Finding Home: Untold Stories of the Muslim Diaspora

Learn about the challenges of our Muslim brothers and sisters that are fleeing crises and conflicts around the globe. Our speakers will help us understand why these stories are overshadowed by other events or suppressed by media in the west. This Becoming Event will examine international conflicts that drive people from their homes, the legal systems many refugees face to enter the US, and real stories of resettlement in their new foreseeable homes.

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Spojmie Nasiri is principal attorney at the Law Office of Spojmie Nasiri, PC in Pleasanton, California. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Davis in 1998 and her Juris Doctorate from Golden Gate University, School of Law in 2003. Mrs. Nasiri is a member of the California State Bar and is admitted to practice before the California Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She is also an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and currently serves on AILA’s Afghan Taskforce. She has extensive experience representing clients with family-based Immigration matters before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, complex deportation matters before the Federal Immigration Court and U.S. Embassies around the world.

She served as President of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter from 2015 to 2018. She was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019 for her immigration related work in the community. Mrs. Nasiri is currently board member for the Afghan American Community Organization and board member of International Orphan Care. Mrs. Nasiri is fluent in Pashto and Dari.

Hatem Bazian is a co-founder and Professor of Islamic Law and Theology at Zaytuna College, the 1st Accredited Muslim Liberal Arts College in the United States. In addition, Prof. Bazian is a lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Bazian between 2002-2007, also served as an adjunct professor of law at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses on Islamic Law and Society, Islam in America: Communities and Institutions, De-Constructing Islamophobia and Othering of Islam, Religious Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. In addition to Berkeley, Prof. Bazian served as a visiting Professor in Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California 2001-2007 and adviser to the Religion, Politics and Globalization Center at UC Berkeley.

In Spring 2009, Prof. Bazian founded at Berkeley the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the Center for Race and Gender, a research unit dedicated to the systematic study of Othering Islam and Muslims. Prof. Bazian in Spring 2012 launched the Islamophobia Studies Journal, which is published bi-annually through a collaborative effort between the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project of the Center for Race and Gender at the University of California at Berkeley, the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative for the School of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University; the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding at the University of South Australia, and Zaytuna College. In addition to academic work, Dr, Bazian is a weekly columnist for the Turkish Daily Sabah Newspaper and Turkey Agenda online magazine. Dr. Bazian is founder and national Chair of American Muslims for Palestine, board member of the Islamic Scholarship Fund, Muslim Legal Fund of America, President of Dollar for Deen Charity, and Chair of Northern California Islamic Council.