BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Ms. Aisha Salih was born and raised in both Egypt and Sudan. She was educated in Sudan. After marrying her husband, Dr. AbdelFatah Bashir, who was attending school in the United States, she moved to the USA. Her plan was to stay here until her husband finished school, but she ended up staying in the Midwest for more than 15 years. She first came to Washington, D.C., then to Milwaukee, and finally to Moorhead on August 31, 1989. She is a board member of Cultural Diversity Resources and a commissioner for the Moorhead Human Rights Commission. She is also a troop leader for Muslim Girl Scouts, and volunteers for the community at large.

In the interview, Ms. Salih offers her perspective on what it means to be a Muslim in the Fargo-Moorhead area.  She emphasizes the importance of distinguishing the role of culture and religion in understanding people and their perceptions.  She also describes her volunteer efforts on behalf of the community.

Ms. Salih was interviewed on April 27, 2004 by Trevor Cook, Robyn Beutler and Yahye Sharif.

SAMPLES FROM THE INTERVIEW

ON THE WORK OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION:

" The Human Rights Commission of Moorhead--they look at the problems faced by different—not necessarily my people or anyone who has some hardship or some difficulty, because they put their problem in front of them; we discuss the problem, we reach out—where’s the source of problem?—and try to figure out why the problem happened and what is the solution, and try to direct people to go through the right channels rather than take action without studying the problem. "

ON THE EVOLUTION OF SERVICES FOR IMMIGRANTS TO FARGO-MOORHEAD:

"...a lot of big changes happened in the last eight years after the first Somalian group came.  That was eight years ago--was a big rush of Somalian groups.  They arrived to the area here. Even me, I don’t…I don’t speak Somalian but I was helping.  If they go to the doctor, I go.  If they have someone who speaks Arabic, but no English. I translate from English to Arabic and he translates from Arabic to the Somalian language for the patient, so it would just go through three channels like that.   After that, a lot of changes: now we have interpreters for Somalian, for Bosnian, for Arabic, for Sudanese language, so we have a lot, a lot of people came from outside the area."

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

LISTEN TO INTERVIEW