GCIR is thrilled to be hosting our 2024 National Convening in Detroit, Michigan. Along with our rich lineup of programming, site visits, and local artists, we are proud to be debuting GCIR's next timeline in our Im/Migration timeline series at this year’s event.
To help tell the city's migration story, we have created Destination Detroit: A Timeline of Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian Migration. GCIR’s latest timeline features the history of BAMEMSA communities in Detroit, in Michigan, and across the United States who have been responding to injustices they have experienced to protect and defend their human and civil rights.
In choosing Detroit as the location for our convening, we considered factors such as its geographic location as a border city, demographic makeup that includes a diverse foreign-born population and large refugee population, and its welcoming culture. Additionally, Detroit was a major destination during the Great Migration and is the largest Black-majority city in the nation.
Michigan has the second largest Middle East and North African (MENA) population in the country, while Dearborn, an inner-ring suburb in metro Detroit, became the first Arab-majority city. Hamtramck, an enclave of Detroit roughly five miles from downtown Detroit and surrounded by Detroit on most sides, became the first city to elect an all-Muslim government in 2022. All of these factors pointed to the importance of centering BAMEMSA communities in this timeline
We use the term BAMEMSA here with intention. While there are other terms to describe these communities, such as Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA), BAMEMSA responds to the injustices these communities face stemming from the United State’s post-9/11 response. They have experienced violence, harassment, and discrimination within the historical context of white supremacy, racial capitalism, and imperialism. Philanthropic groups increasingly include Black leadership and Black communities, which have often been excluded from these spaces.
The Detroit metro area boasts a diverse population. Historically, African Americans, European immigrants, and Arab immigrants formed a significant part of the labor force of the auto industry in the area. In recent years, Michigan has been one of the top states in the country for refugee resettlement, resettling 5% of all refugees nationwide between 2010 and 2021. The most common non-English languages spoken in households in the state are Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese; in fact, 91% of all Arabic speakers in the country are based in Michigan.
Detroit was a major destination during the Great Migration. The city’s population grew more than 600% in just a 10-year period. Today, African Americans comprise 77% of Detroit’s population. The city is the largest Black-majority city in the nation. The author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson, has stated that African Americans “were seeking political asylum within the borders of their own country, not unlike refugees in other parts of the world fleeing famine, war and pestilence.”
Detroit also has a rich history as a border city, and it is the largest city along the U.S.-Canada border. A quarter of all trade passes between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario via the Ambassador Bridge, the world’s largest international suspension bridge. Similar to El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Detroit and Windsor collectively have about two million residents across the binational region.
This is the third in a series of timelines GCIR is developing, culminating in the release of a full Im/Migration Timeline tracking the history of movement within, to, and from the United States through a liberated lens. These timelines connect and uplift perspectives, events, and stories that have been systematically excluded from mainstream presentations of history.
Our timeline project aims to:
- challenge prevailing notions of how, when, and why different groups have had to move;
- shed a light on restrictive policies the federal, state, and local governments have enacted to limit (or force) that movement; and
- detail how people have moved to seek safety and security in (and sometimes away from) the United States over time.
To learn more about GCIR's Im/Migration Timeline Project, you can view our first two timelines in this series: Timeline: Citizenship in the United States, 1781– Present, and Timeline: U.S. Intervention and Modern Migration in the Americas.
We invite you to learn more about Detroit's fascinating history as a migration destination by downloading below the condensed display version, which we are showing at our convening, or by viewing the full digital timeline here.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Detroit Timeline_Display Version.pdf | 49.84 MB |
| Destination Detroit Timeline_Full Digital Version.pdf | 3.31 MB |