How Well Do You Know Your Neighbors?

            In San Francisco, a city always looking for an excuse to grab a drink or throw a party, your local corner storeowner may know more about your habits than your close friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, coworkers, and classmates. 

While living in a city stacked on top of each other like sardines, every resident has their own favorite around the corner store they visit to get last minute ingredients, wine for the evening, toilet paper, or an ice cream bar on a hot day.

            During an evening with friends, Piper Robbins, 22, decides to make a liquor store run.  Her and her friends start walking down the street toward the nearest corner store.  Robbins walks on by, “not that one,” she says.  “I’ve been in there three times this week to buy beer, we should go to a different one, the guy is going to think I’m an alcoholic,” she says.

            “Ha!  I know what you mean,” says Nicole Talahi, 25.  “My corner store guy must think I’m so hormonal, I only go in there like once a month to buy myself chocolate.”

            “Mine must think I’m a total hypochondriac, I go in there once a week to buy tissues, juice, and sanitizer,” says Lynley Frey, 29.

            They are the people we never think about, yet they are the people we see all the time.  They may know more details about our lives than the people in our lives.  They know everything from what we are doing on a Saturday night, to when we are sick, to out eating habits, and yet we know nothing about them.

            So, who are they?

            A majority of the corner storeowners in San Francisco are Palestinian immigrants.  After the British Mandate in 1948 that split Palestine into two territories, there was a large growth in the amount of Palestinians that immigrated to the United States. 

            Among the cities they immigrated to, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, San Diego and Cleveland became popular destinations for them.  It is estimated there are around 150,000 Arab Americans living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“The Palestinian community in San Francisco has got a monopoly on this place,” says Mike Ruiz, a taxi driver in San Francisco for the past 10 years.  “They own all the corner stores, drive all the taxi’s, and they ain’t scared of nothing.  They know how to run a business and they all help each other out… smart people.”

They have become successful owners of restaurants, corner stores and other small businesses.

Today in San Francisco, there are over 300 convenient stores.  In the Mission District alone, three of every five corner stores are owned by Palestinians. 

A Conversation with Hussein Dawah

“Resistance is a must!” says Hussein Dawah.  “If I grab your neck and choke you, will you not resist?  Will you not fight back?” 

Dawah, the owner of Ali Baba’s Cave, a Middle Eastern eatery on the corner of Valencia and 19^th Streets in San Francisco’s Mission District, speaks passionately about the Palestinian cause.

Dawah came to the United States nearly 30 years ago, in 1980 to get his masters degree at UC Berkeley.  He soon found it too expensive and was forced to drop out.

“There were many like me, in the same situation,” he said.  “With our broken English it’s not really easy.  We could not get good jobs we were qualified for, we started looking for the easiest thing to do.”

In San Francisco, where small businesses are prominent in areas like Th

e Mission, Palestinians own three out of five corner stores.  They have become known in the community as simple business minded people with a strong work ethic.

After the British Mandate ended in Palestine in 1948, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine divided Palestine into two separate territories, one being declared as the state of Israel, and the other smaller portion of Gaza and the West Bank to become home for Palestinians. 

Since then the area has been in a state of constant violence; the Zionists believe that the Jews have the right to the state of Israel, the Arabs believe that the Palestinians have the right to the land that was once theirs.  The area designated for Palestinians has been deteriorating over the years and they have been forced to leave as refugees.

Thousands have been forced to flee their homeland in search of stable living environment.  According to the United States Consensus there were over 72,000 Pales

tinians in America in the year 2000, that number rose nearly 50 percent since 1990.

“The Palestinian community immigrated to the US in three stages,” says Dawah.  “1.) Those who came before the British Mandate made a strong base for the community 2.) Students came after the second war in the early 1950’s and 3.) After the 1967 war, a large number of students, like me, and well educated people fled here after losing everything in the war and not being able to return.”

Dawah never got to live in his homeland of Palestine.  His family was forced out as refugees before he was born.  He and his 11 brothers and sisters grew up in a one bedroom in Syria.  His father always taught him that education is the key to resistance.

“It was a miserable life,” he said. “We lost our country, our culture, our resources, our wealth and belongings—the only thing we have is our education.”

Many of the Palestinians in San Francisco came here in the 1970s and 80s.  They were a class of intellectuals that were in search of a better life.  What they found was that they couldn’t continue on as they had in the Middle East.

Unable to get the jobs they were qualified for, they began open up small businesses like convenient stores and small eateries, while still trying to be active in the Palestinian cause.

“The Palestinian community was very politically active in the 1980’s,” says Dawah.  “They are not as united now, but still, the roots of social activity exist but in a different form.  There is a huge solidarity movement.”

When asked if he thinks Palestine will ever be recognized as a state again he securely says, “Wrongdoing can only succeed for a short time… for history, this is not a long time, this cannot last.”

“Palestinians tried for a long time to resist by means of education and solidarity,” Dawah says.  “Sadly, this must be an armed struggle to get attention, this is the language that the world understands, and it is an armed struggle that forced the world to pay attention to us.”

Palestine, an area of only 10 square miles, relative to the size of the Bay Area, has been a topic of constant debate and attention across the globe over the years due to its strong resistance.

Many attempts have been placed on the idea of a two-state solution.  This would mean that both Israel and Palestine would be to live peacefully, side by side, although there are great disputes over borders as well as who would claim Jerusalem.

Many Israeli’s and Palestinians, including Dawah, believe that a two-state solution is not the way to go. “A two-state solution logically would not work,” says Dawah.  “We don’t want it, and they don’t want it.  We need one voice and one leader, much like Nelson Mandela did in South Africa.”

“I am waiting to go back to Palestine, and live peacefully together.”

The Man Behind the Sandwich

Sam Malak chomps on a piece of fresh green cabbage.  His hands are busy chopping away at a mountain of onion with a massive cleaver.  He chews on the cabbage with the same rhythm that he is chopping. 

“Eh, what kind sandwich you want?” he says with a thick Arabic accent, still chewing on his cabbage.

“I’ll have Mary’s famous chicken salad sandwich,” says a customer.

Malak turns, puts down his cleaver and wipes his hand on his apron. “Mary!” he yells, “Chicken salad sandwich!”

Mary appears behind the deli counter and starts making her famous chicken sandwich. With her small frame she can hardly peer over the glass. All that is visible to the customer is her old hairnet bobbing around.  She appears small and sweet, and then you hear her thunderous yell, “One chicken salad sandwich!”

One block away Joe Malak sits slumped over with crossed arms, patiently waiting for customers behind the check out counter of his corner market.  He is going bald, wears a striped shirt and sports a salt and pepper mustache.

He meets and greets every customer as if they were family and his customers all know him by first name.

“Hey there, how are you doing today? Long time no see,” says Malak.

“Good, how’s the family, Joe?” asks one customer.

“Oh they’re great, have I showed you this?”  Joe excitedly pulls out a copy of the San Mateo Daily Journal and the Menlo College campus newspaper, both sitting conveniently less than an arm’s reach away.

“That’s my son, he is very smart,” he says with a big grin while pointing to a photo in the newspaper of a young man giving a speech in a collared shirt and tie. “He’s on the cover!”

The customer nods nicely, pays for her groceries and leaves.  Joe sits back on his stool, crosses his arms and waits for the next customer.

Joe and Sam Malak are just two of the thousands of Palestinians in San Francisco. They are also just two of the hundreds of Palestinians in San Francisco who work at a corner store.

There are over 300 corner liquor stores in San Francisco.  In the Mission District of San Francisco, four out of five of them are run by Palestinian families.

Sam Malak, along with his brother Joe, own three corner stores, Guerrero Market and Deli, Golden Eagle Market, and 20^th and Guerrero Market, all run by members of their family.

The Malak family came to the United States from Jordan 34 years ago.  Their family moved from Palestine to Jordan when they were young, they still have a lot of family in both countries.

After the British Mandate ended in Palestine in 1948, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine divided Palestine into two separate territories, one being declared as the state of Israel, and the other smaller portion to become Palestine.  Since then the area has been in a state of constant violence; the Zionists believe that the Jews have the right to the state of Israel, the Arabs believe that the Palestinians have the right to the land that was once theirs.

Since then, hundreds of thousands have tried to flee their homeland in search of stable living environment.  According to the United States Consensus there were over 72,000 Palestinians in America in the year 2000, that number rose nearly 50 percent since 1990.

Sam and Joe, who go back to Palestine every two years to visit family, say the Palestinian community in San Francisco feels very much like home.

“There are a lot of us here, especially in this business, but there is no competition… We are all like brothers and we help each other out,” Sam says.

Sam has owned Guerrero Market and Deli for the past 10 years and tries to carry different varieties of beers and products than the nearby liquor stores, so he doesn’t take business away from them.

When Sam is not at his deli on 19^th and Guerrero streets, he walks over to his 20^th and Valencia store, where his customers also know him by name, to make sure everything is running smoothly. 

Sam’s brother Joe has run their 20^th and Guerrero location for the past four years.  Joe’s wife Mary works with Sam at their deli a block away.

Joe can never turn down an opportunity to talk about his children.  He proudly keeps a copy of the Menlo College campus newspaper with his son on the cover at his side at all times.  His son Charles is going to San Diego State University to get his degree in sports medicine while his other son, Hanna, is the student body president and star athlete and Menlo College.

“They used to come help me out at the store, but now they are in college and they are so smart, they are very important boys,” says Joe with a wide grin.

Sam, who lives in San Bruno, and Joe, who lives in San Mateo with his wife Mary, commute to work at 9 a.m. and don’t leave for home until past midnight every day.

Sam says he got into the business by way of his brother-in-law, who told him he was opening a new shop and needed someone to run it.   Since then, Sam has opened three of his own stores and gotten other family members into the business the same way he got started.  His son John works at his 20th and Valencia Street location.