For the past three decades, Professor of History Sally Howell has dedicated much of her career to documenting the political, cultural, social and economic currents that shape the diverse Middle Eastern communities in southeast Michigan. One of the most longitudinal entries in her oeuvre is a series of three books, each spaced about a decade apart and penned and edited alongside a wide range of contributors, including many UM-Dearborn faculty and alumni. In the series' inaugural entry, "Arab Detroit: from Margin to Mainstream," published in 2000 and edited by Nabeel Abraham and Andrew Shryock, the contributors painted a textured portrait of Arab and Chaldean (Iraqi Catholic) communities from the 1950s through 2000, as a new, much larger wave of immigrants mixed and sometimes mismatched with an older generation of Arab Americans who'd been in the region since Detroit's auto boom (or even earlier). The second, "Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade," edited by Abraham, Howell and Shryock, explored how the post-9/11 atmosphere put Arab Americans under threat, while simultaneously fueling movements for inclusion, cultural representation and the "unambiguous Americanization of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S."

Now, Howell and co-editors Shryock and Yasmeen Hanoosh are out with a third volume in the series. "Beyond Refuge in Arab Detroit," published earlier this year, features portraits of Arab and Chaldean communities in metro Detroit from roughly the start of the first Trump term until 2023. Howell says it's a highly consequential period in which Arab communities have largely moved on from (and through) many of the themes that shaped the post-9/11 era and toward a more permanent, more confident rooting in the region. In this "worldmaking" era, individuals no longer necessarily view cities like Dearborn and the Chaldean communities in the northern suburbs as refuges - places where one would seek safety or acceptance, which connotes a certain degree of temporalness or restraint. Rather, as demographic shifts have given Arabs and Chaldeans majority or sizeable minority status in many communities, these places have come to be viewed as full-throated, legitimate, permanent homes for Arabs and Arab Americans - places where people can celebrate and share their culture confidently, put down roots, plan a long-term future, build cultural institutions and effect change through mainstream institutions, including elections. In the process, people are also creating a wider range of Arab and Arab American identities.

The book's contributors, which include UM-Dearborn Associate Professor of Anthropology Rose Wellman, Associate Professor of Public Health Natalie Sampson, Associate Professor of Sociology Carmel Price, and alums Rebecca Karam, Salam Aboulhassan and Samraa Luqman, paint a picture of this worldmaking in a variety of arenas. Howell says one of the most visible examples is in electoral politics. Today, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck all have Arab and/or Muslim mayors, and Arabs and Muslims often have majority status on city councils. Abudullah Hammoud, a '10 alum, posted one of the higher-profile electoral victories when he became Dearborn's first Arab American mayor in 2022. Howell, who with Shryock profiles Hammoud's first year in office, contends that the way Hammoud has approached his term captures something essential about the worldmaking that is happening in Dearborn. "His first year was going to be one in which he was going to lead as an Arab. He was not going to deny his heritage. But at the same time, he showed that he was going to represent the city as a whole," Howell says. For example, Howell says soon after Hammoud took office, he opened up the city's performing arts center to host viewing parties of Morocco's World Cup match-up against its former colonial ruler, France, which she says was a very big deal for the city's Arab and Muslim community. But then, a few weeks later, at Christmastime, Hammoud went equally all out for the city's tree lighting, one of Dearborn's oldest traditions. "He got the biggest tree the city had ever had. They had the Grinch up on the roof of the performing arts center, singing, and then the police chief goes up and arrests him. And the guy playing the Grinch and the police chief are both Arab American," Howell says. "I think it left people with a feeling that 'we can do this.' Now, the anxiety that people in west Dearborn felt about what kind of mayor he was going to be has really dissipated, and we're left with the traditional left-right divides."

Howell notes that Arab and Muslim politics in the region are far from a monolith. Hammoud, for example, has always been a vocal critic of the war in Gaza, and Howell says progressive left politics are, in general, a good fit for many in the community, particularly young people. But the left's liberal social values are also a mismatch for others. In addition, the 2024 election famously drove many Arab and Muslim voters toward Donald Trump over their opposition to then-President's Biden support for Israel. Moreover, if you travel out to the Chaldean communities in the northern suburbs, you'll find folks who feel comfortable calling themselves MAGA Republicans and yet seem less inclined to run for office. Even within Dearborn, Howell says there are political faultlines within Arab communities. "In Dearborn, the Lebanese have sort of become the hegemon, and you see the Iraqis and Yemenis are fighting for their place on the stage," Howell says.

Worldmaking is also a highly visible economic and cultural phenomenon. You can see it, for example, in the "garage living rooms" people are building, a trend in Dearborn in which homeowners turn their garages into sometimes elaborately renovated, semi-private living spaces for hanging out with friends and family. Throughout the Macomb County suburbs, the Arab hair salons, bakeries and restaurants that mark most intersections with mile and half-mile roads create a landscape that looks a lot like Dearborn. Middle Eastern food is also everywhere. "In the 1990s, you used to have to come to Dearborn for Middle Eastern food. Now it's so ubiquitous across the metro area that people don't even talk about it. It's become the ethnic food of Detroit. It's everybody's food," Howell says.

One of Howell's favorite examples is the explosive popularity of Yemeni coffee shops. In 2017, Dearborn entrepreneur Ibrahim Alhasbani opened Qahwah House, which specializes in Yemeni-specific takes on coffee and Yemeni pastries, while proudly promoting Yemen's history as one of the birthplaces of coffee. "Traditionally, there have been these coffee houses that are immigrant spaces, that are largely male spaces, where Arabic TV is on, you talk with other immigrants. This tradition goes back 100 years. But they were not welcoming spaces to outsiders," Howell says. Qahwah House, in contrast, pushed Yemeni coffee as a unique experience that anyone could share in and attracted Arabs and non-Arabs, men and women, and younger and older people. Now, Yemeni coffee shops have proliferated throughout the region and nationally: Alhasbani, himself, has about two dozen franchises and his success has spawned dozens of imitators. "I mean, Ann Arbor must have seven of them," Howell says. "So it's tapping into a need both for the Arab community and outsiders. These coffee shops provide people with a third space to hang out and socialize that's alcohol free. Groups of young women feel comfortable going here. And non-Arab Americans really like this product." Howell says this phenomenon reveals one of the hallmarks of the worldmaking era: An excitement among Arabs to confidently create spaces that still serve the community but also open up the experience for the broader public. It's an indicator that Arab culture has been accepted as part of the permanent fabric of the region.

Howell says worldmaking is also expressing itself in the diversity of cultural institutions. There are more mosques now than ever, but also more types of mosques to cater to different audiences. And mosques and other Arab cultural institutions have moved beyond the post-9/11 ethos, in which Howell says mosques either became more inward looking or, conversely, tried to explain who they were to the larger community, often through interfaith collaborations. Today, Howell sees institutions reaching much further into communities. You now have organizations directly collaborating with cities and neighborhood development associations on bread-and-butter issues, like affordable housing and public health. The work has become about the fundamentals, long-term investments and things that make life better for everyone.

It's natural to wonder what a fourth book in the "Arab Detroit" series might explore. As a historian, Howell is reluctant to forecast. But she does see several cultural currents forming that could shape the next decade. The Arab population in Dearborn has now grown so large that there are political divisions within the community. Specifically, she sees activism growing among Yemeni and Iraqi residents, who are concentrated in east Dearborn, as they fight for representation in a city where they are overrepresented in the lower-income strata. Right now, citywide elections for council seats mean Yemeni candidates have a hard time breaking through. "So I don't think it's an accident that the person leading the movement for ward-based elections is a Yemeni woman, Mona Mawari, who is a very outspoken activist in the city, whose family has been here for a long time, and whose dad was a long-time environmental justice activist," Howell says.

Other things Howell has her eye on: More Arab women are stepping into positions of authority and challenging the traditional power structure. She's also curious to see if the younger generation of Chaldeans in the northern suburbs break with their MAGA-aligned parents. And, of course, it's difficult to judge the impact of the war in Gaza, something the scope of the current book could not address at the time of its release. Howell says she's particularly interested to see what paths young people will end up carving out for themselves. "The children of immigrants are encouraged to succeed economically, which is why you see so many choosing the doctor or lawyer route," Howell says. "But with the next generation, there is often a little bit more of an opening for self-representation. So what might they do in the realms of music, poetry, art? I think young Arabs in southeast Michigan are probably feeling like they have more options for identity and self-expression than ever before."

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Story by Lou Blouin

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