Embattled emigre takes
potluck
Longtime Michigan Customers Rally Around Kurdish Restaurateur
By Karoun Demirjian
October 7, 2007
HARBERT, Mich.
In Ibrahim Parlak's native village of Gaziantep, Turkey (Northern Kurdistan),
whoever had the biggest living room had the unofficial responsibility of opening
his doors during celebrations and times of mourning to give the local community
a place to gather.
Now the owner of a restaurant in this Michigan town, it is Parlak who opens his
doors nearly every Monday night, though not for business. Every week, friends
and neighbors spill in by the dozens, dutifully armed with trays of baked ziti
and pasta salad, to congregate for a potluck dinner.
Once an obscure man from a distant and unfamiliar culture, Parlak has reached
iconic status in this small town since he became the subject three years ago of
a deportation order accusing him of ties to terrorism . The struggle to clear
his name has turned what was once a motley crew of former restaurant customers
into an extended family, banded together with lasting closeness to help their
foreign friend.
"This is his village, his adopted village," said Michele Gazzolo, the mother of
Parlak's 10-year-old daughter Livia. "Since he arrived, he's treated everyone as
if he had known them his whole life. People felt that, and they recognized that
it was something unique."
Parlak is Kurdish, and like many of his people, engaged in political struggle
for self-determination of Kurdistan in Turkey.
He arrived in Chicago in 1991, was granted political asylum in 1992, and by
1994, had a green card. That same year he moved to Harbert, where he bought a
roadside restaurant and named it Cafe Gulistan - which in Kurdish means
"paradise."
But paradise began to cloud over in 2004, when a Turkish court resentenced
Parlak for his participation in a 1987 border clash for which he had already
spent 1 1/2 years in prison, spurring the U.S. government to reassess his
immigration status.
U.S. authorities determined that Parlak had lied about his involvement in the
skirmish and that his involvement with the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK -
which was put on the U.S.'s terror watch list in 1997 - meant he could be
classified as a terrorist. Parlak was sent to jail in July 2004.
Christina Root Worthington, a friend of Parlak's, said that she and a few close
friends would gather regularly in the restaurant when he was first incarcerated
to discuss his case, sort through his immigration records and speak to
attorneys.
"I once said to Ibrahim's daughter: 'Don't you think all this talk about Turkey
is making you hungry for turkey?' " Worthington said. The next night,
Worthington made good on her joke, arriving at the restaurant with a dressed
turkey. "It sprung from that into this really amazing thing."
As Parlak's closest friends were meeting to plan their friend's legal defense,
his customers at Cafe Gulistan were noticing the absence of the cheerful owner,
who would often pull up a chair to engage his guests in conversation or regale
them with the stories behind the Kurdish tapestries, photos and maps that hang
from the restaurant walls.
"We had been coming here for 12 years," said Suzanne Aberly, who lives in the
nearby town of Union Pier during the summer and keeps up with Parlak's case by
e-mail from Dallas during the winter. Aberly said she and her husband were
shocked by the news and immediately asked how they could help.
"Ibrahim is sincere," she said. "Anyone who knows Ibrahim, believes in him."
And hangs on. Parlak spent 10 months in jail and years thereafter petitioning
the Board of Immigration Appeals to drop the deportation order. This month, his
case leaves the administrative courts and goes before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in Cincinnati - "the first independent court to actually case based
on the merits," according to Jay Marhoefer, one of Parlak's attorneys in the
case.
Last week, 10 of 50 potluck attendees put their names on a sign up sheet to
travel to Ohio in Parlak's entourage for his Oct. 22 appeals court hearing.
Those who cannot take the day off of work are planning to show their support in
a rally, to be held at the restaurant the afternoon before.
Over time, the potlucks have partially morphed from mutual support groups to
business meetings, as residents discuss new ways to help Parlak and advance his
case.
"He had a garden, and when he was in prison, nobody was taking care of the
garden," said Martin Dzuris, one of Parlak's closest friends and a refugee from
the former Czechoslovakia. "The first potlucks, we were also weeding the garden.
And then every one there after, it was new ideas."
Friends raised over $100,000 for legal fees, T-shirts and posters featuring the
slogans "Free Ibrahim" and "Ibrahim for Citizen," as well as for the 20-minute
phone calls, which cost $26 each, and which Parlak would place to the restaurant
to coincide with Monday meetings.
Along the way, Parlak's cause has attracted the support of celebrities - film
critic Roger Ebert, a longtime customer of the restaurant, is one of Parlak's
most dedicated supporters - and lawmakers (Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and
Republican Rep. Fred Upton, both of Michigan, have introduced bills on his
behalf, which are now the only thing keeping Parlak from being deported).
"This is my ground. Without this, there wouldn't be anything else," Parlak said,
gesturing toward friends busily exchanging heaping plates of food for posters
announcing the upcoming rally on his behalf. "It's not a one-day stay. It hasn't
been a two-day stay. It's been here, always."
Parlak refuses to predict an outcome for the appellate court hearing beyond
saying that he hopes this test of strength is nearing its end. "But not this,"
he says, looking once more around the restaurant. "It would be nice to continue
this even after this is over - but I hope with a different topic of
conversation."
Karoun Demirjian writes for the Chicago Tribune.
