AlterNet.com – Sarah Klein – Detroit Metro Times
Christiano Ayoub Ramazzotti, 31, is a small man with big aspirations. The full-time HIV counselor and former high school gymnastics coach zips through the bar, hugging friends, shaking hands, making introductions.
Bashar Makhay, 21, mans the DJ booth; as cultures collide and mesh, so does the music — traditional Arabic rhythms are layered over staccato electronic beats common in dance clubs.
Sebastian, 39, has just finished applying makeup to Haifa, an Arabic female impersonator who’ll be performing later tonight. Despite the darkened environ, Haifa sports rockstar shades on the tip of her nose. A sparkling rhinestone charm dangles and winks from her pierced navel as she works the room.
There’s frolic and celebration in the air tonight, but the levity belies the challenges and difficult choices many of these people must face on a daily basis.
As immigrants, they must cope with melding two nationalities; as Arabs, they must deal with unbridled, post-9/11 racism in this country; and as gays, they must deal with jokes, harassment, discrimination, and sometimes, the threat of being attacked and beaten — even by their own families.