Decades after bomb attack, Arab American advocacy group opens new Anaheim office
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Helena Odeh still holds fond memories of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s first office in Santa Ana as a young girl before tragedy struck.
Her father, Alex Odeh, served as the nascent civil rights group’s West Coast regional director during the early 1980s and took her to work with him a few times.
“He loved Triscuits,” she recalled. “Those were his favorite crackers. He would always give me Triscuits when we were there.”
But the office on 17th Street became a crime scene on the morning of Oct. 11, 1985.
A rigged pipe bomb exploded when Odeh, a prominent Palestinian American activist, opened the door to the office that fateful day. The blast claimed his life at 41.
Recent reporting about the 1985 bombing in Santa Ana that killed the Palestinian American activist has prompted a Democratic senator to demand an update.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force descended on the scene by helicopter soon after, discussed the names of known Jewish extremists with Santa Ana police, but the bombing remains unsolved to this day.
Nearly 40 years later, a measure of resolve for the ADC arrived in Anaheim on Wednesday evening when the organization celebrated the opening of its first Southern California office since the attack.
“The objective of the bombing was to keep us out of existence in Orange County and everywhere else,” said Abed Ayoub, ADC’s national executive director. “But the opposite is happening. We’re continuing to grow.”
Arab American activists, community leaders and Odeh family members gathered for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which marked a culmination of a longtime goal for the ADC’s trio of chapters in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.
A new office in Anaheim not only serves as a central hub for the organization’s regional chapters, but also joins the civic and cultural heart of the city’s Little Arabia. The ADC teamed with other community groups in successfully advocating for its official designation.
The ADC, which counts nearly 130,000 members nationwide, has maintained an active presence in Southern California throughout the decades and hosts annual banquet fundraisers in O.C. every October to honor Odeh’s legacy.
Its members hope the office opens the door to even more organizing possibilities as a legal clinic and community resource.
Dr. Souhail Toubia, an ADC-OC board member, mentioned the group is continuing its historic mission of correcting stereotypes about Middle Eastern communities while looking toward new issues to tackle.
“We’re working on business certification changes where Arab Americans are not considered, at this time, as disadvantaged minorities,” said Dr. Souhail Toubia, an ADC-OC board member. “They are considered white. We’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to benefit from major contracts at the state and federal level.”
The Anaheim City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the MENA Inclusion Act.
A team of part-time paralegals and volunteers power the office for now.
As part of its plans for the future, the ADC hopes to add full-time attorneys and staff members to help carry out economic empowerment opportunities and pro bono legal services for hate crime and discrimination cases.
“The office is going to be an open door to the community to meet its needs,” Ayoub said. “It’s a demand that we’ve heard. We are working with other groups to provide the services that aren’t available yet to the community out here.”
As the 40th anniversary of Odeh’s murder nears in October, the ADC continues to push the U.S. Attorney’s Office to make the case a priority.
For Helena, who is also an ADC-OC board member, the Santa Ana building that once housed her father’s old office is traumatic reminder of the cold case. In Anaheim, though, she imagines new possibilities, ones that ensure her father’s legacy of activism on behalf of Arab Americans continues.
“He would be so excited to know that there would be another office,” Helena said. “This would be a great day for him.”
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