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