Kurds welcome Nashville Mayor’s Kurdish face mask gesture

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The mayor of Nashville, John Cooper, wore a Kurdistan flag face mask as he opened his daily televised press briefing about the coronavirus on Tuesday, earning praise from the Kurdish community in the United States.

“Mayor Cooper made many of the citizens of Nashville happy with this gesture, especially the Kurdish Americans who live there. I’d like to thank him, the city of Nashville, and State of Tennessee for embracing their Kurdish-American citizens,” Bayan Sami Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Representative to the United States, told Kurdistan 24 on Wednesday.

“It’s also a testament to the growth and advancement of the Kurdish community there that not just the mayor, but many institutions and political figures including members of congress, appreciate their role as law-abiding, caring, and conscientious citizens.”

Nashville has been home to North America’s largest Kurdish constituency since the mid-1970s, having immigrated there after the collapse of the 1974 Kurdish uprising against the former Iraqi regime.

It now boasts an estimated 18,000 Kurdish residents, a fact that has earned it the nickname “Little Kurdistan.”

The government website of Nashville has recently provided information on its COVID-19 response in the Kurdish language. Another page of the site read, “Nashville is the proud home of the nation’s largest Kurdish population, as well as growing enclaves of immigrants from Somalia, Burma, and all over the world.”

Tuesday was not the first time a Kurdish flag has been displayed in the city.

On October 14, both Nashville’s city hall and a major downtown bridge were lit up in colors of the Kurdish flag in solidarity with ethnic Kurds in Syria when the US pulled troops from Syria amid a Turkish invasion, reported the Associated Press.

The move led to protest by Nashville’s Kurdish community seeing it as a betrayal of America’s Syrian Kurdish allies.

Later in October, however, President Donald Trump announced the US would keep forces in Syria and separate ceasefire deals brokered by the US and or Russia stopped further fighting, for the most part.

Rahman, the KRG representative, added that the “city’s embrace of the community and the community’s own response, especially the young generation who are creating their own groups and associations, is a positive statement about America’s diversity.”

Dilman Yasin , a 33-year-old member of the Nashville Kurdish community, told Kurdistan 24 that many city’s Kurds welcomed “this recognition of our community.” 

“I did not expect it, but I am also not surprised that he (Cooper) would make an effort to bring more awareness to safety measures such as wearing masks to micro communities,” she added.

“When a local government is inclusive to a minority group, it shows that we are being recognized and the needs of our community are being acknowledged.”

The Tennessee Department of Health on Wednesday confirmed the state has a total of 13,938 coronavirus cases, including 239 fatalities So far, 33 in Nashville alone have died as a result of catching the highly-contagious virus.

Yasin pointed out that several Kurdish families in Nashville have been directly impacted by the coronavirus, including many Kurdish-owned small businesses and gig economy workers whose livings depend on groups of people gathering or using transportation that has been restricted for weeks as a result of curfews and other such measures. 

“It is a serious threat to our community because many Kurds work in front line jobs that could potentially expose them,” she said, adding, “Our local health department is currently looking for Community Health Workers to support individuals… and to stop the spread in immigrant communities.”

Akhink Omer, a 31-year-old Kurdish-American nurse who is a resident of Nashville, was infected by the virus in March but recovered. She is working now in the COVID-19 only hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Read More: Kurdish-American nurse who caught coronavirus warns public to stay home 

“I think it’s great that the mayor of Nashville wore a Kurdish face mask,” she told Kurdistan 24. 

“It’s always a good feeling when you feel like your leadership sees your community and recognizes the impact you have on the city.”

Editing by John J. Catherine