Upstairs at the Stonewall Inn for the monthly roaming party, he pushes through a thicket of men and hits the makeshift dance floor, where he and an Egyptian friend break into freestyle belly dancing. A gay Muslim Moroccan, Sami loves Arabic pop music but rarely gets to dance to it. But Sami like most of the people in this article, he requested that his real name be withheld does go dancing often. Yes, they arrive from diverse—and sometimes harrowing—backgrounds. Immigrants were terrified to attend their first GLAS meetings, lest someone see them and tell their family. Even today, Arab families—the primary, all-important social unit—place immense pressure on their children to marry.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut rhoncus risus mauris, et commodo lectus hendrerit ac. It welcomes all ethnicities not just Middle Easterners. The big success resulted in a worldwide exposure that caught the attention of local NY media. Habibi is perhaps the only opportunity in New York for gay people of Middle Eastern descent to interact openly in an organized setting.
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Around midnight, upstairs in a small club on Avenue of the Americas, the pitch-black dance floor resounded with the rapid stomps and warbling, high-energy cries of the dabke, an Arab folk dance performed at weddings and other celebrations. When the strobe lights flashed, they revealed a sea of raised hands. A man in the crowd removed his kaffiyeh, the traditional headdress worn by some Arab and Kurdish men, and whipped it around in the air. Dirty Arabic.
It would be ludicrous to think otherwise. But actions speak louder than words. I tried to make the marriage work but we were at two different emotional places in our lifes.