Hanan Elkamah. Lucy Gellman Photos.
The reedy, propulsive sound of mijwiz and drums rolled across Wilbur Cross High School’s gymnasium, loud enough that it seemed to come from every direction. In the center of the room, junior Aydin Gasimov extended his hand to two classmates and began to step to the side, his feet leading the way. Beside him, Adam Sharqawe and Mohamad Orabi waited for their cue, and then came in.
On the sidelines, sophomore Justin Romero watched in a near-trance, determined to learn the dabke before heading to his next class.
Friday morning and afternoon, students brought a culture of peer-to-peer learning to Wilbur Cross, as its fourth annual Arabic Festival unfolded in the school’s warm gymnasium. From Levantine folk dance to tutorials on how to wear a hijab, the festival is meant to teach attendees about the depth and complexity of the Arab world—and push back against some of the harmful stereotypes and Islamophobia that still exist for some students in the district.
This year, it comes at a time when New Haven’s Arabic language programs are growing: a total of eight middle and high schools now offer the language, and many also host their own festivals each year. At Cross, there are now between 150 and 160 students taking the language, with a second full-time Arabic teacher who arrived this year.
Top: Students Adam Sharqawe, Aydin Gasimov and Mohamad Orabi. Bottom: Sophomore Anahy Nopal, at right, said she wanted to present mosaic-making for a second year in a row because she enjoys hands-on activities. This is her third year studying Arabic, which she started at FAME in Fair Haven.
“It’s part of me now,” said festival organizer Hanan Elkamah, who has taught Arabic at Cross since 2018. “It’s like one of my children. I think this festival is a great way to represent the Arab countries and show our similarities, rather than our differences. A lot of times, the Arab world is misunderstood—this is a great way to learn.”
Around her, students fanned out across the gym, making their way to educational stations on language development, public art, Middle Eastern food and regional history. At one, sophomore Anahy Nopal introduced her peers to mosaics, with an example that students had constructed in blue and green tile. At another, Orabi matched English, Spanish, and Arabic words, a throwback to Moorish Spain that has become a signature part of the festival.
On a rolling display, the words cotton, spinach, lemon, and zero peeked out on sunshine-yellow flashcards, translations reprinted in Arabic and Spanish on additional color-coded cards. Every few minutes, a new crop of students drifted over to the table, placing more words on the display.
Students from Benjamin Jepson Magnet School joined this year for a dance.
For Orabi, who came to the U.S. from Syria in 2016, the festival is a chance to dispel harmful misconceptions about the Arab world. Often, he said, peers “see one bad thing happen” in the region, and assume that it’s a way of life. Instead, he wants them to understand that “there’s a lot of beauty in the Arab world” — and that people there don't want to live amidst violence any more than native New Haveners do.
“It feels good to show our traditions to the world,” he said. He still has family in Damascus, and wishes that people knew more about the city’s long and deep history, instead of the devastation that has followed years of Civil War.
He held onto that later in the day, as he joined classmates in the dabke for the first time. He called the dance, a Palestinian tradition that UNESCO has designated as “Intangible Cultural Heritage,” his way of expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
“Me experiencing something similar as a child has brought me the courage to stand up for them,” he said. “No one should have to go through that.”
Toward the back of the gym, sophomore Dewa Qasemi took a turn at a table set with ritual items, from handheld lanterns with gold filigree to verses from the Quran set in large, swooping script against metal. At the front of the table, an ornate candle holder rose toward the ceiling. An array of gold and white balloons beckoned from behind it, turning it into a celebration.
This year, she explained, several students put together informational booths on Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr with the hope of teaching their classmates about the holidays. For years, the New Haven Public Schools have recognized Eid—but non-Muslim students often spend it as another day off. The display was meant to give them a better sense of why schools close on the holiday, just as they do on Christmas and Yom Kippur.
“They can learn how we celebrate it,” said Qasemi, who came to New Haven with her family from Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021. After leaving Afghanistan, she and her family were in Pakistan for several months before coming to the U.S.
Top: Fatima Nouchkioui and Abir Zenait. Bottom: Janae Nelson returns with belly dance for a second year in a row.
Arm-in-arm they made their way through the space, teachers Fatima Nouchkioui and Abir Zenait marveled at how much the language has caught on in the past several years. When Nouchkioui arrived at Metropolitan Business Academy in 2008, she made history as the first Arabic teacher in the district.
While teaching Arabic wasn’t originally part of her plan—Nouchkioui was originally inspired by a French teacher she had as a kid in Morocco—she stayed with it for over a decade. She now teaches English as a Second Language at Cross. At Wilbur Cross, there are 565 new ESL students—"let’s call them newcomers,” Nouchkioui said—from countries that range from Afghanistan to Guatemala.
Zenait, who arrived at Engineering & Science University Magnet School the following year, praised the work Elkamah has done on the festival. When she was new to ESUMS, Zenait planned several school-wide festivals, applying for grants when the district did not have funding to allocate to the event. Being at Friday’s festival “reminds me of the first time I was planning everything from scratch,” she said with a laugh.
Top: Former Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven Miriam Magalis Cruz performs a belly dance. As a proud Puerto Rican, she said, it's important to her to bring awareness to other cultures, especially those her peers may know less about. Bottom: A hijab station.
Around them, the festival’s cross-cultural footprint was growing. Along one side of the gym, over a dozen posters beckoned with architectural wonders from the Arab world, from the millennia-old Kaaba in Saudi Arabia to the contemporary Burj Khalifa in Dubai. At the center of the floor, senior Janae Nelson listened for her cue, and then launched into a belly dance that she learned last year, and has held onto since.
Across the gym at a hijab station, a student (she asked not to be identified or photographed) listened intently as peers peppered her with questions, from why a classmate might wear a hijab or a niqab (“It’s up to them!” she said with a polite smile) to her own choice to cover her head. Growing up in Afghanistan, she started wearing a hijab when she was just six or seven. She’s now 17, and has found that it’s become a part of her.
At Cross, she said, most students are very respectful—but don’t specifically understand why she covers her head, or believe that it’s her choice to do so. She’s there to set the record straight, she said. For her, it has always felt like a matter of choice. She feels holier when she does it.
“It’s important that they [people] know that we are not forced to wear them, it’s up to us,” she said. “I love it. It means I’m all covered up. When I don’t wear it, I don’t feel myself.”
Jade Morris: "I just thought Arabic and Arabic culture was amazing and fun."
As students from other schools cycled past—the visits are now a signature part of the festival—she chatted with Jade Morris, a sixth grader at Celentano Biotech, Health and Medical Magnet School who is taking Arabic for the first time this year. When it was time for Morris to choose a language, she gravitated towards Arabic because of how different it seemed.
“I just thought Arabic and Arabic culture was amazing and fun,” she said, noting how diverse Celentano is. “I enjoy it, because I get to learn new things.” As if on cue, she held up an intricate henna design that snaked along her arm, with a dainty heart placed like a punctuation mark.
“They’re very beautiful,” she added of the headscarves on the table, folded in heaps of multicolored, patterned chiffon. As she studied them, music swelled around the room, dancers preparing for their moment in the spotlight. In time with the sound, students Adam Sharqawe, Aydin Gasimov and Mohamad Orabi began to move, clasping hands as they began to cross their feet, then accelerate with the music.
Justin Romero.
On one side of the gym, sophomore Justin Romero stopped what he was doing to watch. For close to two minutes, maybe three, he stood there, carefully studying each move. Then he slipped off his backpack and jogged to join the three. Without hesitation, Sharqawe extended a hand, and welcomed him into the group. None of them, it seemed, missed a beat.
Afterwards, Romero beamed. “I feel like it’s important because you gotta understand different cultures,” he said. At home, members of his family have taught him to embrace his own Dominican culture, particularly through dance and food. Somewhere between learning to bachata and learning to cook, he said, he understood what it meant to share one’s heritage with others.
“It’s a great way to start a conversation,” he said.