Signs along the 5 and 91 freeways are expected to soon be pointing commuters to a cultural oasis – Anaheim’s Little Arabia district – more than a year after the city officially recognized the area and the immigrant business owners who work there.
The district is a stretch of road a few miles long on Brookhurst Street in West Anaheim filled with Kabob shops, Arab bakers whipping up flatbread topped with cheese and spices like Za’atar as well as hookah lounges where friends play cards, sip tea and debate politics.
For people like Rashad Al-Dabbagh, the executive director of the Arab American Civic Council, Brookhurst has become more than just a street.
It is where he found a community.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Al-Dabbagh said about the signs at the Anaheim City Council meeting Tuesday.
“I first came to California in 1999. I lived in LA County and eventually I heard of this area that we call Little Arabia today. I used to drive at least two, three times a week, just to go to the restaurants and cafes.”
The freeway signs are a culmination of decades of efforts by Arab American leaders like Al-Dabbagh, entrepreneurs and residents who long advocated to get Anaheim to recognize the contributions the business owners have made to Brookhurst Street and the city.
Al-Dabbagh and business owners have wondered when the signs would go up since Little Arabia’s official recognition in August of 2022 – something they say will legitimize the designation.
Now, it could be up to nine months before CalTrans installs the freeway signs after the city council voted to do so Tuesday night.
Anaheim Moves Forward With Little Arabia Signs
Anaheim City Council members voted 5-1 on a resolution to work with CalTrans to get four freeway signs up. City Councilman Carlos Leon was absent from the meeting and Councilwoman Natalie Meeks was the lone dissenting vote.
“Our city is the only one in California that has designated a region to celebrate the contributions of Arab, Middle Eastern and immigrant communities,” Leon said in a statement read by Mayor Ashleigh Aitken at Tuesday’s meeting.
“Residents and business owners alike have been advocating for the Little Arabia designation for decades and in 2022 when the council approved to designate Little Arabia, it was an acknowledgement of the contributions and advocacy of those dedicated community members.”
[Read: Next Exit Little Arabia: Will Official Signs go up in Anaheim’s Ethnic Enclave?]
Meeks argued the city should create a “vision document” for Little Arabia and Brookhurst Street before moving forward with signage.
“I don’t want to get ahead of our vision of what our destination is,” she said. “I think there’s more work to do before we know what that signage should look like.”
City Councilman Jose Diaz said the longtime advocates for Little Arabia had always had freeway signs in mind and the signage goes hand in hand with the 2022 recognition.
“That was a milestone. This is another milestone. This is big,” he said in support.
Diaz also questioned why CalTrans would take months to get the signs up.
“Why is it going to take six to nine months – because it’s CalTrans?” he asked.
City staff said they’ll try to speed up the process.
City Councilman Stephen Faessel also floated the idea for signs to be up on the 22 freeway directing people to Little Arabia, but city staff said there are other cultural designations like Little Saigon near that area.
Tuesday’s decision comes after representatives for Congressman Lou Correa and State Senators Josh Newman and Tom Umberg spoke in support of the signs and Little Arabia during public comments at the meeting.
Efforts to Recognize Little Arabia & An FBI Corruption Probe
The area started to take form in the 1980s when immigrant Arab business owners first set up shop along the corridor of Brookhurst street and helped convert a rundown part of town into a cultural destination in their pursuit of the American dream.
Yet efforts by Arab business owners and community leaders over decades to get the area recognized as Little Arabia were ignored by various mayors and rosters of city council members.
Then in August 2022 – in the wake of one of the largest public corruption scandals to hit OC – Anaheim City Council members voted to officially recognize the stretch of road of Brookhurst Street from Ball Road to Broadway as Little Arabia.
[Read: “Little Arabia Exists”: Anaheim Officially Recognizes America’s First Arab American District]
The decision to designate Little Arabia came months after FBI agents alleged in sworn affidavits that lobbyists along with Disneyland resort interests through the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce essentially controlled public policy debates at city hall.
[Read: FBI Reveals What Many Anaheim Residents Felt For Years, City Hall is Run By The Chamber of Commerce]
Ken Batiste, a resident who has been vocal about the corruption scandal, said Tuesday that putting signs up would show there is a real shift in Anaheim after years of advocacy and hard work by the Arab community.
“We had people who were firmly against Little Arabia because they did not want any competition for the advertisement against the special interests such as Disneyland,” he said.
“Little Arabia has done nothing but shown prosperity and beautification to an area that needed to be shown attention.”
Editor’s note: Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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