November 8, 2006--"We Will Miss You Ali"
The NY Times reported yesterday about a tragic incident in south Brooklyn, about the murder of a cashier in a deli; and though the reporters did a full and faithful job of writing about the crime and the impact of this untimely death on his immediate and extended family, they totally missed the equally significant other half of the story. (Story linked below.)
The murdered man was Ahmed Shaibi, an immigrant from Yemen, who worked long hours at the deli in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn. From his meager earnings he supported his step mother and her three children, who were his step brothers. His father died about eight years ago.
In addition to supporting this family in America, the 44 year-old Mr. Shaibi routinely sent part of what he earned to other family members back in Yemen. To his wife, two children, and a grandchild. He earned very little, not enough to bring them yet to America. All he could do was send them money.
When I first heard about the story it reminded me about my own family, about how my grandfather came to America on his own, leaving behind in Poland his grandmother and his five children, including a daughter who would become my mother. He worked seven days a week in a bakery and sent money to them, just as Mr. Shaibi did. And when he had saved enough, he sent for them and they joined him, also in Brooklyn, not too far from the deli where the murder occurred.
This, then, might seem just another pair of immigrant stories—one that ended well, the other tragically. But what was missing in the Times story has to do with the neighborhood where the deli is, who lived in that neighborhood, and how the neighbors reacted to his slaying.
He was from Yemen and was a Moslem. The rest of the neighborhood is overwhelmingly Italian and Jewish. They made up the deli’s customers; and when Ahmed Shaibi was killed, they mourned his death. They sent condolences to his family; the store closed in his memory; and those neighbors who stereotypically might not be expected to be very welcoming of someone from his background, by the store constructed a memorial in his honor. And placed a sign above it that, using his nickname, read, “We will miss you Ali.”
The murdered man was Ahmed Shaibi, an immigrant from Yemen, who worked long hours at the deli in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn. From his meager earnings he supported his step mother and her three children, who were his step brothers. His father died about eight years ago.
In addition to supporting this family in America, the 44 year-old Mr. Shaibi routinely sent part of what he earned to other family members back in Yemen. To his wife, two children, and a grandchild. He earned very little, not enough to bring them yet to America. All he could do was send them money.
When I first heard about the story it reminded me about my own family, about how my grandfather came to America on his own, leaving behind in Poland his grandmother and his five children, including a daughter who would become my mother. He worked seven days a week in a bakery and sent money to them, just as Mr. Shaibi did. And when he had saved enough, he sent for them and they joined him, also in Brooklyn, not too far from the deli where the murder occurred.
This, then, might seem just another pair of immigrant stories—one that ended well, the other tragically. But what was missing in the Times story has to do with the neighborhood where the deli is, who lived in that neighborhood, and how the neighbors reacted to his slaying.
He was from Yemen and was a Moslem. The rest of the neighborhood is overwhelmingly Italian and Jewish. They made up the deli’s customers; and when Ahmed Shaibi was killed, they mourned his death. They sent condolences to his family; the store closed in his memory; and those neighbors who stereotypically might not be expected to be very welcoming of someone from his background, by the store constructed a memorial in his honor. And placed a sign above it that, using his nickname, read, “We will miss you Ali.”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:01 PM
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