Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Eman Hassaballa Aly, digital communications manager and Muslim.
“In public, nobody really talks to me. When I used to take Metra to work, it was hard to get anybody to sit by me, even when I had a good seat on a busy train. And when I walk into a room, the assumption is that I’m not from here. I used to live in Elgin, and one day I was at Jewel and some lady said, ‘How do you like it here?’ I said, ‘Here . . . in Elgin?’ She said, ‘Here in America.’ I said, ‘I love it, because it’s the only place I know.’
