Latino Muslims — a growing group — struggle to find their place in the Islamic community

It’s a Saturday night during Ramadan and, as the sun sets, the courtyard of Muslim Community of Palm Beach County comes alive as locals gather for iftar, the breaking of the fast. Men take seats at the long white tables that stand between a large mango tree and green-pillared arches. Beyond the mango tree, on the other side of the parking lot, women wrapped in colorful saris sit under a large white tent, ready to break the fast with dates and neon red juice. As the time approaches, a hush cascades across the tables. A woman announces, “You can break the fast now” and everyone reaches for a date, some whispering prayers before they begin to eat. 

Bodies, tense from a day’s hunger, relax. Chitchat resumes. A jar of chutney materializes and is passed around, the women spooning it onto the fried snacks before us. Now the women seated around the table explain to me that after this quick, light snack, we’ll go inside to pray. Afterwards, we’ll return for a meal. My daughter and I follow the line of women into the building and up the stairs to the sequestered balcony on the second floor, where the women line up side by side to pray, forming rows.

Though I’m probably the only non-Muslim present, I’m not the only person here who wasn’t born into the faith — downstairs, among the men, is the sole Latino Muslim present at the mosque tonight: Wilfredo Ruiz, a Puerto Rican man who converted to Islam two decades ago. 

---

One day, while driving to his hometown in the suburbs of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Ruiz noticed a mosque that had been built into the side of a hill. He’d seen it in the past but that day, he recalls, he decided to find out more about Islam.

Following the birth of their twins, Ruiz and his wife at the time had been thinking about what sort of religious framework they wanted to raise the children in. Nonpracticing Catholics, they’d discussed taking their kids — who were toddlers at the time — to church. When they passed the mosque and Ruiz announced his intention to learn about the religion, the idea of converting seemed far-fetched and both he and his wife laughed.

But when he arrived at his now former mother-in-law’s house and shared what had happened on the road, she said she happened to have a pamphlet about Islam that had been given to her to by a local man — a Palestinian store owner. It felt like fate.

Eager, Ruiz read the literature. And then he read it again. And again. 

Ruiz read the 20-page pamphlet “four or five times,” he says. “I was so attracted to and connected to the concept of God in Islam.” 

Ruiz explains that he’d always struggled with the concept of the trinity, which didn’t make sense to him. There were other theological questions that had plagued him throughout his Catholic upbringing and his parochial school education. 

“The questions were answered when I approached Islam,” Ruiz says. 

Thus began Ruiz’s exploration of the faith that ultimately felt like home.