By Irfan Shariff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Members of the Cham Refugees Community (CRC) are expected to celebrate a smaller-than-usual Eid Al-Fitr on Sunday, March 30, according to long-time board member Sahrudine Apdalhaliem, who came to Seattle in 1980 as a refugee from Vietnam.
“We usually host an event at the mosque, but this year it might be a little small,” he said. The reason is due to the current demolition for the groundbreaking of a new Cham Community Center (CCC) by summer.
Eid Al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and 30 days of fasting. The exact date of the holiday is dependent on the sighting of the moon. The Cham are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia that practice Islam. Following the upheaval of the Vietnam War, many Cham were displaced and settled in Seattle.
Sarafine Appadolo, an IT product manager by day, has served as the CRC president for just over a year. His father was the first president of CRC in the 1980s.
When his father came to Seattle by way of refugee networks, there was only one other Cham family in the area at the time.
“I want to say I’m one of the first American-born Cham,” said Appadolo.
Appadolo believes the building of a new center and mosque was expected to happen. It was just a matter of time.
Like many immigrant and refugee communities, the Cham “like to congregate,” said Appadolo. “Seattle is probably the largest hub in the nation with 5,000 in the community.”
Other large Cham communities are centered in Lacey and Olympia, Southern California, and Allentown, Pennsylvania.
The building site, on the 5900 block of 39th Avenue South in Rainier Valley, sits next to the existing center, which will remain operational until the completion of the project. CRC is located in the 98118 zip code—often noted as the most diverse area in Washington state.
“We’ve been diligently purchasing properties in the area over the years,” said Appadolo.
The $12 million project began in 2016 with an initial study and is expected to be completed by early 2027, said Apdalhaliem, who also serves as the project lead. The project is being funded through cash and grants.
“We can’t go to the bank for loans because of interest, so we gathered cash. This took a while,” he said. The taking or giving or interest is prohibited in Islam.
“We went back to the city four or five times,” he said, because of zoning issues. “We struggled because we didn’t know the rules.”
These are the types of struggles that Apdalhaliem and CRC hope to alleviate by building this new center.
“When we came, we didn’t have a place…we struggled because we came as low-income refugees. Very few of us were educated in English.”
“We also have an aging population that has a hard time getting services because of language and age limitations,” he said. Over the next 10 years, CRC hopes to develop 120 units of affordable housing that will include senior housing and health services.
He hopes the center can be a place for Cham, non-Cham Muslims and non-Muslims in the area to make use of its services, like language, youth, and healthcare programs. It will include an event hall and a mosque that can hold 400 worshippers.
“South Seattle doesn’t currently have accommodation for the large prayer hall that we want to build,” said Appadolo.
“We seek to provide spiritual enrichment and preserve our Islamic values and identity,” said Apdalhaliem. He also shared concerns about the challenges facing the Cham community, explaining, “Many Cham don’t know their roots very well… Our language is on the verge of disappearing.”
Apdalhaliem went on to highlight the community’s challenges, saying, “Our biggest struggle is financial. Hopefully construction prices don’t rise due to the tariffs. This could be an obstacle.”
With many challenges ahead, Apdalhaliem noted, “We have a lot of things on our plate. This is a turning point for the Cham community, not just in Seattle, but the U.S. and abroad.”
To learn more, visit chamrefugeescommunity.org.