Story and photos by Louis Medina

At sundown on a recent weekday evening during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which this year ends Sept. 19, the faithful began to gather at the little corner mosque to break their daylong fast—in heavily Hispanic Arvin of all places.

I happened to be driving around Bakersfield’s southern neighbor doing what writers do, looking for a story, when a telltale crescent moon symbol atop a small cupola reminiscent of a minaret caught my eye. I was blessedly zapped by one of those electrifying revelations about just how culturally rich our little corner of the world is.

I had found my story.

Abdu

I met Abdu Al Gabyali in the unpaved parking lot of the green and white Masjid Al-Salaam, “Mosque of Peace,” which sits on the northwest corner of Haven Drive and Meyer Street, across from Di Giorgio Park. The 48-year-old Yemeni-born father of seven has lived in Arvin since 1989, and runs the Frosty King across Meyer Street from the mosque. He is an active member of the local Muslim community, which he said numbers about 100, many of them immigrants from Yemen and their families.

“As-Salaam Aleyka (Peace be upon you),” he greeted me.

“Wa Aleyka As-Salaam (And may peace be upon you),” I replied, trying out my basic Arabic. “Did I say it right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he reassured me.

Abdu and others were all smiles and grateful for my interest in their mosque. They invited me to break fast together with them, offering me a couple of sweet dates and a samosa — it didn’t matter that I was neither fasting nor a Muslim. They would then pray, Abdu explained, go home for a full supper and come back later for the last communal prayer of the day.

Abdu sent one of his sons, 9-year-old Asim — pronounced “Awesome”— to fetch a cup of water for me.  Asim, who attends Sierra Vista Elementary, said he was fasting, too. It wasn’t hard, he explained, and in the Quran, God prescribed it as a way for Muslims to understand how the poor and hungry feel.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” I thought, recalling a scripture out of another holy book.

I sat in the back of the 7-year-old Mosque of Peace — converted into a holy space from a taco stand — and watched a dozen men and three boys perform their prayers. The women pray at home, Abdu explained, as the mosque is too small (700-800 square feet after a recent 250-square-foot expansion) to accommodate a partitioned area for them, as is customary in larger Islamic places of worship.

After the prayer, Abdu came to talk to me again, and that’s when he told me about Angie.

Angie

A few days later, I went back to meet Angelica Calderón, 24, a native of Mexico who was raised in Arvin since age 2 and graduated from Arvin High School. She grew up Catholic, she said, but did not practice her religion fervently. She works for Abdu at the Frosty King and converted to Islam in February 2008.

“I’ve been working for Abdu for the last four years,” she said, which has given her plenty of opportunities to notice his interactions with his family, and especially the exemplary behavior of his children, who project “a general feeling of respect and discipline.” Sometime after starting to work for Abdu, she began asking questions about his faith, and little by little, over a period of almost two years, she became convinced Islam had something to offer her — and hopefully, her family.

“Islam has a discipline in itself that we need nowadays — something that’s missing in the homes,” Angie said. “If you follow this, the correct way, you live a righteous life. You really do.”

Cal State University Bakersfield religious studies professor Stafford Betty said Angie’s line of thinking makes sense. “I could see where anyone who is looking for a religion with guts might be drawn to Islam,” he said.

“Islam, probably better than any other religion that I’ve ever studied, instills fear of the Lord in its followers,” he said. “And I think parents who take Allah seriously will instill that kind of holy fear in their children. This would result in respectful children, kids who would be less likely to rebel.”

Angie is the only Muslim in her family “for right now,” she told me. “I am trying my best to teach my parents, teach my family what I believe is the right path.” That includes her husband, Ramón, and their three children, two boys ages 3 and 2, and a baby girl born just a month and a half ago. “I pray that my children are raised Muslim,” she said.

Angie’s conversion process has been gradual. She knows some Arabic expressions like “Al hamdu lillah” (“Praise the Lord”) and “Inshah Allah” (“God willing”), but reads the Quran in English. She chats online with fellow female Muslims for support. She has not started covering her head yet, but plans to, eventually. She prays at home, on a prayer rug given to her by a fellow believer.

“But we as Muslims can pray anywhere. (The place) just has to be clean,” said fellow believer Adbul Muhsen, 33, a father of three who is currently studying math and English at Bakersfield College.

Angie fasted for Ramadan last year but is not doing so this Ramadan because she is still breastfeeding her baby girl. She plans to make up the fasting over the next year, as Muslims are allowed to do.

José

Angie is not the first local Hispanic convert to Islam that Abdu knows about. Before her, there was José (Abdu cannot remember his last name), but he died in a tragic auto accident four years ago that killed him and other members of his family. “Two sisters and two brothers died in that accident here in Arvin outside of town on Comanche behind the 7-Eleven. It was a rainy night,” Abdu said. José had been a Muslim for four years.

Good Neighbors

Before the Masjid Al Salaam existed, Arvin Muslims would pray at home or go to Bakersfield’s Islamic Center of San Joaquin Valley on Ming Avenue for prayer, Abdu said. And even though Arvin’s Mosque of Peace was established about one year after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there was no backlash of prejudice from the local community “because people know us and they know our background,” he said. “The community is very respectful. All these adults, I see them when they are kids. They know us since they’re little.” He described his Arvin neighbors as “peaceful” and “lovely.”

Mexican native Javier Cásares, 44, works picking grapes. He said Arvin’s Muslims, many of whom own local retail businesses, “treat us better than our own people.”

“They greet you and talk to you when you go into their shops,” he said, describing their manner as “muy bonito.”

Manuel Moreno, 67, also from Mexico, who picks garbanzos and other crops, said in Spanish that he wasn’t used to seeing “Árabes” (“Arabs”) at first, but now the sight of them is commonplace in several Arvin stores and businesses. He appreciates that Muslim business owners sometimes try to communicate with customers in Spanish, he said.

Abdu is glad to be a positive example to his neighbors and to let others know about his faith, which he believes is the way of salvation.

“We have to work hard to learn what God wants for us, what he made us for,” he said. “You are not here for nothing. You are here for a reason.”