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History in the Making

Bangladeshi born mayoral candidate Mohammad Hassan shares his hopes and aspirations for the November election with Shahed Alam

A Bangladeshi immigrant is now set to be the mayor of a major city of the United States. Mohammed Hassan, a two-time counselor of the Hamtramck city, is now the only candidate to compete with incumbent mayor Karen Majewski on the coming November 7 election. Hamtramck is already known for its Muslim majority councilmen.

Once a heavily Polish residential city, it is now known as the Muslim majority city of the United States. Immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen and other African and Arab countries have contributed a lot for the reemergence of this city. Mohammed Hassan, along with three other Muslim councilmen, has been in the news several times for History

their role in the city council. On August 8 primary election, Hassan emerged as a tough competitor for Karen. Once a motor workers’ heaven, Hamtramck’s appeal started to fizzle out in the 80’s. Moreover, the auto bail out threw the city into a dire crisis. But Bangladeshi immigrants started to move in the city in the 90s and now once again it is a vibrant community in the city of Michigan. Alhough, the city has 10 percent Polish Americans, Karen still has to depend heavily on the Muslim voters to remain in the seat. Mohammed Hassan is in now in a race to defeat Karen and make history as a Bangladeshi as well as a Muslim American. Among the four candidates in the primaries, the incumbent mayor Karen has got 43% of the total votes, while the two Bangladeshis, Md. Kamrul Hasan and ASM Kamal Rahman, received 27% votes each, but fortunately Kamrul has secured 56 more votes than his Bangladeshi counterpart and managed to sustain in the race for mayor. Md. Kamrul’s success in the primaries has brought new hope for the Bangladeshi residents in Hamtramck. He will be taking oath as the first Bangladeshi born Mayor there, once and if he gets elected in the next election.
Did you expected to win this race during the primary? Yes, it was an expected win. Though it got a bit complicated towards the end compared to what I

thought would be an easy task in the beginning. To be frank, we somehow got divided during the last few days. My opponent, Mr Kamal Rahman, also did very good at the election.
Do you think there are any challenges in winning the November 7 final mayoral election? My main challange would be to defuse the anger and fear of the local muslim community because people are still thinking that if they elect a Muslim mayor, there could be extra police survillence in the city. Some people are thinking that there might be some trouble if they don’t have a white American mayor. I am sure this is a misleading propaganda. My main objective would be to eradicate this notion from the voter’s mind.
Is that the only challange to win the race? Not exactly. There are some Yemeni people who are sceptical about voting for any Bengali people, because they are gradually stepping into local politics now. Although, nearly two-third of the Yemeni people have voted me in past, the rest one-third are still supporting the current mayor Karen. This is one issue which worries me but on the other hand, the most satisfactory matter is the African-Americans trust me a lot. So hopefully I will make a change in the final run, Inshallah.
Now obviously the achievement so far you have gained is a tremendous thing. How do you evaluate this? Look, I have a family and I do a managerial job in a company to survive. I work hard day and night. After an entire day’s work, I need to go to people from different communities as a councilor. As my office knows that I am a city councilor, they sometimes allow me to work at my own schedule ,but overall it is a tough job. I don’t have an unlimited financial background or support so whatever I earn, I spend for the people and work very hard to build the stairs of success and also uphold my country’s name here. I sleep only 4 hours a day. My dreams don’t allow me to sleep more.
Tell me something about your journey to the United States and here as a whole. Oh, its a long story. I am from the Chandanish upazila of Chittagong district. I did my masters from Chittagong University attaining first class. Then I came to the United States to pursue my doctorate degree

degree. Sadly due to financial problems, I couldn’t achieve that. But I have no regrets now. I wanted to work for the people here, and get involved in mainstream politics. With the encouragement from the community people and my family, I enlisted my name for the councilor election. After a successful win, I took a step further to win at the district assembly election. But unfortunately I didn’t win that. However, at the next election I continued to be the councilman of my beloved Hamtramck. Now I am targetting the mayoral win and I hope I will achieve that.
What is your final dream after Hamtramck win? Oh, I am a man with dreams, but for now I want to make a history by winning the mayoral race of Hamtramck. That’s the only goal right now. But if you ask me what’s next? I will say – the run for the senate and congress in future. I did fight for the Michigan legislator 6 years ago. I would have won that race too but my own people didn’t recognise me at that time. My dream after the Hamtramck run is to run for Michigan district legislature election. Then I wish to compete for the senate seat and finally, if situation favors me, I want to be a congressman one day.

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