By Letisia MarquezUCLA NewsroomJune 09, 2011 Nearly 4,400 students will take part this week in UCLA’s College of Letters and Science commencement ceremony. Students, their families and friends will be celebrating their academic accomplishments as they graduate from one of the nation’s most prestigious public universities. But for students Yannina Casillas and Imelda Plascencia, commencement […]

By Eirini VourloumisNew York TimesJanuary 7, 2011 AT the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center in Union City, N.J., there are Spanish-language classes on the Koran and an annual Latino Muslim Day. About 35 percent of the center’s congregation is Hispanic, and there are frequent conversions in which Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Cubans and others recite […]

By Cristina PinzonFox News LatinoNovember 06, 2011 Ruben Lambert was educated in Catholic schools and grew up as a faithful Roman Catholic. As he grew older, the first generation Cuban-American decided to adopt a religion more rooted in meditation and enlightenment. Now he follows the practices of Zen Buddhism and has assumed the name Venerable […]

By Josh DulaneyThe San Bernardino County SunNovember 3, 2011 On a warm Thursday morning outside the John M. Pfau Library at Cal State San Bernardino, 24-year-old psychology student Gina Cuellar waited for her study partner. Other young women passed by her, many wearing blue jeans and boots. Cuellar wasn’t hard to spot. A recent convert […]

By Eliana LópezLong Island WinsAugust 16, 2011 Before Ibrahim Abdel-Wahed Mohamed left Sea Cliff for a tour of duty with the Marines in Iraq, he was Anthony Grant Vance, the son of American and Panamanian parents who had raised him as a Catholic. Despite his Christian upbringing, though, he had been curious about Islam since […]

By Lara N. Dotson-RentaMuftahApril 11, 2011 In the nine years since the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, many Westerners have come to view Islam (in all of its modes and refractions) as a religion associated with violence and terrorism, and to speak of Muslims living in the West as a suspicious ‘other’. In the […]

By Anne HartAllvoices, IncSeptember 20, 2011 What is there about the religion of Islam that draws so many Sacramento and other California women to join the faith? What invites the women to follow the customs, rules, and laws and go through an official conversion? It’s not always marrying into a Muslim family. Many single women […]

By Yasmin EssaMBMuslima MagazineMarch/April 2010, pp. 62-67 My interview with Sr. Nylka Vargas, P.I.E.D.A.D National Coordinator. I would like to thank Sister Nancy from NJ for inspiring me to essentially include articles catered towards Latino Muslims and therefore reaching out to LADO for this interview. For those who don’t know, what is the LADO network?The […]

By Carmen CusidoNew Jersey Monthly MagazineFebruary 8, 2010 Why Latinos are drawn to Muslim beliefs, culture. At first, it was difficult for Damaris Tapanes to wake up before dawn to pray. She also missed eating mofongo, a dish made from fried green plantains and pork. But pre-dawn prayer and abstaining from pork are part of […]

By Justin CoxAmerican ObserverMarch 31, 2010 Just across the Hudson River from the Twin Towers, on the Stevens Institute of Technology campus where he studied engineering, he watched in clear view plumes of smoke billow from gaping openings where the planes just hit. All at once, he was overcome by the realization of life’s fragility. […]