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 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 2-News 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. 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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