On a recent Friday, members of Chicago’s Rohingya American community walked past signs advertising citizenship classes, English classes and a soccer club as they filtered into a social services center in the West Ridge neighborhood. It was time to vote.
Many of the 15 or so adults of various ages that entered the Rohingya Culture Center on West Devon Avenue only recently became United States citizens and had never voted, according to the center’s staff.
“If you don’t go vote, we lose one voice,” said Emran Yakub, 37, a Rohingya who fled Myanmar in 1999 and arrived in Chicago in 2013. Yakub became a U.S. citizen about five years after he arrived, making Tuesday’s election the second time he cast a vote for president.
Yakub said he believes the U.S. will be “better for everybody” if more voices are heard. So Yakub, who works at the culture center, is eager to help Rohingya Americans, who have come to the U.S. more recently, vote.
Rohingya are part of a predominantly Muslim and Burmese ethnic group that, since the 1980s, has been denied legal status in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country known as Burma until 1989. Since 2012, about 800 Rohingya families have arrived in Chicago seeking basic rights such as the ability to vote.
It’s difficult for new Rohingya American citizens — who don’t know English very well and struggle with tasks such as applying for social services, getting around the city and receiving medical care — to learn about the U.S. government and the election, especially since they don’t know what it’s like to be a citizen of any country, Yakub said.
“We learn a lot of things about the government in the news, and then we share (that with) our own people because our people back home, they never, ever had school, reading, writing,” Yakub said.
Understanding matters such as the difference between political parties can be challenging, Yakub said. “Both parties look similar,” he said.
When other members of his community go to Yakub with questions about who they should vote for in this election, Yakub asks his fellow Rohingya Americans whether they want a man or a woman to be president.
“That’s easy to explain to people,” Yakub said.
Yakub, his parents and his siblings went to Thailand for two years after fleeing Myanmar. They then spent a dozen years in Malaysia, where his father died.
“We never had this chance back home,” Yakub said about voting. “We saw in the other countries like Malaysia, Thailand — they’re very proud citizens. We weren’t citizens (of) Thailand, Malaysia. We were so upset.”
Staff members at the culture center put out a message to the community on WhatsApp that they would be providing transportation to the Northtown branch of Chicago Public Library, asite for those who wanted to vote early.
Six days prior, a similar event to get Rohingya Americans to cast ballots saw 110 new Rohingya American citizens vote, according to the Muslim Civic Coalition. The Rohingya Culture Center is a partner of the civic coalition.
Deena Habbal, the Muslim Civic Coalition’s communications lead, participated in the first voting event. Habbal said Rohingya Americans who have voted in Chicago ought to inspire other Americans to exercise their right to vote.
“We take for granted that we have all these rights,” Habbal said. “We should be on record. We should have our voices heard because no one is going to advocate for us if we don’t advocate for ourselves.”
