Arab Americans honored by Treasurer Pappas as part of program recognizing all ethnic groups
By Ray Hanania
Chicago, IL — Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, honored a dozen Arab Americans for their leadership and positive contributions to the community as a part of an overall commitment on her part to recognize and service all ethnic groups in the county.
In an unprecedented and unique government commitment to community needs, Pappas has translated the Treasurer’s Office services and website into 108 languages to ensure every citizen is able to access her office and get the information they need to maximize their benefits.
Elected Treasurer in 1998 after serving as a County Commissioner since 1990, Pappas is one of the highest vote-getters in Cook County and by proportion in the State of Illinois. She is also one of the most recognized and celebrated Greek American officials in the country.
In welcoming the 150 guests to a celebration in her Cook County Treasurer’s office foyer at 118 N. Clark Street, Pappas acknowledged the “troubled times” that all communities are experiencing noting the need to work together for the benefit of all taxpayers.
“Today is about our ancestors. Think about your great great grandparents who toiled the soil, who worked with their hands, who did everything that they could to educate the next generation, who went on and created great businesses, became CEOs, became CIOs, became doctors, became lawyers. I mean, think about that. Who are we honoring today?” Pappas told the gathering.
“We are honoring the dead. We are honoring those who’ve fallen asleep before us. And I know, having traveled throughout the community, that there is a magnificent attempt to impart this culture, this philosophy and this religion to the next generation, to your children, to your great grandchildren, and to their great grandchildren. That’s what America is about. America is not about fighting and divisiveness and hatred,” Pappas said.
“What we are about is kindness and building a community that has done so much, so much for this country. So to that end, today we are unveiling an Arab American brochure. We are also unveiling an Arab American video. It is important to us because as a side note, we’re sitting on $158 million worth of refund money, which we know. We know, having gone to mosques and worked in outreach that there’s millions of dollars in the community that we’re trying to return out of respect.”
The event was co-hosted by Nada Draz, the Consul General of Egypt in Chicago.
Arab community leaders recognized at the event are:
- Mohammed Jaber, Board of Education member at Orland Park-based Consolidated High School District 230 and candidate for Orland Park Village Trustee in the 2025 election;
- Saffiya Shillo, DEI expert with Diversity Training & Consulting, Inc.
- The late Nemer Ziyad of Ziyad Brothers Importing, who died Sept. 13, in a special memorial recognition;
- Mustafa Abdul-Maboud, building operations and in-kind manager for the Reva and David Logan Foundation;
- Noted hydropower expert Dr. Refaat A. Abdel-Malek, chairman emeritus of MWH Global, Inc.;
- Samir Khalil, founder of the Arab American Democracy Coalition at www.ArabDemocraticClub.com;
- Abir Othman, principal of Andrew High School in Orland Park;
- Dr. Muhammad S. Eissa, a noted Arab language and literature author, lecturer and scholar;
- Taha Elghawaby, certified public accountant;
- Dr. Samir Hanna, owner, CEO and director of physical therapy for Marina Rehabilitation in Rochester, Michigan;
- Nabil Refai, cofounder and vice president of Naperville-based Diversified Services Network, Inc.;
- Ahmed Mohammad Saleh, president of A&S Construction;
- Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Alexander-Basta
“The great thing about what we do is that we can have an event like this today that honors the legacy of the entire Arab community. This is a community that has contributed greatly to this city, this state, this county, this country. And if you look at the program that we have assembled today, these are major leaders in the community,” Pappas said.
“They identify themselves as immigrants who came here and built a nation that we all hope to live in in some state of peace, in some state of sanity. You know, I was reading through this program this morning, and I was astounded. I was astounded because, you know, in the work that I do, I always don’t get to meet everybody. But what a pleasure that I’m surrounded with this greatness today. And part of the greatness is their ancestors and what they went through to come here and what they did to help build this.”
Jaber, who is building a coalition to change the politics of the Southwest Chicago suburb of Orland Park, praised Pappas and the diversity of her staff and her commitment to help every community regardless of race, religion or ethnic origin.
“This is a great honor to be recognized by a government public servant who has done so much not just for Arab Americans but for every ethnic group in Cook County and in Illinois,” said Jaber, who is a trustee candidate in Orland Park on the Feb. 25, 2025 primary election ballot.
“She symbolizes what every elected official should strive to achieve and be as a public servant. Recognition from Maria Pappas is a great honor.”
During the past four years, Pappas has organized tax refund workshops to help property tax owners recover overpayments and missed deductions. In addition to helping the county taxpayers to recover lost property tax overpayments, she has worked with individual ethnic communities including African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Arab Americans.
She has one of the most diverse staffs of any other elected official.
When Pappas became Cook County Treasurer, the office was a low-key operation indifferent to progress, maybe even hostile, according to Pappas’ website. Nobody paid it much mind. Its 250 employees used letter openers to open envelopes to record by hand the checks taxpayers mailed in.
Pappas immediately realized that the office was extremely inefficient, in large part because it had failed to adopt modern technology. She instantly embraced the technology and automation that would bring the office into the 21st century.
Today, it has 59 employees who work in what may be the most technologically sophisticated office in any Illinois government, and a Treasurer recognized in many corners of the world for the efficiency and economy with which she runs her shop.
The granddaughter of Cretan immigrants, Pappas was born on June 7, 1949. She was raised in Warwood, West Virginia, a town of 2,000 near the coal-mining city of Wheeling. As a child, she studied the Greek language and music of all kinds. She played the electronic pipe organ, directed the choir and traveled around the country with the all-state band as bass clarinetist. As a drum majorette, she won nine gold medals in baton-twirling competitions.
Education is her life-long passion. Pappas earned a degree in Sociology from West Liberty State College (now University), in West Liberty, West Virginia, in 1970; a degree in Guidance and Counseling from West Virginia University in Morgantown in 1972; a doctorate in Counseling and Psychology from Loyola University of Chicago in 1976; and a law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1982.
The event featured an unveiling of an Arabic language brochure, which is almost unheard off in Cook County and Illinois government, the brochures in dozens of other languages detailing her office services.
Guests were treated to Middle East entertainment and Middle Eastern food provided by ZmZmSweets, Reef Kabob, and Melt-n-Dip of Bridgeview, and Al Hamawi restaurant or Orland Park, along with donations from A&S Construction and Pharmacy One.
For more information visit www.cookcountytreasurer.com
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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