“I’ve always had this idealistic impression about the United States,” says musician Wanees Zarour, who is co-director of the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra. “This country is diverse and embraces multiculturalism, to an extent. So the fact that I’m not white — I’m brown — shouldn’t pose any issues from a security standpoint. But that totally shattered in the past few months. I’m literally carrying my passport around with me, which is not something I’ve done before.”
The recent and often chaotic federal immigration raids across Chicago’s neighborhoods have rocked the city. “We’ve had conversations with the members of the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra and we went from being really concerned to becoming defiant,” he says. “We’re doing more performances than we used to. More activity in general. We recently released an album and called it ‘Sanctuary.’”
Journalists at the Tribune and other local outlets have done thorough work documenting the upheaval and fear of the moment, but perhaps less so as it affects the immigrant-as-artist. The Chicago Immigrant Orchestra, says Zarour, is “doubling down, because whether anyone likes it or not, we’re part of the fabric of this country.
“We’ve been even told to consider changing our name,” he added. “And we’re not changing the name.”
The orchestra’s co-director, Fareed Haque, explains further. “You’ve got two targets in one name: Chicago’s a target and immigrants are a target. Since we’re primarily composed of green card holders, there’s more at stake for some of the members of the orchestra. But that being said, everyone has been pretty strong and cohesive.”
The Chicago Immigrant Orchestra was originally founded under the auspices of the Department of Cultural Affairs from 1999 through 2004. A new version was started back up in 2020 and majority of the ensemble are professional musicians. It’s a global representation, hailing from countries including Chile, India, Mongolia, Taiwan, Palestine, Peru, Nigeria and Iran.
Their next performance is scheduled for Dec. 21 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts and will feature guest musicians Joe Rendon on Latin percussion, Romanian folk singer Anna Everling and Malian Kora virtuoso Tani Diakate.
Zarour plays multiple instruments, such the oud, “the quintessential instrument of the Middle East and which is the ancestor of the lute,” he says, and the buzuq, “which is another stringed instrument like a lute that sounds almost banjo-y, but with a deeper tone.” He came to the U.S. as a preteen with his family from Ramallah in 1997, first to Michigan and then settling in Chicago.
“I would say it was traumatizing,” he says with a wry laugh. “Not in a way that was severe, but it’s because it was a very different place. I had an advantage, which is that in Palestine, the second language is English, so we learned it in school properly; we learned both Arabic and English in tandem. So that helped and at least I didn’t have much of a language barrier. But it’s a very different place culturally. But as the years have gone by, I’ve really feel like I’m part of the fabric of this city.”
Though he was aware of the previous version of the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra, “I didn’t know it well because I was younger. When the City of Chicago approached me and Fareed to re-establish it, what drew me to it was the idea that we can make music in a very unconventional yet authentic and real way that speaks to the immigrant experience in Chicago.
“There’s a lot of overlap in our experiences. But what’s really cool about this is that we, as a group, come from very different cultures, both culturally but also musically, with very different approaches to things. Exploring that is very special. If you think about this as a model and apply it generally in life — and even policy — you create something that’s truly amazing. The objective is to embrace different perspectives.”
Haque is a guitarist and the son of immigrants. “My mother is from Chile and my father is from Pakistan. They met in Ohio and then I was born and raised in Glen Ellyn. I am a fully naturalized American citizen, born here. But if you want to extend it back, if there’s no birthright citizenship, I could be at risk. I have more than my share of Islamic blood; my father is Muslim and his entire side of the family are Muslim. Very peaceful, very productive, very secular, very embedded in American culture. But that won’t make a difference if those times come.”
Recent anxieties around immigration status have affected him professionally. “I have musicians who have green cards who say no, I can’t travel to Canada or abroad for a gig because I don’t know if I’ll get back into the country. And these are big gigs, like, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 appearances. It’s a huge deal. These petty restrictions and petty definitions being used to divide and conquer are really helping nobody. They’re costing Americans money. They’re costing Americans peace of mind, which also costs Americans money at the end of the day.”
He says he’s heard “little discussion among local musicians about substantive changes to their day-to-day lives, but there is a lot of discussion among Hispanic workers that work for me (as a property owner) and who work for friends of mine, and it’s a substantial amount of destruction to the community. One of my guys will say, ‘I don’t want to go to Home Depot to pick up some more paint for that apartment we’re repainting because I don’t want to be on ICE’s radar.’”
There are also more subtle ways this has affected Haque.
“I have been driving around and saying to myself, OK, I just finished my gig and it’s 11:30 and I’d like to get a bite to eat, but maybe I’m not going to go to those Mexican restaurants. I’m not going to go into the lion’s maw waving my papers. I’m just not going to show up.
“But if anything,” he adds, “I feel more inclined to dig my heels in and continue on the path that I’m on. If there’s any idea out there that what I’m doing is threatening or dangerous or un-American, I want to put those ideas and fears to rest. So I’m more committed than ever to the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra and what it has to say about the immigrant experience.”
Another member of the orchestra is Juan Pastor, an Afro-Peruvian and jazz percussionist who came to the U.S. in 2006 from Lima, Peru to study music. “I was interested in learning about jazz and we didn’t really have universities for that in Peru at the time. I ended up coming to Northern Illinois University.” He also attended graduate school at DePaul University and after eight years, “I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted to do with my career, so I started looking into how I could stay. It’s unavoidable that the longer you stay in a place, the more attached you get to that place.”
When he joined the orchestra, “what was most important was figuring out how to work with other musicians from other cultures who don’t use (or read) sheet music, or their notation system is completely different from the one I know. So it was about, how are we going to do this? That piqued my interest and I was like, this could be fun.”
He says the more he played with the ensemble, “the more I realized it was like a family. The struggle of living in the city and trying to make it as a musician — whatever ‘making it’ means, but being able to support yourself as a musician — as an immigrant, it felt really hard. It’s not an easy path. When I joined the orchestra, I was finalizing my steps of becoming a permanent resident, but I knew people who were just starting it, so I felt like I could help them and share my knowledge about how it works and that created a connection too.”
Have the recent months of upheaval affected his state of mind or his creativity? “As an artist, I’m sure that the moment I start writing music, I won’t be able to not think about it. This is something that takes time to process.
“But I wasn’t so afraid so much at first. My wife was like, Hey, we have to be careful because this is happening, and maybe I was a little in denial. I’ve been here for a while and, even though I’m Peruvian, if you saw me in the street, I look more European; Peru was colonized by Spain.
“But I started to see what was happening more on the news. And I have students whose parents were not born in the States and they’re afraid for them. That’s when I started realizing, this is closer than I thought. My lawyer at some point recommended that I not be outspoken about it on Facebook and Instagram, because if I want to get citizenship, they’re going to look at how proactive I was about this.”
Pausing to check in and ensure he’s comfortable with that appearing in the story, he confirms yes, he is.
“I don’t think I’m scared of much at this point,” he says. “I know what I’m not supposed to do. I think it’s more important that if I say something that could change someone’s mind by reading this, or they’re encouraged, then I will stand by that instead of living in fear.”
When he performs in concert, “I talk about the need for support. Chicago is a sanctuary city and we need to preserve that because immigrants create communities and culture within cities, and that’s what makes the city so important — that we have this kind of cosmopolitan environment where everybody can coexist, and we should support that for the benefit of the human race.”
Initially, he says, “I had a little fear. Like, gosh, should I say something? Should I not say something? And the way the audience reacted, I was glad I said something because people were like yes. And it was very validating, that this isn’t just something that I’m thinking, but that other people are too.”
Even so, he’s experienced the opposite. “I remember taking screenshots of some of the comments on our Facebook page, where it’s hard to tell if it’s real humans commenting or bots, but there were some hate comments in there. Like: ‘An immigrant concert? I’ll make sure to report it to ICE.’ Things like that. And I was like, wow, people are really instigating fear.”
The orchestra’s co-director Zarour says, “I never thought I’d witness this here. Chicago is a very supportive place for the immigrant community. Can there be improvements? Absolutely. But we have a culture in Chicago that embraces multicultural engagement. This is bad for everybody and it just needs to stop. I would love to not be in this position where I have to be fighting for something that’s so basic. I would love nothing more than to just be playing my music.”
Unfortunately, this is a moment that demands more. “We don’t have another option,” he says. “We either act defiant and strong and make our voices heard, or we go into hiding. And we’re not going to go hide. This is our country.”
The Winter Solstice Concert by the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra is 7 p.m. Dec. 21 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave.; tickets $35-$200 (ages 21+) at epiphanychi.com