New York's Yemeni-American community undecided on Trump, Harris

As former president Donald Trump took the stage at Madison Square Garden on October 27, some members of New York’s Yemeni community watched closely from the sidelines.

“It’s exactly what we were expecting, racist tropes and nasty comments about Muslim Americans, Palestinian Americans,” says Youssef Mubarez, director of public relations at the Yemeni American Merchants Association (YAMA), which advocates for the community’s economic development and civil liberties.

“I’m losing faith in the political process here in America for Muslims, in general, and especially Yemeni-Americans,” he tells TRT World.

The organisation came into being as a direct result of Trump’s presidential policies—namely Executive Order 13769, more commonly known as the ‘Muslim ban’, which barred visitors from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States, including Yemen.

In protest, at least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and small businesses shut their shops on February 2, 2017, while thousands of others rallied in Brooklyn Heights.

Bigger than expected

“We didn’t think it would be as big as it was going to be,” Mubarez recalls. His family owns three bodegas in Manhattan, including one in Times Square.

“We showed up early, and there were already 300-400 Yemenis protesting. It happened really quickly, but I remember how we initially had one or two politicians who were willing to come and speak, but as the day progressed, more and more showed up.”

The ‘bodega strike’, as it came to be known, became a turning point for a community that had traditionally shied away from protest and publicity.

“Before the Trump administration, Yemeni-Americans used to run away from politics,” says Zaid Nagi, one of YAMA’s founding members. “But then we started to realise that there’s a system in place here—and it’s a system that works, and the way we do business has some influence.”

The Yemeni business community led similar protests throughout the Trump years, albeit on a smaller scale—including a 2019 boycott of the New York Post for its inflammatory misrepresentation of representative Ilhan Omar.

Back then, the New York Times noted that Yemeni-American business owners had become “vocal defenders of New York’s Muslim-American community”.

But while the previous administration may have turned the community into “a new political force,” as noted by the Times, many Yemeni-Americans now seem splintered on who they will vote for in the November 5 elections, or if they will vote at all.

Community at the crossroads

Out of New York’s nearly 15,000 bodegas, about 7,000 are Yemeni-owned. The small corner shops are a beloved New York institution, sometimes referred to as the ‘lifeline’ of the city.

Since the 1960s, Yemeni men migrating to New York started learning the trade from Dominican migrants, the torchbearers of the small retail store culture in the city.

For many, like Nagi, the bodega was their entry point into America. “The moment I laid foot in the US, I got involved in the family bodega business. I would go to school in the morning and then work in my dad’s store in the Bronx in the afternoon.”

While he faced some racism growing up, particularly after 9/11, he felt a lot of it came out into the open during the Trump administration. Even though he’s not associated with YAMA anymore, he continues to speak for his community.

“Yemenis have an entrepreneurial spirit,” he says. “Throughout history, we’ve been merchants. Business and Yemenis are mixed. We create the most jobs, including for other migrant communities. Many people start their life in America in Yemeni-run businesses.”

One of them was Fathi Alhuthaifi, who arrived in New York in 1998. For years, he delivered Arabic newspapers for a living, until 2015, when he could save up enough money to open Uptown Wireless in Harlem.

Alhuthaifi was one of the thousands of Muslims affected by the travel ban in 2017. “It’s a long story, I hate it,” he says.

“Trump gave us a hard time. Because of the war, I had to move my family from Yemen to Saudi Arabia, and they were stuck there till 2019. They couldn’t get visas because of the travel ban. Thank God, they’re with me now, but I lost all my money during that time because I had to keep going back and forth to visit my children two to three times a year.”

In recent weeks, the former president has reiterated his intentions of reinstating the travel ban if he comes into power.

“Trump is a very clear man. He doesn’t work under the table. He talks straight, and he does what he says he’ll do. We know him. Anything he says now about the travel ban, he’ll do it. What he says about Yemenis and Arabs, he’ll do it.”

Like most Yemeni-Americans, Alhuthaifi had been a lifelong Democrat, but has decided to abstain from voting in the current election. “Yes, it’s because of Palestine, but I will not talk about it,” he says.

After a pause, though, he elaborates. “Of course, I feel heartbroken when I see how many people are being killed in Gaza, how many kids are being killed—with our money, with our tax money.”

Shifting allegiances?

In recent weeks, there’s a growing perception that many Arab and Muslim Americans will be voting for Trump, disheartened by how the Democratic party has handled the Palestine issue over the past year.

In the battleground state of Michigan, for instance, several Muslim clerics endorsed Trump, saying he “promises peace” in the Middle East.

In the city of Hamtramck, Yemeni-American mayor Amer Ghalib endorsed Trump, calling him “the right choice”.

In a recent interview with TRT World, he explained that in the past Trump made some false remarks about Muslims but that was largely due to a disconnect between Muslims and the Republican Party.

"He (Trump) had never really engaged with Muslims before—he didn’t have advisors who were Muslim to teach him about Islam, Muslim Americans, or Arab Americans. But he has changed significantly.

This is a new era." His decision to support Trump was fuelled by a mix of local issues and concerns about the current administration’s foreign policy, especially over handing of issues related to the Middle East.

But Nagi and Mubarez reject the perception. “It’s a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face,” says Mubarez of Trump’s Michigan supporters.

“People think a majority of Arabs and Yemenis are voting for Trump, but it’s just the few that are who are making it public. If I had to generalise, I would say most are voting for third-party candidates, like Jill Stein, or not voting at all.”

Nagi, however, feels that a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Trump.

“Of course, I’m disappointed with how the Biden administration handled Palestine, and many other issues,” he says. “But Trump is even more extreme, even on Palestine. If he was less extreme, I’d be willing to push the community to ‘punish’ the Democrats a little bit, but he leaves us no option but to make sure he doesn’t win,” he says.

Mubarez disagrees, at least partially.

“The Palestine issue made us do a deep dive into who we’re voting for. It’s pretty obvious to many of us that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are doing anything to show that they support the Yemeni, Arab or Muslim community. I’m not voting for Trump or Harris. I’ll probably vote for a third-party candidate, for symbolic reasons, but I don’t know.”

When asked if he thinks a third-party candidate has a real chance, Mubarez replies: “Everybody knows they don’t have a chance.”