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Who is Aber Kawa?
Executive summary
Aber Kawas is a Palestinian‑American community organizer and activist based in New York City who has worked with Arab and Muslim communities since about 2010 and has held leadership roles at groups including the Arab American Association of New York; she studied Latin American Studies at CUNY City College, graduating in 2014 [1] [2] [3]. Reporting and profiles note her personal background — including that her father was deported when she was a teen — and her work on sanctuary‑city and immigrant‑rights campaigns in New York [4] [1].
1. Who Aber Kawas is — organizer, advocate, and storyteller
Aber Kawas is identified across multiple profiles as a Palestinian‑American community organizer from Brooklyn who has worked with Arab and Muslim communities in New York since roughly 2010 [1] [2]. She has been described as a former advocacy director at the Arab American Association of New York and as the Youth Lead Organizer there in other accounts, signaling staff and leadership roles focused on youth, immigrant rights and community advocacy [1] [2].
2. Education and formative experiences that shaped her activism
Profiles state that Kawas studied Latin American Studies at the City College of New York (CUNY) and graduated in 2014 from that program with a concentration in International/Latin American studies; those academic credentials are repeatedly cited in public biographies [3] [1]. Several pieces of reporting also emphasize a formative personal history: they note that her father was deported when she was 16 — an experience foregrounded in storytelling about her turn to organizing around immigration and sanctuary issues [4].
3. Areas of focus: immigrant rights, sanctuary policy, policing and Muslim/Arab communities
The reporting links Kawas to campaigns around sanctuary‑city initiatives and immigrant protections in New York, and lists a broader interest in police‑brutality and immigrant‑rights work [4] [1]. She is presented not as a single‑issue activist but as someone working at the intersection of Arab and Muslim community advocacy, youth engagement and larger civic campaigns in the city [2].
4. Media and organizational visibility — where she appears in the record
Kawas is profiled by community outlets and advocacy organizations: she appears in a photographic/essay project about American Muslims, is the subject of a Field of Vision feature on Muslim American civic life, and is listed on organizational pages such as the Muslim American Leadership Alliance and CUNY‑affiliated CLEAR project pages [4] [1] [5]. The Asian American Writers’ Workshop credits her with organizing experience and lists her as an author/contributor, showing engagement with public writing and cultural projects tied to her organizing work [2].
5. What the available sources do not say
Available sources do not provide a comprehensive résumé, no detailed list of all positions held, and no timeline of every campaign she’s run; they also do not include personal contact information, electoral history, or exhaustive descriptions of policy wins or setbacks tied specifically to her leadership (not found in current reporting). Sources also do not attempt to measure the direct impact of her work with quantitative metrics in the public record cited here (not found in current reporting).
6. Competing perspectives and potential agendas in coverage
Profiles emphasizing Kawas’s Palestinian identity and deportation family history frame her as an organizer whose work is rooted in personal experience; advocacy‑oriented outlets naturally highlight her leadership within Arab/Muslim civic spaces [1] [4]. Community and advocacy outlets have an implicit agenda of elevating organizers; they foreground solidarity, human‑interest narratives and movement successes. Neutral event or academic listings (CUNY, Facing Race) simply note credentials and roles without advocacy framing [3] [5]. Readers should note that community profiles may emphasize her contributions and personal story, while institutional listings focus on affiliations and education.
7. How to follow up if you want more detail
To learn more about specific campaigns, policy accomplishments, or current role and contact information, consult the websites of organizations mentioned (Arab American Association of New York, CUNY CLEAR, Muslim American Leadership Alliance) or look for recent reporting that profiles New York sanctuary and immigrant‑rights campaigns where Kawas’s name appears; the sources cited here point to those organizational pages and features for further leads [1] [5] [4].
Summary: available reporting consistently identifies Aber Kawas as a Brooklyn‑based, Palestinian‑American community organizer and advocate with CUNY training who has worked in Arab and Muslim community organizing since about 2010 and has been involved in sanctuary and immigration‑related campaigns [2] [3] [4].