Paterson Marks Milestone with Election of First Arab-American Mayor

posted on: May 11, 2018

SOURCE: NORTH JERSEY

BY: HANNAN ADELY

Andre Sayegh, who was elected mayor of Paterson in a landslide on Tuesday, will be the first Arab-American to lead the city, which has had a thriving Middle Eastern immigrant community since the late 1800s, when Syrians came to work in the textile mills that lined the Passaic River.

Sayegh’s heritage — he was born to a Syrian mother and a Lebanese father — was not an issue in the campaign. He ran on a “One Paterson” platform, promising to unite the city while gaining support from a cross-section of groups that included black pastors, Peruvian community leaders and Hispanic officials.

“One thing we wanted to move away from in this election is that people would identify with one minority or group,” Sayegh, 44, said in an interview on Wednesday. “The ‘One Paterson’ theme prevailed yesterday. We won every ward.”

Still, his win inspired pride in New Jersey’s third-largest city, which is home to a wide range of ethnic groups but has never elected an Arab-American in its highest office. It also underscored the Arab-American community’s contributions in political, economic and cultural life in the United States and in North Jersey, where three current mayors have Syrian or Lebanese heritage.

Samer Khalaf, a Paramus resident and national president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Sayegh’s victory was “extremely meaningful” because of the Arab community’s long history in Paterson.

“Here you have an old Arab community that’s been around for over 100 years,” Khalaf said. “We never had a councilman until Andre won his first term. Now we have a mayor.”

Sayegh was born in Paterson and grew up in the Lakeview section of the city with friends who were Latino and African-American. A practicing Catholic, he attends St. Brendan’s Church, where he also serves on the board of trustees and is an usher at Mass.

He has served on the City Council since 2008, representing the 6th Ward. Before that, he served on the Paterson school board. His campaign focused on uniting the city’s diverse groups, reducing crime and promoting business.

He will be sworn in on July 1. He succeeds Jane Williams-Warren, the retired city clerk who was appointed to serve out the term of former Mayor Joey Torres. Torres was sentenced in November 2017to five years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit official misconduct.

On social media on Wednesday, some cheered the election of the city’s first Arab-American mayor. But around South Paterson, people said it was his efforts representing their community that mattered.

“He did a lot of good things for the community. He goes to people and talks to them all the time,” said Said Elatab, a Lebanese immigrant who has a painting studio in South Paterson. “I always see him in the street asking what their problem is, and if anybody wants help, he helps him. That’s why I like him. Not because he’s Arab.”

Sayegh got 8,125 votes, easily outdistancing the second-place finisher, Alex Mendez, who had 3,258, according to unofficial numbers released Tuesday night.

Sayegh speaks Arabic and enjoys eating Arabic foods such as hummus and baba ganoush. His upbringing, he said, gave him a deeper appreciation and understanding for different cultures.

“I think people just see me as a Patersonian,” he said. Some people, he added, “don’t even know I have Arab roots.”

Sayegh has two daughters, and his wife, Farhanna, is six months pregnant. He said he is thinking about naming the boy Abraham Kennedy Sayegh — Abraham in honor of both Abraham Lincoln and the Biblical figure. He said he likes that Abraham was a central figure is the Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths.

On Wednesday, as he picked up his daughter from preschool, a number of people who were at the school, walking by or driving past shouted out their congratulations. He knew their names, shook their hands and took photos with a few.

A couple of business owners said they didn’t live in the area but encouraged their customers to vote for him. They included Ahmad Sendawy, who said Sayegh routinely makes the rounds of businesses to check on their well-being.

“He’s active for the community,” Sendawy said. “It doesn’t matter your background or race. I support him because I know what he stands for.”

Oday Alton, 24, of Paterson said he was also glad to hear that an Arab-American had been elected. “He’s one of us. What better person to look after us?”

More than a century of history

Syrian and Lebanese immigrants stopped coming to the United States around 1924 due to changes in immigration policy that restricted their numbers, said Kayal, the Seton Hall professor. They resumed immigrating here after 1965, again due to changes in law. There has been another wave of immigration over the past 20 years, with Jordanians and Palestinians moving to Paterson, while Egyptians settled in other parts of the state. The more recent immigrants are largely Muslim.

Arab immigrants have followed a pattern similar to other groups, settling in urban areas and then fanning out into the suburbs as they reached the middle class and as second and third generations flourished and started their own families.

Other mayors of Syrian heritage include Mohamed Khairullah, the Democratic mayor of Prospect Park, who is Muslim; and Mike Ghassali, an Orthodox Christian who was a Republican before successfully running for mayor of Montvale as an independent. Randy George, the Republican mayor of North Haledon, who follows the Eastern Rite Catholic faith, is third-generation Lebanese on his father’s side.

Khalaf, of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, noted that Sayegh was able to win even though the city does not have a majority-Arab population.

“You had Latinos, you had other non-Arabs coming together to elect him,” Khalaf said.

Raed Odeh, a business owner in South Paterson, said Sayegh helped bring improvements to the area and he believes will do the same for the entire city. He was also “proud,” he said, to see the election of the first Arab-American mayor.

“He’s not a person who divides Paterson,” he said. “We believe this guy means business.”

Joe Malinconico of Paterson Press contributed to this article.