I was talking to a co-worker today who is from Iraq. When I first started working at the store, I noticed so many of the associates had their name on their apron in both English AND Arabic. So I asked who was writing it and they told me this guy who works in Lumber and Building Materials.
He greets me with the Lebanese phrase for "how are you?", "kifik?" which impressed me, because knowing classic Arabic is one thing, his own dialect of Iraq is another, and then to remember the dialects from the other Arabic-speaking countries is quite another.
He told me about some of his difficulties with prejudice because of where he is from and that he is muslim and living in a post 9/11 world. It made the fact that so many of the associates wanted their names spelled in Arabic all the more impressive and a sign of solidarity against any bias from the ignorant.
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