August 12th, 20230DEARBORN — The kept-secret recent visit of State Senator Sylvia Santana to Israel sparked widespread outrage and disappointment among local Arab Americans, who makes up about 65 percent of the district she represents in the Lansing, which includes the cities of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, as well as parts of Allen Park and...
July 25th, 20230News last week that the U.S. and Israel were about to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) advancing Israel’s entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP) shouldn’t have caught us by surprise. But it did. For months, we had been assured by various Biden administration officials that Israel could not meet the requirements of the...
July 14th, 20230DEARBORN – In a murder that shook the Arab American community, an unlicensed local dentist shot and killed one of his patients in his home in the west side of Dearborn after midnight on July 6, according to preliminary investigations and a Dearborn Police report.
Zayed Albodour, 52, was arraigned last Sunday in front of 19th...
May 26th, 20230By Mohamad Moslimani
Arabic has become a much more widely spoken language in the United States in recent decades. The number of people ages 5 and older who speak Arabic at home in the U.S. rose from 215,000 in 1980 to 1.4 million in 2021, making it the nation’s seventh-most common non-English language spoken at home. Arabic speakers...
February 10th, 20230DEARBORN — A reception celebrating the growing political involvement of the Arab community in the state of Michigan took place last Monday at LaPita Banquet Center in honor of the majority floor leader in the Michigan House of Representatives and the state representatives who represent Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck and parts of...
January 27th, 20230WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden administration is proposing major changes to forms for the 2030 Census and federal government surveys that would transform how Latinos and people of Middle Eastern or North African descent are counted in statistics across the United States.
A new checkbox for "Middle Eastern or North African" and a...
January 13th, 20230DEARBORN — Attorney Amanda Atwy has been hired as one of the prosecutors for the city of Dearborn.
She attended Cooley Law School and started working for Dearborn's legal department as a law clerk in her second year of law school. She also completed her required externship in law school at the 19th District Court. There she worked...
December 24th, 20220December 18 marked the 10th United Nations World Arabic Language Day, which celebrates the language spoken by more than 300 million people, primarily in the Middle East and North Africa. Arabic is also the fastest-growing language in the United States, according to Census data.
Arabic has become the eighth-most taught language in U.S....
December 16th, 20220DEARBORN — A very excited crowd banged drums and waved mostly Moroccan flags during Wednesday's World Cup semifinal watch party, hosted by Mayor Abdullah Hammoud at the Michael A. Guido Theater.
The Morocco fans — nearly everyone in attendance — were unwaveringly optimistic, cheering each time the Morocco team dribbled the ball...
December 10th, 20220
By Robert MacArthur, MD
Healthcare disparities are preventable differences in healthcare status, access and quality experienced by many consumers due to a variety of factors, including race, ethnicity, income, gender, neighborhood, language and education. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human...
December 9th, 20220
DEARBORN — Oakman Child Care Learning Ladder celebrated the grand opening of its third location in Dearborn at Hubbard and Mercury Drive on Monday, December 5.
Samera Ajami is the sole owner of all three locations. She opened her first location is East Dearborn in 2012 and the second in Detroit in 2019.
All three...
December 6th, 20220
On Thursday, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans announced that he will be presenting Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to the County Commission for its approval as a project consultant working with the County's Health, Human and Veterans Services Department (HHVS). El-Sayed will take over as director, pending Wayne County Commission...
November 25th, 20223A Northville couple who died in a late-night rollover crash Nov. 12 were remembered and honored in an online memorial service last Monday night.
Manal Kadry and her husband, Dr. Omar Salamen, died after their car left the road as the driver attempted to navigate a turn near their neighborhood, Northville police said. Police said the...
November 19th, 20220By Peter White
Despite new laws to keep people from voting and gerrymandering election districts to take away the power of minority communities, the Republican “red wave” that pollsters predicted ahead of last week’s midterms didn’t happen.
Ethnic Media Services debriefed six experts on their reactions to the election...
November 11th, 20220After the state lost a congressional seat from the census and with redistricting causing upheaval to the U.S. House maps, Democrats have broken the tie in the Congressional roster from Michigan and added two new faces.
After the Nov. 8 election, Michigan will have seven Democrats and six Republicans in the U.S. House of...
November 11th, 20220Hamtramck native Abraham Aiyash will become the first Arab American to be a majority leader in a state legislature next term after he was selected by his colleagues to be Michigan’s new majority floor leader of the State House. Aiyash will be the highest-ranking Muslim American in Michigan legislative history.
"Incredibly honored...
November 10th, 20220DETROIT — A federal agency has released a report, after a 2020 request from U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan), on how the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can eliminate the potential for discrimination in travel screenings.
The report comes out of years of requests by Arab Americans and Muslim Americans to their...
November 9th, 20220Democrats cleared victories with wide margins despite a renewed push by Republicans to make in-roads with voters, with the picture becoming clearer as election results came out of the Dearborn Clerk’s office Tuesday night.
With all precincts reporting in Dearborn, unofficial results from the Dearborn City Clerk showed comfortable...
November 4th, 20220DEARBORN — Dearborn has a rising star in mixed martial arts (MMA) and he's fresh off a 5-0 record, hungry for more and looking ahead at a bright future in one of the country’s most popular sports.
21-year-old Abe Alsaghir’s story is yet another example of the community's immigrant, working class roots and its penchant for...
November 4th, 20220A proposal to enshrine in the state’s constitution guaranteed protections over reproductive health such as pregnancy, prenatal care and abortions has seen some growing opposition in Dearborn.
Recently a pamphlet put out by Dearborn Parents for Principled Civic Engagement appeared in English and Arabic with claims that the proposal,...
November 4th, 20221The last days into a tight race between Democrats and Republicans for control in Michigan have seen a push by both parties to gain favor among local Arab Americans.
Though most polls put incumbent Democratic Governor Whitmer ahead of her GOP opponent, Tudor Dixon, the Nov. 8 race is tighter than what the Democrats would have hoped...
November 3rd, 20220ECORSE — An Arab American man is suing U.S. Steel for wrongful discrimination termination following employment discrimination by his supervisor.
The lawsuit, filed by the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) in federal court on behalf of Yemeni American Jalal Muflihi, says Muflihi complained for...
October 28th, 20220DEARBORN — Hundreds of community members joined state and local officials at a packed Byblos Banquet Center in Dearborn for the 25th annual banquet for Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) on Thursday.
Those in attendance and on the speakers' list were Democratic leaders and November election hopefuls Governor Whitmer,...
October 28th, 20222- Muzammil Ahmed serves on the boards of Emgage MI, CAIR MI and is the former chair of the Michigan Muslim Community Council. The opinions expressed are his own.
When the Muslim community and the progressive forces came together after 9/11, it was a marriage of convenience. Arabs and Muslims needed to be loved and the Progressives...
October 21st, 20220The November election is around the corner, and because of ongoing and unprecedented attacks on civil liberties and democracy itself, we cannot emphasize its importance enough.
We know these elections will not occur in a vacuum. Recently, the nation turned its attention to our community once more; but sadly, this time it wasn’t due...
October 14th, 20225By now, just about in everyone in Dearborn is aware of the book banning saga in the Dearborn Public Schools. A number of concerned citizens and parents have voiced their objections to the presence of certain books in school libraries, namely books that explore LGBTQ+ themes and lifestyles. Undoubtedly, parents should have a say in the...
October 7th, 20221By Lucas Resetar, special to The Arab American News and New Michigan Media
In the year 2000, 11-year-old Marwan Mikhael left Iraq with his father. After crossing into Jordan and enduring a difficult and dangerous journey, he ended up at a small refugee camp in Bulgaria.
“There was no food and little water,” Mikhael said. “I...
September 15th, 20220ANAHEIM, CA — After years of lobbying by advocates, Anaheim finally designated its Arab American enclave as "Little Arabia" on Tuesday.
In a statement, Anaheim's spokeswoman told CNN the city plans to follow up the designation with in-depth research.
"The Little Arabia designation recognizes an area of our city we've always...
