Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream

Introduction

Introduction ARAB DETROIT IS a patchwork of national, religious, and village groups who, in the ordinary run of events, keep very much to themselves . Lebanese Shia in Dearborn have little contact with Palestinian Christians in Livonia: the two groups do not socialize together, they rarely intermarry, and their Arabic dialects are different enough to cause confusion. Yet one could easily find individuals in both groups who believe they belong to an entity called "the Arab American community." We do not endorse the idea, popular at the grassroots level, that Iraqi Shia, Palestinian Christians, and Yemeni Sunnis share an essential "Arabness." Likewise, if these diverse groups can be said to share a "Middle Eastern" culture, then they share much of it with Turks, Iranians, Greeks, Armenians, and Kurds as well. Arab American identity, as expressed in Detroit today, seldom refers to an ancient regional heritage or even a shared culture. It emerged quite recently as part of a complex (and now largely forgotten) reaction to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. America's pro-Israel stance in the wake of that conflict increasingly turned "the Arabs" into a problem, both in Detroit and in the Middle East. Arab American identity evolved as one way of dealing with that problematic status. In fact, of the major organizations that represent Arab Americans at the national level, not one predates the 1967 war: the Association of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG) was established in 1967, the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) in 1972, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in 1980, and the Arab American Institute (AAI) in 1985. These groups spend most of their resources on lobbying, political education, and legal work in support of Arab Americans. Though opposition to U.S./Israeli policy still animates Arab American identity politics, the pan-Arab, pro-Palestinian activism of the 1960s and 1970s has gradually evolved into an ethnic awakening 39 Qualities/ Quantities of a recognizably American sort. Its central concerns—recognition, inclusion, equal treatment under the law—conform nicely to popular American ideals. Because Arabs are viewed negatively by most Americans, attempts to combat this negative image, with or without reference to the geopolitical conflicts that shape it, have become a powerful agenda around which to organize an ethnic community. The image Arab American organizations put forward as a corrective to pervasive anti-Arab stereotypes is upbeat, Americanized, and tailored to the preferences of mainstream culture and its institutions. Writing on behalf of "3 million" Arab Americans (and the Arab American Institute), Casey Kasem notes that: Arab Americans are grocers and governors, physicians and farmers , Indy 500 champs and taxicab drivers, financiers and factory workers, bakers and bankers, salesmen and senators, TV stars and TV repairmen, teachers and preachers, Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks and neighborhood sandlot heroes. Name it, and an Arab American has probably done it.... We Arab Americans and our families are proud of our heritage and proud to be Americans . It's this pride that keeps us all asking, "What can we do for our country?"—the good old U.S.A. (Arab Americans: Making a Difference, a promotional flyer distributed by the Arab American Institute, 1997) But what exactly is the "heritage" to which Kasem refers? Judging from his list of over one hundred famous Arab Americans—everyone from Doug Flutie to Edward Said—the only aspect of the Arab American heritage worth sharing is the (indisputable) fact that Arabs can be "good Americans," as proven by their ability to become celebrities non-Arabs admire. In a world of public relations, role models, and the mass marketing of identities, Kasem's discourse can be highly effective , even uplifting. The sensibility it fosters, however, is ill-equipped to deal with the reality of cultural difference. It implies that, except for a common origin in Arabic-speaking countries, Arab Americans are as much a part of mainstream culture as anyone else. Ironically, this tactical appeal to "sameness" makes ancestry (or blood-based difference) the key element in determining who Arab Americans are. It is all that makes Arab American "loyalty, inventiveness, and courage on behalf of the U.S.A" (Kasem 1997) distinctively Arab. Its superficiality aside, the ethnic identity Kasem and AAI are promoting is politically useful because it fosters pride in relation to other American racial and ethnic groups, who have their own 40 INTRODUCTION claims to press, their own accomplishments to celebrate. As a result , "Arab...