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NASHVILLE - Six
miles south of the Country Music Hall of Fame - home
to artifacts like Naomi Judd's wringer washing
machine and the cornfield from TV's Hee Haw -
there's a strip mall that shows a newer Nashville.
Its tenants represent a world atlas of ethnic
groups: an Indian and Pakistani grocery, a Mexican
butcher, a Nigerian restaurant, a Chinese market.
Next door is practically a small Iraqi village: a
warehouse turned Muslim mosque and two grocery
stores, one run by an Iraqi Kurd, the other by an
Iraqi Arab. On Fridays, after afternoon prayers, as
many as 600 people mingle within a tiny block.
"I moved here from Arizona to open a business
because I knew there were a lot of Kurds," said Nick
Aref, 27, who fled Kurdish northern Iraq eight years
ago and owns a bakery next to the mosque.
Indeed, "Music City" is better known in this part of
town as Little Kurdistan, home to the nation's
largest Kurdish population, estimated at about
7,000.
Much of the country expressed surprise when
Nashville became one of five U.S. cities chosen to
hold balloting for this weekend's Iraqi elections.
(The others: Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and
Detroit, which has the nation's largest Iraqi Arab
population.) Kurds here not only are largely
thriving, but their presence is something longtime
locals eagerly point to as a sign of the town's
latest coming of age.
"It's a source of pride for a lot of Nashvillians,"
said Meryl Taylor, manager of the Metro Services
Refugee Program. "You hear it all the time: 'We have
the largest Kurdish population in the country.' It's
funny how they recognize that. It's almost like a
sports team."
"They have changed Nashville," said Holly Johnson,
director of refugee and immigration services at
Catholic Charities of Tennessee, which resettles
foreign newcomers.
The Kurds' initial arrival in Nashville in the 1970s
was a kind of happy accident. Many in that first
wave were processed at Fort Campbell, an Army base
just over the Kentucky line, about 40 miles north.
Proximity and a booming economy led a lot of those
Kurds to Nashville.
Nashville was viewed as a manageable, relatively
affordable place to live, full of entry-level jobs
for people who didn't speak much English. Kurds also
felt comfortable in a climate and surrounding
hilliness that came close to replicating their
homeland.
The city's Bible Belt character also was appreciated
by Kurdish Muslims. They found the traditional
family values lifestyle of the city's Christian
congregations compatible with their own
conservative, family-centric way of life.
"Being a religious city, it feels safer if you're in
a place that matches your own values," said Tahir
Hussain, president of the Nashville Kurdish Forum.
"The core values of the three main religions here -
Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are the same. The
culture values the family."
There have been two more waves of Kurdish arrivals:
in the late '80s and early '90s, after Saddam
Hussein gassed the Kurds; and in 1997, when Saddam
targeted Kurds working for non-profit agencies
affiliated with the United States, threatening to
execute them.
The United States resettled them in Nashville.
Others have since moved here from other states to be
with relatives or to be in a city where so many
share their culture.
In general, Kurds here have adapted to the American
mainstream while maintaining their cultural
traditions.
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