On a Sunday afternoon at a bakery called Shatila Bakery in Dearborn, Michigan, a line of customers could be seen gathered around display cases filled with flaky baklava, stacks of meshabek (Egyptian pastry), and golden Lebanese-style macarons.
As employees rushed to fill orders, locals spoke excitedly among themselves in a mix of Arabic and English, with one joking to a friend: “There are my plans for healthy eating!”
In many ways, Chatila is a microcosm of Dearborn. Founded by a Lebanese immigrant in the 1970s, the bakery is surrounded by dozens of Arab-American restaurants, businesses, markets, halal butcher shops, hair salons and mosques.
Signs in Arabic and English line Dearborn’s 2 major streets (Warren Avenue and Michigan Avenue) and for the past century this city located on the outskirts of Detroit, which has long been synonymous with automobile manufacturing, Ford Motor Company, has become possibly the most Arab place in the United States.
In 2023, Dearborn became the country’s first Arab-majority city.
The city of 110,000 is home to both the Arab American National Museum and the largest mosque in North America.
It is one of the few US cities whose mayor is both Muslim and Arab, the first city to make Eid – the end of the Ramadan fast – a paid holiday for city employees and one of the few places in the country where the Islamic adhan (call to prayer) is allowed to be broadcast from a mosque’s loudspeakers.
It is, as a local told me, “the homeland far from the homeland.”
Today, it offers travelers a tantalizing opportunity to tour the Middle East, so to speak, while exploring how Arab Americans have shaped the city and the nation.
Another Ford product
According to Jack Tate, curator of the Dearborn Historical Museum, the city was little more than sparsely populated farmland until the early 20th century. That all changed in the 1920s, when automaker and future business magnate Henry Ford moved the headquarters of his Ford Motor Company from Highland Park, 10 miles away, to Dearborn.
“At the time it was a pretty quiet little community. And once the (new) plant opened, people came from all over the U.S. and all over the world wanting to work for Mr. Ford,” Tate said. “That was the big start for the Middle Eastern population here.”
When Ford began manufacturing its famous Model T automobiles in 1908, it needed workers. The industrialist, known for his racist hiring policies toward African Americans and his anti-Semitism toward Jews, sought labor among recent Middle Eastern immigrants to the Detroit area.
Soon, waves of workers from areas now belonging to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories flocked to greater Detroit in search of these new, high-paying jobs. (There is even a local legend that Ford once told a Yemeni sailor in a port that his factory paid workers the then-generous wage of $5 a day, prompting that surge of Yemenis and other people from Middle East. East that arrived in the area).
In the early 1920s, most of Ford’s Model T assembly line workers were of Arab descent.
When Ford moved to Dearborn, many of his employees followed him. This not only transformed the city from a sleepy village of 2,400 to the site of the world’s largest industrial plant, but also paved the way for Dearborn to become home to the largest concentration of Arabs in the US.
According to the 2020 census, 54.5% of the city’s nearly 110,000 residents claim Middle Eastern or North African ancestry.
An “enclave” is born
A magnet for the Arabs
According to Matthew Jaber Stiffler, director of the Center for Arabic Narratives, as more Arabs and Arab Americans moved to Dearborn over the decades, a community network was created that encouraged others to follow.
“They began to open medical offices, restaurants and grocery stores, creating an enclave. And then, unfortunately, in their countries of origin (especially Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine and Iraq) there were continuous conflicts, which continued to force people to migrate. So, Dearborn kept getting new people because (there were) people here (from those countries).”
A similar story was that of Amanda Saab’s family. The Lebanese-American chef was born and raised in Dearborn after her parents immigrated here in the 1970s when she was still a child.
Like so many others, his parents were attracted by the promise of high-paying auto jobs, and the city caught their attention because other members of their family were already there.
“[Dearborn]has always been kind of the beacon, the center, the fortress… All the things that really connect us to community and faith for me are in Dearborn,” he said.
In 2015, Saab was the first hijab-wearing Muslim woman to compete in the reality MasterChef USA. In response to the war between Israel and Gaza, he created Chefs for Palestine, a series of dinners where some of the area’s best chefs came together to raise money in support of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and the Palestinian American Medical Association. .
As Saab explained, because so many residents came to Dearborn in search of a better life after enduring conflict in their home countries, the city has not only served as a haven of hope for Arab Americans, but also as a system of support for those who have extended families suffering abroad.
“Dearborn is one of the most welcoming, kind and generous communities,” Saab said.
Arab food culture
Today, the strong Arab presence in Dearborn is perhaps most strongly felt in its food scene, with foodies flocking from across the American Midwest to its many Middle Eastern food stores, cafes, and restaurants.
“Dearborn is a dining adventure in itself,” Saab said.
While you’re getting a taste of Dearborn’s Middle Eastern culture, there’s also plenty to see.
In 2005, the Islamic Center of America dedicated a massive mosque on Ford Road, just two miles from the Ford Motor Company headquarters. In addition to being the largest mosque in North America, it is also the oldest Shiite mosque in the US, with space for 1,000 people in prayer.
It welcomes people of all religions, and tourists can admire the mosque’s golden domes, towering minarets, and ornate Islamic calligraphy inside.
On the south end of Dearborn, the American Muslim Society is also open to all and offers tours. Built in 1937 and expanded over the years to include an auditorium that hosts guest speakers on weekends, it was the first mosque in the U.S. to be allowed to broadcast the adhan through a loudspeaker.
Preserving Arab American culture
Faith is a central part of the lives of many of Dearborn’s Arab-American residents, but it is not the whole story.
That’s what the Arab American National Museum aims to explain.
The museum, which bills itself as “the first and only museum of its kind in the U.S. dedicated to recording the Arab-American experience,” tells the community’s immigration stories and showcases notable Arab-American contributions. to the country’s society.
In addition to its main galleries and annual events, such as the Arab Film Festival, the museum also opened its Al-Hadiqa heritage garden in 2023.
On the rooftop, Shatha Najim, one of the museum’s community historians, pointed out plants in various stages of growth, from budding vines hugging wire frames to sturdy Egyptian onions that had recently been harvested.
He said the garden, which will open June 8, was created in conjunction with the stories he was collecting for the museum’s oral history collection, many of which describe the experiences of people who left their home countries.
“I think one of the best ways to really connect with the homeland is through plants,” she said. “Planting foods and herbs from home, and having them here is like establishing a new home and a new environment that feels familiar.”
Najim said these oral histories paint a more complete picture of life in the U.S., since often for Arab Americans, “a lot of the narrative is told by us and not to us.” But in Dearborn it’s different.
“You are with people who are familiar with your culture. They may not be from the same country, but they share a lot of similarities with you,” she said. “All of that creates a new sense of homeland and of existing in a new place and creating a beautiful new home. Maybe it wasn’t intentional for everyone to end up here[but we did the best we could]…hence the [palabras] ‘ “Arab American.” We feel a connection with both.”
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