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finding someone who can help is the first and most important. for the next steps, go to knowhow2go.org. >> hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us this evening. my name is sandra. i'm part of the arab heritage month committee. we would like to welcome you to our annual arab heritage month celebration. on behalf of the mayor's office and the city of san francisco. >> hi, everyone. thank you for joining. we were technically supposed to start at 5:30, but we are a few minutes early. that's pretty good. we're usually late. thank you for coming. this is the third year we have

initiated the cemenevent. this is a very interesting year to be an arab, i would say. many things are happening throughout the arab world. as you may have noticed, there's been a slight change in the flag. we have a new libyan flag. [laughter] [applause] we have four arab countries in the entire arab world where people are finally speaking up. for many of us in the san francisco bay community, we've known far too long what's been going on in the arab world. the reason there is a thriving arab-american community in the area is because many of us had to leave our homeland due to

political persecution or the fact there's no respect for our dignity. in the san francisco bay area, we came together from all over the arab world to live. thank you, again, for coming. i hope you have enjoyed the program to a lot of people have worked very hard. i want to make a few announcements. we could not have done any of this without our sponsors. before we start, a big thank you to the presenting sponsor, the law firm. a round of applause for them. thank you. [applause] also, burgermeister franchise. [applause] and we have ike's place and [inaudible] [applause] we could not have done it

without their support. they were very generous. i urge all of you to please support these businesses. without them, we would not have put on this event. >> and now i have the pleasure of introducing the musical ensembles. it is a bay area based ensemble that reaches out to all diverse groups in the bay area. we had the pleasure of having their perform at our first annual celebration of arab heritage month and now we have the pleasure of them performing again. please give them a round of applause. [applause]

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♪ [singing in foreign language] [applause] >> thank you. another round of applause for them. [applause] thank you. it gives me great pleasure to introduce you all to our great

mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you very much for that wonderful music. thank you. thank you. thank you for being here tonight. if i may say -- thank you. if i may say [speaking foreign- language] welcome. welcome to our wonderful city hall. it's my pleasure to welcome you to the third annual arab heritage month celebration here in our wonderful city of san francisco. no many of you know, too, there has been a lot of spotlight on

our arab-american countries. people are wondering what it is that is going on. the whole world is struggling to find out what the right thing to think and do and understand is. here in san francisco, we have a tradition, especially when it comes to immigrants -- comes to emigrants, who they are, where they come from, and what they want to do. that's the beauty of being here in san francisco. it happened to my heritage. it's happened to many, many generations of visitors who come to this city. now it's happening for your generations of arab americans. it's our pleasure, and as the mayor of our great city -- i know it is felt at the board of supervisors that we welcome and

celebrate our diversity. we do our best to understand, to dialogue, and to create more understanding. we celebrate that. that is our strength in san francisco. that's why we have these wonderful celebrations. thank you to the ensemble for sharing your music here and creating a cultural connections. [applause] thank you. we have a wonderful city of san francisco. i know that we pride ourselves in being an international city. begins with celebrating all the diverse cultures and making sure everyone is recognized, that we have our education institutions reflect that, our cities, official events, reflected that but i know i have benefited greatly, not only as

an attorney, but as someone who has worked in the city to have worked with so many leaders of the arab-american community. the business leaders have done very well here. knowing, also, the challenges that you face -- i also know there are so many examples of arab-american leadership in the technology world. just look at silicon valley and see how successful arab- americans have been. we are now recruiting those very companies to come to san francisco to make sure that we work with you for job creation. i am also very excited about so many small-business owners who are of arab-american descent. you have done so well in working in all of our different neighborhoods. i want to continue working with you. i also want to work with those leaders who have been in the cultural world. thank you very much for your

contributions. [applause] and i also want to work with people like michelle and the arab film festival. thank you very much, michele. my wife, anita, has really loved going to those film festivals, too. [applause] that's why i want to signal to all of you that you have been educating me and the community so much. i am very excited. anita and i want to work very hard with our friends to take my first visit to the middle eastern countries so i can touch the kinds of bridges you have been building. i want to do that. those of the same bridges' we have built in our asian communities. everyone of wh