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Source: Time Out New York

Aliya Latif
28, CIVIL-RIGHTS COORDINATOR, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS

“Am I speaking too fast? I have a tendency to do that,” says Aliya Latif from CAIR’s uptown office. It’s no wonder the civil-rights lawyer is in a rush: She fields complaints and asserts the rights of Muslim New Yorkers who have experienced discrimination. CAIR’s 33 national chapters processed exactly 2,467 incidents last year—“a 25.1 percent increase over the year before.”

The New Jersey native works on cases “that run the gamut from extremely egregious situations to more basic ones.” In one recent incident, a Muslim woman was denied her right to wear a head-covering in her DMV license photo (CAIR gave her an affidavit declaring that the law prohibits such treatment, and her application was processed), and in another, a Pakistani man was beaten by brass-knuckle-wearing, epithet-spewing youths in Brooklyn (his assailants were charged). “I don’t have a chance to think about burning out,” says Latif. “You just keep going, ’cause that’s what you have to do.”

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Learn more about Aliya Latif

“I became involved in civil rights work because I wanted to play an active role advocating on behalf of Muslim Americans in a time where there is abundance of misinformation about Muslims and Islamic beliefs and values. As an individual, I have always taken affirmative steps to present an accurate portrayal of Islam through meaningful interactions and by example. I strongly believe that reaching out to one person and dispelling stereotypical notions of Muslim is worth my time and energy; however, to effectively change the misperceptions about Muslims on grandeur macro level, I felt it necessary to join an organization whose mission was to achieve that very end.”