Multitude of cultures 

continue to mold 

city’s neighborhoods

By NEALA BERKOWSKI

Daily Staff Reporter

As The Michigan Daily contin-

ues to watch and report on Detroit 
shaping its future, we want to 
reflect back on how the city got 
here. Our hope for this week’s 
Detroit History Series is that read-
ers learn something new about the 
city and, in turn, better understand 
what’s to come.

Detroit is known for its rich 

past. Much of this richness can be 
attributed to its history of immi-
gration and migration — move-
ments that continue to shape the 
city today.

The French founded Detroit 

in 1701. Before their arrival, the 
region experienced a constant 
turnover of people, Joel Stone, 
senior curator of the Detroit His-
torical Society, said. Groups of 
Native Americans would occupy 
the area, then would move west 
or north as other tribes and clans 
came from the east.

“While there were many more 

Native Americans living around 
here, tens of thousands of them, 
as opposed to a few thousand 
French, it really remained a 
French town even as other groups 
started coming in,” Stone said. 
“That being said, it was pretty 
early on that we started to get 
a pretty multicultural group of 
folks of here, meaning mostly 
Western Europe.”

Early Detroit also attracted 

other populations. JoEllen Vin-
yard, a history professor at East-
ern Michigan University who 
specializes in U.S. social and 
immigration history, said major 
groups such as the Germans, Irish 
and British immigrated to Detroit 
in the early 1800s due to factors 
including cheap land, affordable 
homes and better opportunities.

Vinyard said there is a general 

immigration theory that the “pull 
is stronger than the push,” mean-
ing people often chose to immi-
grate to Detroit when its economy 

was strong, rather than because 
they were forced out by circum-
stances in their home country.

“You could come in pretty 

much at your skill level and move 
up because they needed work-
ers,” Vinyard said. “It was a medi-
um city and it was a family city 
where they could afford a home. 
For Catholics, like the Irish, 
for example, it was much more 
friendly than Boston or Philadel-
phia or New York because it was 
already a Catholic town with a 
French base.”

Vinyard added that not every-

one moving to Detroit was 
“straight off the boat.” Between 
1800 and 1830, many migrated 
to Detroit from New York and 
communities throughout New 
England. Some learned about 
opportunities in Detroit as they 
moved around, while others came 
to follow family that had already 
settled in the city.

Most often, people traveled to 

Detroit in small groups or on their 
own, Vinyard said. In some fami-
lies, one brother would go first 
and then send money back for the 
others to come. Less frequently, 
people traveled in larger groups 
with people from their town, or 
in a group sponsored by a church.

Vinyard said many immigrants 

tried to straddle becoming Amer-
icanized and retaining their orig-
inal culture.

“The 
immigrant 
genera-

tion didn’t want their children 
to become too Americanized 
because they were afraid they 
would lose them. They would 
move away from the culture and 
they wouldn’t be a part of the 
family,” Vinyard said. “But you 
could see in all of these groups 
they would say, ‘But we are the 
ones that are marching in the 
Fourth of July parade. We’re 
the ones who are celebrating 
the American holidays in visible 
ways. We’re teaching our chil-
dren about George Washington.’”

Stone said the next wave of 

immigrants consisted predomi-
nantly of Polish, Italians, Greeks 
and Belgians by the 1870s. Prior 
to the turn of the century, Detroit 
started seeing people from the 
Middle East, Eastern Europe and 

Asia.

“Before the Civil War, they 

were coming for the land, and 
after the Civil War, Detroit’s 
industrial economy really took 
off,” Stone said. “So that’s when 
they started coming for the jobs. 
Or maybe they thought they were 
coming for land but when they got 
here they realized that the factory 
jobs were so good.”

Vinyard said by the early 

1900s, the Polish became one of 
the major groups that settled in 
Detroit. The Polish, along with 
people from Central and Eastern 
Europe, were often recruited to 
work in various industries and 
factories in Detroit. Many Pol-
ish moved to Poletown, and later 
to Hamtramck in 1910 after the 
Dodge Brothers opened a new 
automotive plant.

African 
American 
migra-

tion has also played a large role 
in Detroit’s diverse population. 
LaNesha 
DeBardelaben, 
the 

vice president of assessment and 
community engagement at the 
Charles H. Wright Museum of 
African American History in 
Detroit, explained that African 
Americans began migrating to 
Detroit in a sizable number as 
early as 1850, when the Fugitive 
Slave Law was enacted, forcing 
people of color to leave the Deep 
South and seek freedom in north-
ern states.

DeBardelaben 
said 
African 

Americans migrated to Detroit 
again in large numbers during 
World War I and World War II. 
Called the Great Migration, this 
movement was largely fueled by 
the availability of jobs, with men 
typically working in factories 
while women found domestic 
work.

“Detroit has had a long history 

of African Americans migrat-
ing into the city,” DeBardelaben 
said. “African Americans began 
to migrate in the teens during 
World War I when factory jobs 
opened up for African Ameri-
cans as a part of the war effort. So 
there was a Great Migration into 
Detroit in the teen years, num-
bers skyrocketed, and then again 
during World War II. Until that 
time many African Americans 

still remained in the South.”

DeBardelaben said many Afri-

can Americans also migrated to 
Detroit because of social reasons 
like racism and discrimination in 
the South.

“Their livelihood and quality 

of life was threatened with rac-
ism and discriminatory practic-
es,” she said. “Blacks could not go 
to the schools they wanted. They 
could not even go to the public 
library in the South. So it was 
more than just an economic fac-
tor. There were social conditions 
that propelled them to leave the 
South and to settle in what they 
thought would be advantageous 
opportunities in the North.”

African Americans faced simi-

lar problems in Detroit. Blacks 
were prevented from purchasing 
homes in certain neighborhoods. 
Highly skilled African Americans 
were not given as many oppor-
tunities for work and were often 
left with less desirable work. 
Debardelaben said African Amer-
icans had to learn to rely on their 
own communities.

“African 
Americans 
who 

migrated here were able to find 
pretty much what they needed 
in those Black neighborhoods in 
terms of pharmacy and business 
and lawyer,” she said. “The Black 
community was self-serving.”

DeBardelaben added that Afri-

can Americans have had a major 
impact on social change — an 

influence that continues today. 
In the 1850s, Detroit’s African 
American community drew the 
attention of national figures such 
as Frederick Douglass and John 
Brown. In the 1900s, they created 
their own agencies and centers.

“It was Detroit’s Black women 

who organized orphanages and 
homes for the elderly and com-
munity centers for young people 
because they were not allowed 
to go to the white YMCAs,” 
DeBardelaben said. “They creat-
ed their own agencies and centers 
and petitioned for equal opportu-
nity. Detroit is a strong city and 
it’s strong because the African 
Americans could not accept sec-
ond class citizenship.”

Currently, Mexicans and Arabs 

are two of the city’s most notable 
immigrant groups, though both 
communities have been immi-
grating to Detroit for hundreds 
of years

Arab immigration to Michi-

gan, which first began in 1898, has 
steadily increased in recent years, 
according to Sally Howell, assis-
tant professor of history and Arab 
American Studies at the Univer-
sity’s Dearborn campus.

In 1921, the area’s first struc-

ture built specifically as a mosque 
opened in Highland Park, a 
block away from the entrance to 
Ford’s Model-T factory. It joined 
Detroit’s existing Greek Orthodox 
and Maronite Catholic churches, 

which 
were all built by Syrian-Lebanese 
migrants.

Howell said while many of the 

earlier immigrants came seeking 
economic opportunity, the Arab-
Israeli Wars, civil wars in Lebanon 
and Yemen and more recent con-
flicts in Iraq brought many immi-
grants to Detroit seeking refuge.

In the 1950s, jobs in the auto 

industry caused the Chaldean 
and Palestinian populations to 
grow in the city, Howell said. A 
decade later, in the 1960s, the 
Arab-Israeli War and a war in 
Lebanon brought many refugees 
to Detroit. Howell said people 
emigrated from Arab countries 
like Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Jor-
dan and Syria.

Between 2000 and 2010, Arab 

immigration increased by 35 per-
cent, which means the population 
overall is still majority immi-
grant, Howell said. Yet, she said it 
is important to remember that the 
Arab community is an integral 
and integrated part of southeast 
Michigan, with the first immi-
grants having helped build the 
auto industry and the city itself, 
while second- and third- gen-
eration Arab Americans are dis-
persed throughout the economy.

Adam Thibodeau, staffer at 

Congress Communities of South-
west Detroit, a neighborhood 
board, said Mexicans and Latin 

2A — Monday, February 2, 2015
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Detroit’s culture and growth shaped by immigrant communities

Veterans group raises funds for local programs

News

Illustration by Francesca Kielb

Regent Kathy White, 
local judge featured 
at annual Student 
Veterans Benefit 

By TANAZ AHMED

Daily Staff Reporter

Dressed in their finest, residents 

from across Washtenaw County gath-
ered in the Michigan Union Ballroom 
for the sixth annual Student Veterans 
Benefit Dinner on Friday.

The gala and silent auction was 

hosted by the University’s chapter of 
the Student Veterans of America to 
raise funds for the Washtenaw County 
Veterans Treatment Court, a pro-
gram that employs a treatment-based 
approach — rather than the traditional 
sentencing — for veterans impacted by 
substance abuse or mental health.

The annual benefit dinner is held to 

raise awareness about issues veterans 
face.

“Correctly identifying those who 

need help first is often the most life-
sustaining step,” said LSA senior and 
SVA President William Kerkstra in 
his opening remarks. “There are few 
causes more worthy than helping vet-
erans meet their psychological and 
substance abuse needs.”

Student Veterans of Michigan was 

founded in 2007 by Derek Blumke, 
then a 26-year-old Air Force veteran, 
during his first year at the Univer-
sity.

Blumke created the organization 

because he said he initially felt dis-
connected from his civilian peers 
and realized that other student vet-
erans may have felt the same way. He 
later went on to found the national 
organization, Student Veterans of 
America, in 2008.

“When we first got here it was 

challenging, being isolated and not 
feeling like you have a sense of con-
nectedness with others,” Blumke 
said at the dinner. “Albeit we don’t 
have that experience today because I 
know that the University is trying to 
change and better itself.”

Other attendees at the gala agreed 

that prior to 2007, the University did 
not have adequate resources to sup-
port student veterans.

Ryan Bouchard, a Business grad-

uate student and a veteran who 
also attended the University for his 
undergraduate degree, said Uni-
versity officials initially noted that 
available services were not exten-
sive because of the University’s 
small population of student veter-
ans.

“Why do you think?” he said. “The 

University’s services were not up to 
par with some of their peers.”

Along with SVA, the University 

now has a Veterans and Military 
Services Program that helps veter-
ans and other military personnel 
smoothly transition into the Univer-
sity community.

Judge Christopher Easthope and 

University Regent Kathy White (D) 
also spoke at the event.

Easthope, the judge for the 15th 

District Court in Ann Arbor, under 
which the Washtenaw County Vet-
erans Treatment Court falls, spoke 
on the experiences of veterans in the 

justice system.

“Veterans courts address the real 

and ongoing cost of war,” Easthope 
said. “I firmly believe that we owe 
the men and women of our country 
the moral obligation to return them 
as close to whole as possible.”

White, a lieutenant colonel in 

the U.S. Army Reserve, discussed 
diversity in the military as well as in 
higher education. White said univer-
sities must strive for the same kind of 
diversity that the military possesses.

“They pick people based on merit 

and the needs of the military at the 
time,” White said. “This process 
tends to actually produce a very 
diverse group of people who end up 
working together.”

She also mentioned the impor-

tance of trust in maintaining diver-
sity, which she said the military 
instills in soldiers.

“Reconciliation 
and 
common 

understanding cannot be attained in 
an environment of distrust,” White 
said. “So, in some ways without trust 
there’s a perception of injustice no 
matter what the facts are.”

CONNOR BADE/Daily

Regent Kathy White delivers the keynote address at the Student Veterans of American annual benefit dinner at the Union ballroom Friday.

See HISTORY, Page 3A

