Iraqi-Americans Seek a Voice: Election America 2008

Many in America do not realize that 89,000 of their neighbours living in their towns and cities were born in Iraq or have parents from that country. With so many US troops going to Iraq and serving in the conflict there, the immigrant communities living in the US have had surprisingly very little media attention. While having the middle name Hussein would not help anyone in becoming the next President, many who live in the US and have a vote in this election are Iraqi and have similar concerns and interested as many other Americans, immigrants or otherwise.

In an IPS article last month, some Iraqi-Americans were asked about their concerns for the US and their place of birth for the next election. With such a diversity of class, ethnicity, language and culture in Iraq and among Iraqi-Americans, the opinion on McCain and Obama tend to reflect those of their neighbors. One engineer when asked about her concerns, said for domestic policy she supports Obama, but also appreciates McCain's position as many of the concerns in the past about security in Iraq have been quelled as it seems a lot safer now than in the past. Much debate surrounds the timetable for leaving Iraq, seeing Obama as better for the economy perhaps, but supporting McCain for security reasons, stated one Iraqi-American journalist in Washington DC.

On of the major issue for new Americans in the Iraqi community are the 2 million refugees which have left Iraq since 2003. A recent older gentleman who had come as a refugee to the US claimed that McCain would likely get support as no one wants a withdrawal right now, but another Iraqi translator which just arrived in the US as well was concerned about the lack of compassion for the Republican immigration policies, which have been seen as soft for the most part on immigration from Mexico and Central America, but have done little to help the 2 million refugees from Iraq.

In the end, the image of the US internally for many new Americans and historically outside the US has always been one of a land of freedom and opportunity. With recent troubles and 8 years of disastrous policies internationally, and as seen this week in the US financial markets, internally as well, any change will be a change for the better, and whoever inherits the seat of the Presidency will likely spend the first four years putting the US back to normalcy as opposed to having the glory of being the US President whop must work with nothing to achieve simple stability. The economy and Iraq, possibly not in that order, will be the issues dominating the next Presidency, with a few months of unsolved immigration debate somewhere in the middle for Obama or McCain.