Under the eaves of a storied community masjid, or mosque, residents in Yuba City are collecting relief aid for flood victims in Pakistan, after disastrous flooding has killed nearly 1,700 and displaced nearly 8 million.
The Pakistani diaspora in Yuba City has roots in a generation of farmers that immigrated to California more than a hundred years ago; first, second and third generation Pakistani Americans live and worship in the city, and many have friends and family affected by the floods.
Abdul Hameed is president of the Islamic Center of Yuba City, which is raising $20,000 for Pakistan’s flood victims on GoFundMe. He said he’s seen the community come together time and again to raise and send relief aid.
“You live in a community, you have to help people out in their need. You don’t look at their creed or color or religion,” he said. “As a human being, you help them. That’s what we do whenever there's a disaster.”
Hameed said the floods are reminiscent of the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and devastated Paradise and its surrounding communities in nearby Butte County. In the aftermath of the fire, he said the mosque raised enough money to rehouse three displaced families and pay their rent for a year.
But this time he said the disaster is affecting the mosque’s congregants personally.
“Everybody somehow, one way or the other, they have connections in Pakistan,” he said.
Like other members of the Pakistani diaspora, Hameed has been watching the disaster in his heritage country unfold through group chats and videos.
“They lost everything. I mean, everything just like we're standing here, the water came, just washed everything away,” Hameed said. “They don't even know where their house existed.”
Some community members are already sending money to family in Pakistan, Hameed said, while others are individually donating through the Pakistani government. Many in the wider community have also reached out to Hameed to ask whether the mosque was organizing something for Pakistan.
“I mean, everybody is helping, you know, doesn't matter what nationality or religion … wherever you are, they're all there to help,” Hameed said.
Mosque-goers say it’s not just the connection to their heritage that urges them to donate.
Abdul Rauf is a second generation Pakistani American. He was born in Yuba City, though growing up he visited Pakistan every one or two years. He said it doesn’t feel right watching a disaster unfold while in a position of privilege.
“We have every blessing and every luxury that we can afford and we can live with. So we should be able to help others in need,” Rauf said.
Muhammad Ateeq is also a part of the Pakistani diaspora. In early September, Ateeq was visiting from Great Britain to act as an imam at the mosque, where he led congregants in a prayer for victims in Pakistan and other calamities in the Middle East. He said the mosque’s charity for flood victims isn’t just motivated by a sense of Pakistani identity, but by a feeling of duty to others.
“More than a heritage, it’s a matter of humanity. So just as a matter of humanity, naturally, it has affected all as Muslims,” Ateeq said.
The mosque itself could also be seen as a testament to the community’s generosity. In the ‘90s, filmmaker David Washburn reports in a 2012 PBS documentary, Muslim community members gave nearly $2 million in small individual donations to build a place of worship. Sources interviewed by Washburn said farm laborers made up 99% of those donors. When an act of arson — which many mosque goers still believe was motivated by hate — burned the building down, the community raised money to rebuild.
It’s been 20 years since the new mosque was built. Since then, the community has rallied many times against hate and around disasters, but many of the mosque’s donors and builders now have their sights on the long catastrophe in Pakistan.
Recovery from the floods is a gargantuan task — Pakistan’s prime minister said the country will need trillions of rupees to rebuild.
“So we'll be doing this for a while. I guess it's not going to end … really soon,” Hameed said.
For the foreseeable future, Yuba City’s Pakistani diaspora will keep contributing to help flood victims recover.
