI Field Organizer. So with the permission of the owners, I took them along with me to a local store, Sahara Supermarket on West 117^th Street in Cleveland, where they filmed me talking to customers as they came in about Yalla Vote and about our National Declaration.

Although the store was not very busy so early in the day I was able to get a few signatures for the Declaration and even spoke to a man, who although he is not a citizen and cannot vote in the upcoming election, understands the importance of what we were doing and is going to get his wife involved. I also got the opportunity to speak about Yalla Vote by answering questions about the goals of the campaign, the importance of Arab American involvement in the political process, and how I am working with local organizations to make these goals a reality. I also emphasized that this upcoming election is going to be one of the most important we will ever see and that the issues that concern Arab Americans also concern Americans as a whole. And because these issues are at the forefront of our national debate, it’s even more important to make our voices heard. It was really a great experience for my first time speaking to the media and I hope to get another opportunity to spread awareness about Yalla Vote and get more and more Arab Americans involved.

Yalla Vote!

-Nadia