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Keith Brown: Are you an American first or a Muslim first? Or do you think it's even a fair question to ask?
Suna Aziz: Oh no, I would answer that. I am a Muslim first because that comes before anything. But that does not mean that I will not defend my country or that I'm not patriotic. I don't think that anybody would put their country before their Lord.
Keith Brown: I think most Christians would say the same thing. Probably answer it the same way. Probably a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to that. Why is it? You know your family's been here as long as anybody's family's been here. Your mother was born here. You were born here.
Suna Aziz: My grandmother came here in the 1920s.
Keith Williams: So for me to even ask you that question -- to question your patriotism and your sense of belonging here in America. What do you think of that?
Suna Aziz: Well, my grandmother's picture is hanging up in the Statue of Liberty. When you question my patriotism . . . I choose to live in here in America. When I did one of my tours during one of our open houses [of the Cleveland Islamic Center], one woman asked me, she said, "if there was peace in Palestine would you move back to Palestine?"
I told her, "I'm an American. I would love to visit Palestine and I would love to be free to go there when I choose to go there. But I'm an American. I choose to live here in America."
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