High School Anti-Arab Incidents Stir Council

Just one week after the United States began its aerial assault on Iraq, the City Council reacted to an allegedly racis at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School by denouncing a perceived rise in anti-Arab sentiment within the city.

Vice Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 moved the resolution, which denounces "the irrational targeting of persons of Arab descent and/or Muslims."

Hindy Al-Weqayan, a senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, said she was harassed by another student and a substitute teacher at the school over her Arab heritage. Hindy's mother, Ellen Al-Weqayan, said that the classmate called Arabs "oppressors" and "dictators."

School officials suspended the student for two days for "violating the directions of school administrators," after he ignored warnings to avoid "verbal contact" with Hindy, said Bert Giroux, public relations officer for the school.

Ellen Al-Weqayan said her daughter filed another complaint Monday when a substitute teacher made negative comments about her last name and heritage. Giroux said that the substitute teacher would not be hired until the matter had been investigated.

Ellen said that her daughter's experiences the family's only encounter with racism since moving to Cambridge 15 years ago. She added that she was surprised that the prejudice should come from students at the culturally diverse Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where administrators and teachers have stressed tolerance and understanding in a community of students who come from 64 different nations.

"Where had a very good experience in Cambridge. I was shocked at the quarter the remarks came from," she said.

Giroux said that school officials, anticipating misunderstandings that might arise among students in response to Operation Desert Storm, prepared and distributed packets of information about the Persian Gulf situation that "stressed multi-cultural understanding of the people from that area." The packets contained workshops entitled "If You Were a Saudi Kid" and "The Islamic Religion."

Giroux said no further incidents of discrimination had been reported to the school, adding that he did not know of any increase in anti-Arab sentiment among the students. "People get along pretty well. It'd be chaos if there wasn't an understanding of other people's cultures, "he said.