Lilyan Zebib interviews former state representative Rashida Tlaib at the Arab American National museum.

CANTON — Thirteen-year-old Lilyan Zebib, an eighth grade student at Discovery Middle School in Canton, was recently recognized by C-SPAN for an eight minute video project on immigration she directed and produced for her history class.

Zebib and her classmate, Marina Wenstrum, are featured in the video, titled “The Immigrants Are Coming”, which underwent an elaborate production around the metro-Detroit area.

The students interviewed local leaders, including former state representative Rashida Tlaib, who discussed the benefits of immigration and the impact it has had on the metro Detroit area.

Several places around metro Detroit served as the backdrop of the project, including the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and the Riverwalk in downtown Detroit.

Zebib told The AANews she decided she wanted to do her project on immigration, even though her history teacher, Mr. Haddad, gave her a wide variety of topics to chose from.

“I chose immigration because it’s part of my background and where I came from,” Zebib said. “It’s part of how I grew up and part of my foundation.”

She said she was aware of the hostile political environment targeting Muslims, Latinos and other immigrants by presidential candidates such as Donald Trump in recent months. 

However, even as a minority at Discovery Middle School, she said she’s never felt like an outcast or was bullied by her peers because of her background. 

“All these things about targeting Arabs had been hidden from me,” Zebib said. “It was hard for me to see that because I’ve never experienced any of those negative comments.”

Lilyan Zebib.

Zebib’s father, Nabil, is also featured in the video. He discussed his journey coming to the U.S. as a 13-year-old and escaping war in Lebanon. He found his path here, pursuing an education and starting his own photography company, Avida, located in Dearborn. 

Nabil and his wife originally raised their three children in Dearborn, where they attended the public schools. He recognizes the Dearborn Public Schools for helping mold his children and encouraging them to strive to be young leaders from an early age. 

However, he said the family decided to move to Canton because they wanted to experience life outside of the Dearborn bubble.

And since making that big move, they’ve had no regrets.

“It’s a diverse population and a reflection of this country,” he said. “It’s a majority White population, but you have Muslims, Indians, Pakistanis and Albanians living there, too. We haven’t experienced racism there because a place like Canton is where you get to test the foundations of the American culture. Most Americans aren’t racist; they are really good people.”

Following the completion of the project, Zebib said Haddad was very impressed with the final product and encouraged her to submit her video for C-SPAN’s “StudentCam” competition. In total, more than 6,000 submissions entered the contest from around the world. 

Zebib said she was shocked when C-SPAN contacted her to inform her that her documentary was one of the 150 chosen to receive an honorable mention from the network. Only 20 of those honorable mentions were by eighth graders; the rest were high school students.

“I didn’t really know what was going to happen,” Zebib said.  “I thought my name was going to be on their website and that would be it. But I was surprised when someone from C-SPAN came to my school to give us awards.”

Following the honorable mention, Zebib also received recognition for the documentary from both the state of Michigan and Wayne County.

Zebib’s noteworthy accomplishment was a fitting send-off as the school year draws to a close. She had been involved in numerous extracurricular activities, including being the president of her student council and president of the National Junior Honors Society. 

She is also involved in an initiative called “Lead Like a Girl,” a project aimed at empowering young women by giving them hands-on experiences with business professionals. She also volunteers for the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, a non-profit organization that provides food, shelter and services for the homeless.

When she has time, she also enjoys partaking in hobbies like theater and volleyball. Next month, she’s participating in summer school voluntarily, something many students do only if required. 

“I would like to achieve even more goals in high school,” Zebib said. “I feel like I have to be involved in as many things as possible. That’s how I’ve always been. I like meeting new people and trying out different things.” 

Nabil Zebib said he encourages all Arab American parents to push their children to be involved as much as possible outside of their classrooms.

“As an immigrant and Arab American, I feel like we were given another chance at life,” he said. “We should be passing that gift to other children. Instead of buying nice houses, cars and going on vacation, we should harness our children and let them grow to be even better than what we are. I think that’s essential to our community as refugees and immigrants.”