Middle Eastern immigrants may be Detroit's saviors

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By BOBBY GHOSH / DEARBORN

To disprove the charge that Detroit is in terminal decline, Nafa Khalaf offers himself as Exhibit A. In 1999, when he co-founded his business, which builds water systems and other public works, "people were saying the city was dying," Khalaf recalls. "They said, 'You shouldn't be doing business here.'" But since then, his firm, Detroit Contracting, has thrived and expanded. Employing 23 people, the company brings in more than $20 million a year in revenue. "And 90% of my business is in Detroit," he says triumphantly. "Does that sound like a dying city to you?"

When I remind Khalaf that his optimism flies in the face of the city's litany of problems - a shrinking population, chronic unemployment and overstretched services - my skepticism only encourages him to press on. What others see as an urban disaster zone, Khalaf views as a land of opportunity. The Motor City, he says, gave him chances that would have been inconceivable in his native Iraq. Khalaf went to Detroit's Wayne State University in 1986 to study engineering and was so impressed with the city that he never returned to his homeland. "You want to know if Detroit has a future? Ask us Arabs," Khalaf says. "We believe in this place." (See TIME's photo-essay "30 Mosques in 30 Days: An American Trip.")

Remarkably, that sentiment is shared even by those who never saw Detroit in its glory years - people like Sami, an Iraqi refugee who arrived this summer during the height of the nationwide furor over the proposed Muslim community center near Ground Zero. (Unsure of how candid he should be in his new home, he gave his first name only.) Although troubled by the controversy, Sami has no doubt he's picked the right place to start his new life. So what if he hasn't yet found a job. It's just a matter of time before one of the restaurants or stores on Warren Avenue, which connects Detroit to the nearby city of Dearborn, needs another busboy or odd-job man. The path from there is already paved in his mind: "I will save up for a couple of years and open a kebab shop ... then another one, and another one. If McDonald's can have restaurants all over the Arab world, then why can't I have kebab shops all over America?" As we walk down the street, he points to the brightly lit stores, many of them run by Arab Americans. "All of them got a chance to start something in this city," he says. "My turn is next."

Khalaf and Sami speak for a community that is growing and prospering alongside Detroit's decay, one of the largest concentrations of Arabs outside the Middle East. The four-county region of southeastern Michigan has a population of at least 200,000 of Middle Eastern origin; some estimates put that number far higher. In Dearborn, home to Ford Motor Co., one-third of the citizens have Middle Eastern ancestry - including Rima Fakih, the first Miss USA of Arab descent. (See the top 10 beauty pageant scandals.)

For Detroit, a city in critical condition, this new blood could make a difference. The impact is twofold: a desperately needed infusion of new citizens at a time when an exodus has drained metro Detroit of its middle class, both white and black; and an economic boost from a culture that likes to start new businesses. The Arab-American community in metro Detroit produces as much as $7.7 billion annually in salaries and earnings, according to a 2007 Wayne State University study. (That amounts to more than twice Detroit's annual budget.) The controversial question, though, is whether Arab-American prosperity will remain at the edges of the city, at arm's length from the predominantly poor African-American population, or produce jobs and other benefits for the whole of Detroit. On the street, the question is often put more divisively: Are Arab merchants profiteers or pioneers?

The story of Arab Detroit is more complex than the caricatures. Middle Eastern immigrants didn't arrive just yesterday, or from just one place. The community has been a long time coming into its own version of the promised land. Henry Ford recruited thousands of Lebanese, Yemenis and others from the splinters of the Ottoman empire to Dearborn to work in his giant River Rouge complex, giving Middle Easterners their first foothold in the area. Not all were Arab. And in contrast to the stereotype, the majority of local Middle Easterners are not Muslim but Christian, led by an early wave of Iraqi Catholics known as Chaldeans, some of whom fled Muslim persecution. Others were Christians and Druze from Lebanon. More recent times have brought an increase in Muslim immigrants displaced by war and seeking education and economic opportunity.

The influx keeps coming. Any concerns newcomers like Sami may have about the city's economic straits are outweighed by the comfort and reassurance of living among their own people. According to a 2003 study, 75% of Arabs and Chaldeans in the Detroit area were born outside the U.S., but 80% of them had become U.S. citizens. When they arrive, many quickly set up businesses requiring little capital - gas stations, liquor stores and convenience shops. Ahmad Chebbani, chairman of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, says more than 15,000 businesses in the metro area are owned by Middle Easterners. Surely part of the attraction is that to people from countries ravaged by war and poverty, Detroit can seem like a haven. But Chebbani puts it in less fanciful terms: "There are good deals here, and as a community, we're risk takers." What they also have in common is a remarkable faith in a region where confidence has become a rare commodity.

more...

link

[^_^ 5,021]

Good. Once San Fran passes its ban on circumcision, at least this one city will forever be safe from the threat of a similar ban.

[mawilson 2,133]

Good. Once San Fran passes its ban on circumcision, at least this one city will forever be safe from the threat of a similar ban.

Your foreskin will be safe. Your head? Remains to be seen.

[^_^ 5,021]

Your foreskin will be safe. Your head? Remains to be seen.

As long as I don't watch South Park I should be fine.

[웃 910]

When they arrive, many quickly set up businesses requiring little capital - gas stations, liquor stores and convenience shops

I didn't know you could open up a gas station with little capital....A few months back on Craigslist a guy was selling a Mobil gas station near where I live. I contacted him by email and inquired on the price. He wanted about $185,000 down.

[^_^ 5,021]

I didn't know you could open up a gas station with little capital....A few months back on Craigslist a guy was selling a Mobil gas station near where I live. I contacted him by email and inquired on the price. He wanted about $185,000 down.

Location matters. And it's relative, 185K is still less than you'd need to put down for a Quizno's.

[웃 910]

Location matters. And it's relative, 185K is still less than you'd need to put down for a Quizno's.

true. But when I think of little capital I think of $20,000 or less. I don't know of any gas station that can be purchased or taken over for $20,000 in net savings. Matter of fact I think the lenders will laugh their a$es off if you tell them you want a gas station with your $20,000 saved up.

edit: I'm pretty sure you could get a few Quizno's shops with $185K down

Edited November 15, 2010 by Lord Infamous