A Drive Through Dearborn

By Chris Meehan

For the 10th anniversary of theSept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, CRC News has prepared a series of stories about how the Christian Reformed Church and its members have responded – and what we have learned – in the last 10 years.

We drove under the black-iron railroad trestle and suddenly left a moonscape of a world behind and entered one that bustled with vibrancy and health.

I had done this drive many times before, yet each time was amazed by the contrast between the  ruins of Detroit, with its fields of gutted, burned or flattened homes, and the world of East Dearborn, Mich.

It was almost like traveling from the debris of what the United States used to be and into it what it is now, in some places, becoming.

In the car with me were two young men connected to my church, Coit Community Church, a CRC congregation in Grand Rapids, Mich. We had taken a youth group to visit the Museum of African American History. We hoped the trip would help them understand the history of slavery more fully.

Now, we were driving through what proved to be another experience.

"Man, what is this place?" said Greg, perking up in the back seat.

"It's Dearborn," I replied.

He and Sam, who sat beside me, had just driven into part of one of the largest settlements of Arabs in the U.S.

The area we were riding through was filled with busy shops, many with Arabic script on them, and families strolling along, carrying bags full of Saturday-afternoon purchases from the tidy stores that line Warren Avenue.

"Muslims aren't Christians, right?" asked  Greg.

"Right, it is an entirely different religion altogether," I said. I wondered if this might be an opportunity to teach them a little about another culture and religion, if they were up for it after the museum and its graphic and disturbing displays.

“I like Dearborn,” I said. “It really is a melting pot.”

Some of the women wore long dresses along with head coverings. Other women were dressed in familiar garb – jeans, sweaters, floppy hats as they walked along the packed sidewalks.

"You been down here before?" asked Sam.

"I once worked here as a mailman."

For five years, I carried letters and packages to homes in Dearborn. I’d worked a route or two in this part of Dearborn, delivering letters and packages to Middle Eastern families.

We drove by streets on which well-kept brick homes sat and passed a large butcher store outside of which a group of men were sitting, talking in the sun.

Soon, we drove by the famous Al-Meer Restaurant, where you can get fresh-baked flatbread and other Middle Eastern foods. Nearby  was the Islamic Center of America, one of the country's largest mosques. Its 150-foot gold-colored dome loomed to our left.

"They all get along, the Christians and Muslims, I mean?" asked Sam.

"For the most part, I think, although not always. They recently had some problems when a pastor from Florida stopped by here to speak."

I meant Terry Jones, the pastor who gained worldwide attention for threatening to burn a Qur'an in Florida. When he came here, there had been a scuffle and he or someone with him had yelled out an epithet equating Muslims with Satan.

Dearborn is a puzzle. A city that today is home to more than 40,000 people of Middle Eastern origins, dozens of Arab businesses and some 13 mosques, it is also the community whose former mayor, Orville Hubbard,  wasn't known for friendly race relations and tried to raze a large Arab neighborhood so the city could build an industrial park.

The Arab community dates back to the early part of the 20th century, when people from the Middle East were recruited to work in the Rouge Plant, a massive car factory started by Henry Ford, who needed workers for the tough and dangerous jobs at the Rouge and didn’t want to hire blacks.

But Greg and Sam were more interested in current events.

"Didn’t some Islam guy get shot in a warehouse down here?" said Greg.

"Yeah, I think I saw it on TV," added Sam.

I told them they probably meant Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was shot to death by FBI agents during a raid on a warehouse. The raid arose from charges that the imam, with several others, had conspired to sell stolen goods and possessed illegal guns.

The incident brought unwanted attention to Dearborn, which had worked hard since the terrorist attacks ofSept. 11, 2001 to distance itself from radical, violent elements of Islam.

As we rolled through Dearborn, Greg and Sam were looking out the windows at bakeries, grocery stores and clothing places that reminded me of the neighborhood shopping places that were alive and thriving when I was growing up in Detroit.

"Either of you know much about Islam?" I asked.

I looked over and saw Sam shrug. In the rear-view mirror, I saw Greg had closed his eyes. I took these reactions to mean that they weren't up for a talk about theology. But I tried.

"There are some interesting tie-ins between Muslims and Christians that many people don't know about, especially when it comes to Jesus," I said. “Both religions hold him in high regard, although as Christians we believe he was God. Muslims don’t."

Silence.

Soon, we left the Middle Eastern district and moved through the area closer to the "Glass House," the headquarters of the Ford Motor Company.

I tried one more time. "I hear that Dearborn is probably one of the few communities in the United States where Muslims and Christians pretty much live side by side and in peace."  

I checked them out and still had no response. Maybe they’d had enough information for today. So I left it alone, figuring we'd save the lesson on Islam for another day.

Chris Meehan is news and media manager for the Christian Reformed Church in North America.