Story and photographs by Sean Barlow
May 12, 2005

There are some 15,000 museums in the U.S. And now for the first time, there is a museum devoted to the Arab American experience. The Arab American National Museum opened its doors on May 5th in Dearborn, Michigan. Attending the ribbon cutting ceremony were visiting ambassadors from Egypt, Lebanon and Qatar, the Secretary General of the Arab League, senators, mayors, corporate and community leaders as well as thousands of local residents who waited patiently to get their first peek of a project long in the making.

The overwhelming emotion that day was pride--pride in the handsome museum building distinguished by traditional Arabic architecture with blue ceramic tiles from Morocco, curved stone and wood arches, and a warm welcoming internal courtyard flooded by light from the domed roof. Pride at the exhibitions that vividly told the stories of Arab immigrants making a new life in America and contributing their talents and energies to the American mosaic. Pride that finally, their day had come.

The Arab American National Museum is a project of ACCESS (the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services) led by Executive Director Ismael Ahmed. ACCESS also has a significant, ongoing commitment to culture. For the last two years, Afropop Worldwide listeners have heard highlights from the ACCESS produced Concert of Colors, a three day world music marathon held every July in downtown Detroit. ACCESS also plays a key role in the mainstreaming of Arab music, working with a national network of prestigious venues such as Central Park SummerStage, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. and others, to present Arab artists.

Ismael Ahmed, a veteran world music radio host, said that he made sure the new Museum's auditorium has good acoustics. The Museum plans to host some 30 performances starting this September through May of 2006. About a quarter of them will be Arab artists. The balance will be music from other cultures.

Ahmed said at the opening press conference for the Museum "We want to work with other communities because we believe that culture is one of the key ways to reconstruct communities and to reconstruct the world."  He added, "There is much to be done. There is difficulty with visas, bringing in Middle Eastern artists. It's almost resulted in a cultural boycott. Some 30 countries--African and Arab--are on a list that must pass additional barriers. We must work to change that."

The Museum's exhibitions take advantage of modern, interactive technology designed to appeal to kids. For example, you press buttons and hear how various Arab instruments sound. There is a video called "Dance the Debka with Leila" where a young Arab American girl teaches you the steps for the dance popular at Arab community gatherings. 

Ahmed said one of his personal favorite exhibitions was the refrigerator that you open and find Arab foods such as falafel. 

The heart of the Museum is in the personal stories of Arab Americans. Photographs, short biographies, quotes, and personal artifacts are grouped in three themed areas--"Coming to America," "Living in America," and "Making an Impact." Museum Director Anan Ameri said: "Numbers sometimes don't really convey a story.  If you say there are 200,000 Arab-Americans who came through the Great Migration, it does not mean a lot. But if you take an individual and tell their story, and why they came, you put a face and name on them. We tried to tell the story from the voices of the immigrants themselves.Then people can identify with people."

Ameri cited the first Arab American to land in the U.S. He was a slave named Zamori who came from Morocco in 1528. He earned a reputation as a healer and led an exploratory expedition to Texas because word spread of his healing skills and the Native Americans welcomed him along the way.

A common reaction to the Museum exhibition is "I didn't know he or she was an Arab American."  Radio icon Casey Kasem. Arctic explorer George Doumani. Former Health Secretary Donna Shalala. Quarterback Doug Flutie. Opera soprano Rosalind Elias. And so many other accomplished individuals in their fields. There are an estimated 4.2 million Arab Americans.

Ameri said: "When we talk about the Arab world, we talk about 22 countries. So we don't all look alike. We don't all have the same story. So by reflecting the diversity and complexity of the Arab American, I think we can do it better by individual stories."

According to Ameri, there is a deeper underlying dynamic at work: "Arab Americans have somehow been written out of the history of the United States. If you read about world civilizations, you never read about Arab contributions. If you read about the history of America and how this country became a great country, you never read about Arab Americans…I think there is a history of Orientalism that came to the U.S. from England, meaning viewing other cultures as not as good."

Again and again, speakers at the Museum's press conference framed their comments on the central role 9-11 has played. Amre Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League said: "Post 9-11, we are under severe criticism. Even our identity is under attack. People say Arabs have no culture." Secretary General Moussa stressed the importance of cultural work, citing the success of the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, where hundreds of performing artists, authors, publishers, painters and intellectuals from the Arab world were invited to participate. Along these lines, Moussa called for "a dialogue of civilizations, not a clash of civilizations."

Ambassador Bader Omar Al-Dafa from Qatar was warmly introduced by Ismael Ahmed for his passionate engagement in the Museum project from the start and for his advocacy to other Arab countries for financial support (Qatar provided one-million of the 16-million dollars raised. Over 1,500 contributions poured in from the Arab community around the U.S.).

Ambassador al-Dafa said, "After September 11 th, which was a horrible occasion, the media here played a negative role in portraying Arabs and Muslims and relating them to terrorism. Yes there are some, those who committed this horrible act. But those are few. They do not represent the whole of the Arab and Islamic community all over the world.  I think part of the message of this Museum is really to give the American people, especially the younger generation, a different picture about the achievements of Arab Americans--in politics, sports, entertainment, business and art."  

Ambassador al-Dafa is himself a painter who has participated in exhibitions around the U.S.  He says that the audience for his art is totally different than the political and diplomatic circles he travels in. He says, "I have seen and I realize how much people appreciate art. I mean, people get sick of politics. Not just in the U.S. but around the world…Through culture, through painting, through music, we all can get together. You don't have to speak the language. You don't have to have an interpretation for a painting or for a piece of music. I think the more of such activity, the closer we get together, the better we will understand each other."