By Daniel Massey
When community activist Morshed Alam shocked political observers by grabbing more than 41 percent of the vote in his 1988 attempt to unseat state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose), he did so without support from the Queens County Democratic Organization.
Just three years later, in an indication of how powerful the immigrant voice has become in Queens politics, the 44-year old who came to the United States from Bangladesh in 1984 has been embraced by county party leaders.
“Times are changing,” said Alam. “When I was running for state Senate, nobody talked to me. Now they’re lining up behind me.”
Due largely to the influx of immigrants, census figures show Queens’ population increased by more than 277,000 in the last 10 years. Latest city statistics indicate that more than a third of Queens’ population is foreign born.
In this year’s city council races, immigrant politicians are running in unprecedented numbers, especially in Queens.
Acknowledging the “constant growing number of new immigrants, new citizens and new Democrats” in Queens, Tom Manton, chairman of the Queens County Democratic Organization, recently appointed Alam as chairman of the first-ever New Americans Committee of the Democratic Party of Queens County.
Alam is a veteran activist. As a third grader in Bangladesh, he ran for class office. In high school, he eluded army soldiers to deliver food to independence fighters. And as a student at Dhaka University, where he earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in science, he endured beatings while fighting for Bangladeshi independence.
“The army was in power and they had banned demonstrations,” Alam said. “We were demonstrating for democracy and they beat me.”
The thin, energetic Alam was a known student leader often targeted by authorities for his role in organizing illegal demonstrations. “One time the army stopped me and asked whether I saw Morshed Alam and I said, ‘He walked that way,’” Alam recalled with a chuckle.
He continued his activism in the United States. He immediately began working with such groups as the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the New Immigrant Coalition and founded his own organization, the American Bangladeshi Friendship Association.
After first working in the South Asian community, Alam branched out into the Democratic political arena when he became a citizen in 1989. That year, he founded the Asian American Democratic Club.
In 1992, Alam quit his job with a pharmaceutical company to work for the city’s Environmental Protection Agency. After four months on the job, he became a union delegate. He was soon elected vice president and then president of local 375 of DC 37.
Alam volunteered to raise funds for Bill Clinton, Mario Cuomo and David Dinkins and then in 1996, ran his own campaign, becoming the first South Asian to win election to a New York City community school board.
The strength of Alam’s campaign was his newly formed New American Democratic Club. “We had Hispanics, West Indians, Asians, African Americans and Eastern Europeans,” said Alam. “The coalition helped me gain the highest vote in District 29.”
In the 1998 election against Padavan, when the Democratic Party refused to support Alam, his organization again played a vital role.
Alam’s strong showing marked the first time in more than 12 years that Padavan had not won at least 60 percent of the vote. But despite his ability to bring in votes, Alam did not run again in 2000 because the Democratic Party thought Rory Lancman had a better chance of winning.
“I felt I could win, but I stepped aside for the sake of party unity,” said Alam. “But Lancman spent $500,000 and got less votes than me — 37 percent.”
This year Alam was again asked to withdraw when the Queens County machine endorsed Barry Grodenchik for Karen Koslowitz’s (D-Forest Hills) city council seat. In exchange for dropping out of the race, Manton created the New Americans Committee and appointed Alam as its chairman.
Alam insists that accepting his new position was not a compromise. “It’s not about any deal,” he said. “I have a mission and it’s the best way to accomplish what I want to do for the new Americans.”
Alam said his city council candidacy had put pressure on the Democratic Party to recognize new Americans. He called his appointment historic because “it is the first time after a long fight that new Americans as a group are being recognized.”
Among other activities, Alam believes the committee will lead voter registration drives, engage in get-out-the-vote campaigns and even fight for a department of new Americans in city government.
But Alam sees the committee’s biggest role as being that of a teacher. “We need to educate people about the system in this country,” he said.
“That’s what I’ve been doing. People don’t understand the system now, how to vote, how to get housing,” Alam said.
“New Americans need to have an insider,” he said. “It’s very hard to fight without the machine. I was always fighting as an insurgent, but now we finally have recognition.”
Reach Reporter Daniel Massey by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, ext. 156.
