Dearborn Viewed Online

July 25, 2007

In two weeks I will be heading to Dearborn, Michigan to work on a project that has been sitting in my head for a while. I have spent a fair amount of time in the Middle East, but I have comparably little experience with Islam in the United States. Dearborn, Michigan is the location in the US with the highest concentration of Arab-Americans (both longtime residents and recent immigrants).. and if I am going to get a sense of Islam in the US, then this is a logical place to visit.

One of the miracles of the internet is the amount of incidental information available about places. There are maps and city websites.. but more importantly there are lots of scenes drawn from life. Before I head to Dearborn I am going to explore through blogs the different paths to learning about Dearborn offered by the internet. This first post will concentrate on videos from YouTube (my playlist is available here).

The above picture is of the singer Dominique Hourani from the American Arab Festival 2007 in Dearborn Michigan. Never in my time in the Middle East have I seen this kind of public "sexy" appeal. There are plenty of music videos that look like this.. but this does not translate into public performances. The videographer quickly pans the audience and we glimpse who is out there:

It is a mixed gender crowd composed of Arab Americans. That crowd, I take it, is exactly the point of the Arab American Festival: to construct and celebrate a sense of identity. Given this performance, it is evident that the identity will be one that celebrates American-ness.

A similar American development is seen in a rough video made at an event put on in Dearborn by the Muslim Student's Association. Two rappers rap away, and then we note in the foreground women wearing the hijab or head covering. Analysis of this video must center on the mixtures of quintessentially American pop-cultural forms with cultural signs that continue to mark an identity that is not just American.

This mixture of American and Arab identities is not the only model represented in YouTube. A relatively large number of short poor quality videos captured the Quran reciter Sheikh Mishary al-Afasy during his appearance in Dearborn. Many videos posted by Muslims in other cities further document this celebrity. I say "celebrity".. and al-Afasy has a a devoted following (just search for him online), but it is a celebrityhood that goes mostly under the radar in America. Quran recitation is not going to compete with hip-hop anytime soon..

One lengthy (26 minute) video on YouTube features an interview with a leader at the Islamic Center of America (Shi'a in orientation) in Dearborn. The video begins with a brief still photo of the mosque and then turns to the interview:

The contents of this interview were not particularly interesting (just a review of the meaning of Islam), but this brief view of the composed and thoughtful Imam puts a face on the Islamic leadership of the area.

One YouTube video consists of a continuous stream of storefronts, taken from a moving car. The area looks slightly run down and the only real difference between this street and thousands like them in the US is the presence of Arabic on a fair number of the signs. Perhaps that is all I will find.. a normal street with enough Arabic to mark it as different. But my hope is to locate some concrete ways that the emerging identity of Arab American is working its way into the built landscape of this city.