Lodi police Officer Nick Rafiq cruises down Kettleman Lane. (Jerry R. Tyson/News-Sentinel)

By Nicholas Grudin
News-Sentinel staff writer

The Lodi Police Department is one of the few police departments statewide that provide officers fluent in Punjabi —a Pakistani language — bonus bilingual pay.

Many departments consider Spanish a language worthy of the perk, but the Lodi force knows that its Pakistani population needs the same type of attention, said Nick Rafiq, a Pakistani traffic officer.

“You want the police department to be as reflective of the community that it serves as possible,” Police Chief Jerry Adams said. “We have a Pakistani community in Lodi and, therefore, we feel that it’s important to have Pakistani officers, and we offer language incentives.”

Rafiq gets 5 percent tacked on to his gross income, he said.

“Both Bobby (Amin) and Nick are always available to go to incidents in the Pakistani community,” Adams said.

Rafiq, along with the department’s computer technician Officer Bobby Amin, are Lodi’s two Pakistani police officers. For Rafiq, the job has added importance because of his role as a diplomat to the Pakistani community in Lodi.

“One of the things that I notice is that right away the Pakistani population feels a rapport with me,” Rafiq said.

Rafiq, who was born and raised in Pakistan, came to Lodi when he was 12 without knowing any English. He attended Lodi Middle School, Tokay High and then earned an associate’s degree at San Joaquin Delta College.

Rafiq understands that good communication between police and Pakistani Americans is difficult for many reasons, and he has made it his job to change that.

“In Pakistan, people don’t trust the authorities,” Rafiq said. “There is a lot of corruption. Many Pakistanis here believe that it will be the same way, and therefore don’t trust police.

“The culture and language differences make it even more difficult.”

But with his ability to relate to the Muslim culture and speak the language, Rafiq is especially helpful in breaking down walls between police and Pakistanis.

Especially in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, having Muslim officers around was irreplaceable for the Lodi community, Adams said.

“It was very reassuring to the Pakistani people here.”

Although the crime rate in the Pakistani community is lower than the general populace, there are still many issues to attend to, Rafiq said.

“We tend work out our problems privately,” he said.

But sometimes the cultural differences between what is OK and not OK in America can cause problems, he said.

“A man can hit his wife in Pakistan, but that is not OK here. We have to educate them of that.”

But before such education is possible, Rafiq knows that he has to build the trust of the Pakistani community.

“When word gets out here that the police are fair and not brutal, they start to trust us.”

It would be far more difficult for that trust to be built with officers who are ignorant to the culture and language, Rafiq said.

He recently traveled to San Diego in order to help deal with that very issue. The officer was one of a panel of Muslims to help with a training video designed for police departments in California on how to prepare officers to interact with the Muslim culture.

Contents

»Pakistanis leave their native land to find Lodi
»Pakistani men adjust to life in Lodi
»Lodi’s Pakistani women struggle with clash of cultures
»Educator explains background of women’s modesty
»Young Pakistani Americans find themselves caught between cultures
»Pakistani police officers in Lodi bridge cultural gaps
»Lodi Muslim Mosque provides worship place for Pakistanis
»Journey brings loneliness, opportunity