Getting the Arab American story out in the mainstream press
I write for a number of mainstream American newspapers, mainly on Chicagoland and national U.S. policies, events and issues. But my favorite writing has to do when I can address Arab American and Arab World issues. Last summer, I wrote a column on a group of young Muslim girls who were graduating from the Aqsa School in suburban Bridgeview. The Aqsa school is an Islamic school for girls that is located across the parking lot from an unrelated Islamic parochial school called the Universal School which is run by the Bridgeview Mosque. All three buildings are located in the same block and share the same parking lot.
Although the Bridgeview Mosque gets loads of news coverage — most of the time the focus is on negative issues, rarely do the positive aspects of the American Muslim community get the spotlight. So, as a writer for several mainstream American newspapers, I try to include columns that do showcase the side of the Islamic and Arab community that is often ignored by the mainstream American media.
Yesterday, three columns I wrote including the column on the young Islamic women who graduated from the private Islamic high school, won the Society of Professional Journalists/Chicago Headline Club Peter Lisagor Award, which recognizes outstanding writing by Illinois journalists. It’s not easy to win and I have only won three total in 32 years of journalism (a finalist seven other times).
But winning this year’s award for the columns is really exciting for me because it included the column on the young Islamic women, who rarely get the attention and praise they deserve — Arab and Muslim women are almost always portrayed in a very negative light. But also, the two other columns included my Thanksgiving column on dinner in the Hanania household (I’m Palestinian and my wife is Jewish). And the third column is about attending my high school graduating class reunion. (I actually attended four high schools, but I was kicked out of an all-white high school in 1969 (Bogan High school) which was engaged in a battle to keep Black students out of their school. I was considered too dark 
Had these women been involved in anything else that was negative, they would have made front page headlines across the country. But they did something positive and great, graduating with highest honors while telling the audience they hoped to not only dedicate their lives to representing the best of Islam and Arab culture, but dedicating their lives to helping people in need not just the Arab World but American society.
Anyway, here is what the judges wrote and I wanted to share it, not only because it pats me on the back but because the Muslim girls who graduated received some great attention. And I want to thank them for allowing me to write about them. The columns appeared in the Southwest News-Herald where I write regularly on Chicagoland politics and all issues (including being an Arab American).
Comments of the judges:
News column or commentary Award: Southwest News Herald, “Thanksgiving Tabouli Wars Is Now Served,†“Graduates Who Defy Stereotypes†and “Reavis Reunion Creeps Up Like Receding Hair,†Ray Hanania
Judges Comments: Writing a regular column is a lot harder than it looks. General interest columnists have to be ready to show themselves and share their inner thoughts and beliefs with their readers — something most of us were trained not to do in the course of our other job as fair and ideally objective reporters of facts. Ray Hanania’s columns illustrate how the best of us are able to accomplish that, taking the random and (globally) inconsequential activities of daily life and crafting them into a deceptively simple sounding monologue that touches people with the familiarity of the experiences while shedding light on the serious and significant concerns of the larger world. Mr. Hanania manages that slight-of-hand with both wit and grace, and most difficult of all, a dash of humor that lightens outrage and makes it palatable, causing the reader to think about the greater issues roiling beneath the surface without compelling them in any obvious way to challenge their assumptions. Instead they think about the world in ways they might have resisted if they were simply being bashed over the head with passionate and reasoned argument.
There were two finalists in the same competition with me, the columnist for Crains Chicago Business, a major weekly business magazine, and a columnist at the Chicago Jewish News. The judges noted the irony here. (Both of the writers are great writers and just being named a finalist is an honor.) Here is part of the note from one of judges:
Finalist: Chicago Jewish News, “Talking and Listening,†“Real Jewish People†and “Jews and Darfur,†Joseph Aaron. Judges Comments: There is some irony to the fact that Joseph Aaron’s thoughtful and often moving commentaries from a distinctly and unabashedly Jewish perspective came in just slightly behind the work of his Arab-American colleague.
– Ray Hanania
