Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees - GCIR

Ethnic museums have opened all across the United States from California to Connecticut, including seven in Chicago, 25 in New York City, three in Detroit. The newest Detroit entry, opened in 2005 and also a first in the nation, is the Arab American National Museum, developed by the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) in Dearborn, Michigan.

Similar pride in accomplishment, and similar story telling to cross-cultural barriers, have accompanied this opening. Since September 2001, the public narrative about Arab Americans has been considerably distorted by stereotyping and prejudice. The Museum’s aim is to tell the true and quite diverse story of the accomplishments and contributions of immigrants to America from Arab countries. The $16-million campaign, which was accompanied by a six-month process in which a planning team gathered ideas from Arab-American communities, created 38,500 square feet of exhibits, classroom space, auditorium, and library.

Exhibits at the Arab American National Museum display the cultural contributions of Arab nations throughout history, from the everyday life of Arab Americans to the work of famous politicians. In the words of New York Times critic Edward Rothstein, “ like other museums of American hyphenation,” it is “at once an assertion of difference and belonging, a declaration of distinction and of loyalty.”

“The Arab American National Museum is a door opener for southeast Michigan and the world,” adds Brenda G. Price, community liaison program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “It offers insight into the Arab culture, its integration into American culture, and the valuable contributions made by members of the Arab community over many generations. The Museum is a testament to the diversity in this country, and the contributions made by immigrants who continue to arrive on this soil.”

The dynamic integration process that weaves America’s receiving society with its newcomer population incorporates the difference, the belonging, the distinction, the loyalty. The country’s many ethnic and immigrant museums—portals in the two-way process—model integration as they enhance it. As the Arab American National Museum humanizes “American hyphenation” in a war-onterror America in which the “other” can be so readily demonized, the Tenement Museum reminds us that one way to combat dehumanization is to acknowledge the hyphen in us all.

One of those who died on September 11 at the World Trade Center was Frank Reisman, a great-great-grandson of Nathalie Gumpertz, the woman who turned to dressmaking when her husband disappeared on the Lower East Side in 1874. As part of the memorial to the family that started its American journey at 97 Orchard Street, Mr. Reisman’s story has been incorporated into the Tenement Museum’s Gumpertz tour.

In the words of the Driehaus Foundation’s Sunny Fischer, “How can one help but be moved.”