There’s a common misconception about Ramadan in the U.S. that Muslims started arriving in the U.S. in the late 1960s as immigration was reformed. Therefore, Muslims and Ramadan are only recent additions to the American fabric. This story couldn’t be further from the truth.

Historians know that Muslims were among the earliest arrivals from Europe and North Africa in the mid-1500s. “One of these explorers, Mustafa Zemmouri (also known as Estevanico), was sold by the Portuguese into slavery in 1522. While enslaved by Spanish conquistador Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, Estevanico became one of the first Africans to set foot on the North American continent. He explored Florida and the Gulf Coast, eventually traveling as far west as New Mexico.”

It wasn’t just Zemmouri who was in the Americas. Nearly a ⅓ of enslaved peoples were Muslim, along with Yoruba and adherents of other religious and spiritual traditions forcibly brought to North America.

Historical accounts of Muslims building communities here from the 1500s make it easy to say that Ramadan has been practiced here for nearly 500 years. Furthermore, given the multiple religious and indigenous identities of free and enslaved peoples in the Americas in the 1500s, those iftars and suhoor likely included people from various religious communities.

This typical American myth isn’t relegated to history. It is happening right now. Anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish, and anti-Muslim narratives and discrimination are rising.

America is a potluck nation where it may all come together. The hope for America outside of the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence is often best captured and realized in the fantastic songs of its great folk singers, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. It is a dream, a hope, a possibility. 

Guthrie wrote his famous “This Land Was Made for You and Me” to respond to the anguish felt by the downtrodden, whom Irving Berlin called the “real people.” Guthrie writes “I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.” What a fantastic reality, what an excellent reflection! Reflecting on the song, Springsteen said, “that this song…gets right to the heart to the promise of what our country was supposed to be “…” it is easy to let the best version of yourself slip away.”

Nonetheless, there is the best version of America, a hope and a dream. We have yet to always live up to this dream but keep working towards it together.

Dr. King wrote, “This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited … a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together — black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu … Because we can never again live apart, we must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”

We pray that these interfaith Ramadan iftars will become a part of this hope and vision. For breakfast together, we will share a vision and hope for a common humanity, that there is something that someone else must teach us. We will not address all our challenges, differences, and injustices in one meal together. Still, we will deepen our relationships and trust to tackle hard conversations and share our joy when we overcome challenges. We pray people will keep coming together and knocking at each other’s door, especially when it gets complicated.   

For these reasons, we must be purposeful in sharing our experiences, both contemporary and historical, of our multifaith, multicultural potluck tables where everyone is treated with dignity and respect to reclaim and honor the people who have gone before us and the next generations.

In this effort, we’re beginning a Ramadan story campaign. The campaign aims to share interfaith experiences during Ramadan to help tell the true American story. It is a story where people share food with their neighbors, invite Jewish, Agnostic, and Buddhist friends to iftars, where Christians (and others) contribute funds to provide dates, and stories where joy and grief are shared between new and old friends.