🌊 Roca Visits The Swing City

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Dearborn, Michigan

Of Dearborn’s 110,000 people, 54.5% of them claim Middle Eastern ancestry. That makes it the only Arab-majority city in the US – and one of the most crucial cities in this year’s election.

The question is: Who will it vote for?

Arabs have been in Dearborn for a century. They were among the first workers on Henry Ford’s Model T assembly line in Detroit, and when Ford moved his HQ to Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, they moved with it. While those initial Arab workers were mostly Christian, successive Middle Eastern conflicts sent waves of Muslim Arabs to Dearborn: Lebanese, Yemenis, Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians. 

Most of the people who arrived in Dearborn were Shia Muslims, the smaller of Islam’s two main sects. For context, only Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan are majority-Shia; all other Muslim majority countries are predominantly Sunni. 

Today, Dearborn has an Arab-Muslim mayor and the US’ largest mosque. It’s the first American city to make Eid, an Islamic holiday, a paid holiday for city employees, and one of a few American cities where it’s legal to broadcast the call to prayer from a mosque’s loudspeaker. Last year, Dearborn became the US’ first Arab-majority city.

As such, it’s become a hub of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli activism. Earlier this year, to send a message that the city’s people rejected President Biden’s support of Israel, Dearborn activists organized voters to vote “uncommitted” instead of Biden in the primary, an implicit threat to reject Biden in November.

"Uncommitted" ended up winning 57% of Dearborn’s votes to Biden’s 40%.

Around that time, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed that called Dearborn “America’s Jihad Capital.” It detailed events held in the city to commemorate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the October 7 attackers, and slain Hezbollah militants. The story sparked an uproar, with Dearborn’s mayor calling it “Reckless. Bigoted. Islamophobic,” and President Biden criticizing it on X.

So what is Dearborn really like? Who will it vote for? We visited to find out.

In Dearborn, we saw a lot of what was lacking in the preceding Michigan cities of Saginaw, Flint, and Bay City: Prosperity.

Here, businesses were full of customers, houses were nice and large, and families sat together in conversation. In those cities, we saw almost none of this. And there was one other difference: Everyone was Arab.

Our guide in Dearborn was Abe, an Instagram food reviewer whose videos have made him a local celebrity. Abe – a Shia Muslim born and raised in Dearborn to parents who had fled war in Lebanon – promised to show us the real Dearborn.

“The three most dominant [groups in Dearborn] are Lebanese, Yemenis, and Iraqis,” he explained. “And they all came because of something happening overseas: My dad in the 70s, civil war – came here for a better education and a better job. Same with the Iraqis…and the Yemenis.”

Abe insisted that the best way for us to understand Dearborn was to go to a football game, so that’s where he took us next: “Everyone here loves football,” he said.

On the way, we passed rows of beautiful homes, many with Islamic signage in the yards leftover from Ashura, the Shia day of mourning. Families sat outside, drinking tea and talking. As we drove, Abe named the businesses each home’s residents owned. Moments later, we passed Ford’s headquarters.

An economic adviser to Dearborn’s mayor would later tell us that Dearborn hasn’t suffered like other Rust Belt cities because its core is small business: People come from around the world with dreams of opening businesses and the community supports them. A local told us his goal is to have no chains in downtown Dearborn. This attitude meant that despite the auto industry’s plight, Dearborn has continued to prosper.

At the Fordson High football game, the team – “The Tractors” –  consisted almost entirely of Arab players, with names including “Hassan Tlays,” “Younes Saeed,” and “Khalil Bandra.” 

The student section was packed with girls wearing cowboy hats over their hijabs and outfits that were significantly more modest than what you’d find at other high schools. Many Arab parents – the women in head coverings – sat in the crowd, cheering on their kids. There were no cheerleaders, a function of conservative Muslim values.

If the football game couldn’t have been more familiar, where Abe took us next couldn’t have been less so: The Islamic Institute of America, the largest mosque in the United States.

On Thursday nights, the Shia community holds a special prayer session at the institute. Inside, the mosque’s imam – its leader – greeted us, urged us to make ourselves comfortable, and told us to explore and film as we wished.

Hundreds of worshippers had gathered in the mosque’s packed main room, with women in the back and men in the front. A man sang out prayers in Arabic, to which the crowd would occasionally sing back or stand up and bow down. 

In many ways, Dearborn is offering what conservative Americans want: Family, faith, entrepreneurship, and community. But throughout the day, people repeatedly made comments – while insisting we don’t quote them – that would have alarmed those same Americans, as well as progressives. We heard defenses of Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah; claims that Jews control America; and criticisms of LGBTQ issues and homosexuality.

And indeed, last May, the imam of the mosque we visited had his crowd chant “amen” while he prayed that God “eradicate from existence” the “sick, disgusting Zionist regime.” At a different Dearborn rally, a Muslim leader called October 7 “one of the days of God” and a “miracle come true.”

The people we spoke to insisted we didn’t quote them because they didn’t speak for the community. Thankfully, we found someone who did: Dearborn’s most famous imam, who sat for an hour-long interview. 

Imam Qazwini told us that “most Muslims hate America.” Inside the Islamic Institute of America, he explained why.

Qazwini was born in Iraq to a prominent family that opposed Saddam Hussein. Hussein executed a dozen members of Qazwini’s family, so in 1980 – the year Iran became a theocracy and went to war with Iraq – he moved to Iran to study at its most prominent Islamic seminary. After finishing his studies in 1992, he became an imam and moved to the United States.

Qazwini said an imam “leads the Friday prayer…usually presides over marriages, divorces, funerals. Similar to what a pastor or a priest does, a lot of marital counseling, visiting patients.”

“And due to the need or necessity of being in a non predominantly non-Muslim country like the US, the imam usually also becomes the community leader, a spokesperson.”

In the wake of 9/11, Qazwini – who comes across warm and wise – sought to dispel prejudices about Muslims. In doing so, he became one of the most well-known American Muslim leaders. He’s since held audiences with George Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton; two popes; and countless other influential political and religious leaders.

He led the Islamic Center of America – the country’s largest mosque until 2019 – when he started his own organization, the Islamic Institute of America.

Qazwini said Arab Muslims are as or more appreciative of America than anyone else.

“I love America. I’ve said it so many times: America is a great country and America, with all its flaws, still it's an ideal place for Muslims to live. Muslims have more freedom in this country than any Muslim country,” he said. “I do not make any exemption: all Muslim countries lack freedom. We have a freedom here. I can say whatever I want. You know, I go to some countries and I see imams cannot speak…but here I can say whatever I want. Today I criticized our politicians. This is a gift.”

Qazwini argued that Muslims are perceived as anti-American only because of their views on foreign policy and Israel: “Some people, when they see us criticizing the foreign policy, they think we are against America.” 

He continued: “Tell me one benefit America is getting from Israel,” he said. “We don't get any benefits from Israel other than liability, other than the trouble, other than hatred.

“Why most Muslims hate America is... for its blind support of Israel. The day the US stops supporting Israel or at least acts neutral, Muslims will have no problem with this country”

We asked: So why is the US supporting Israel?

“The pro-Israeli lobby is milking our country, fooling our people by telling them, ‘Look, we are your ally. We are. We are fighting your fight!’”

We asked why he thought the Israelis controlled US policy even though the Gulf Kingdoms, like Saudi Arabia and UAE, have more money.

“The monarchies are nothing but stooges of Israel. They love Israel. They work for Israel. They don't represent their nations. They want to stay in power,” he said. “They know the only way for them to stay in power in Saudi Arabia and Emirate is by pleasing the pro-Israeli lobby so the pro-Israeli lobby can protect them in the US by not pushing the US against them.”

We noted the argument is that Israel is a counterweight to Iranian dominance in the region.

“Iran has a radical stance against certain policies; some of them I disagree with and many I agree with,” the imam noted.

“[But] it is the actions of Israel that made Iran and Hezbollah anti-Israel. Otherwise, if the US had not done that, nobody has an issue,” he claimed.

“It's action and reaction,” he said. “If Israel was not so, if the US is not supporting Israel, there would not be Iran…Iran thrives on the sentiment caused by the US.”

The imam’s solution was for the US to stop supporting Israel, which would force it to the negotiating table with the Arabs: “400 million versus six million. They will wipe them out!” 

We noted that many people support Israel because they fear this exact outcome would cause a second Holocaust. So we asked: If the US withdrew support of Israel, would there be a holocaust in the Middle East?

“I don't know if there would be Holocaust for Israel,” he said. “But historically speaking, it was the Christians who hated the Jews, not Muslims. Anti-Semitism is a European phenomenon, not a Muslim phenomenon.”

Changing the topic, we noted that Israel aside, the community had conservative politics yet its Congressional representative – Rashida Tlaib – is one of the most progressive in Washington.

“I had a discussion with her personally,” Qazwini responded. “I told her, ‘I support your political stance, but your social stance I don't support,’ including how she supports the gays and lesbians.”

We said those politics sounded like some conservative Christians, and he agreed: “They are family oriented. We are family oriented. They are against, you know, homosexuals. We are against homosexuals.”

But Muslims don’t support Republicans, he said, because “some Republicans – not all of them – don't believe that Muslims should be active in this country…and they have an anti-Islamic attitude…That's something that raises a bigger flag for me: I wouldn't support the Republicans, even though I do agree on many shared values.”

Speaking of which, we asked who Qazwini would vote for this year.

“I'm not satisfied with the Democrats,” he said. “I think we are choosing between evil and worse evil. I'm being very honest with you. I'm not happy with Kamala Harris…She says, ‘I will continue sending weapons to Israel’... Even if 100,000 people, one million people are killed. You think she cares? You think Trump? You think our politicians care if five million people get killed? Look what we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We killed over 300,000 people. We justified it. We justified killing innocent people. Why? For our political end.”

“I see there is evil and there is more evil. I believe Trump is more evil than the Democrats. But to tell you, Democrats are good people? They are good politicians? We should vote for them? No. Who should we vote for? Honestly, I don't know.”

“I can tell you myself, most likely I'm staying home.”

On Friday, Trump visited Dearborn, hoping to seize on the hesitancy the imam expressed. The day before, riding in the car with Abe, he told us, “People here love Trump.” He appeals to Dearborn’s patriotism, social conservatism, and entrepreneurial spirit, despite his allegedly past anti-Muslim stances. Abe did clarify that many will still vote for Democrats, but it’s no longer 2020 — and certainly not 2016.

In our conversations, we did, indeed, hear more Trump endorsements than Kamala endorsements, though almost all were made in private. Many feel betrayed and ignored by the Democrats and have greater trust in Trump’s ability to bring about peace in the Middle East. Others, however, remember the “Muslim ban” he campaigned on in 2016 and his decision to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.

Either way, Dearborn residents aren’t going anywhere. Before concluding, Imam Qazwini said this: 

“America with its capabilities, with its openness, with its diversity, with its orientation as a nation of immigrants is completely different than Europe…Everybody knows we're immigrants. There could be a problem between white and black over historic issues, but in the end we are all immigrants. So America has more potential than Europe. And that's why Muslims feel a bigger sense of belonging in America than Europe.”

“No doubt, America is the best country on earth. I'm not talking about politics. But living standard, being able to thrive, to pursue your dreams, your economic dreams, your educational dreams. No doubt, America.”

Editor’s Note

We’ll try to get out two more election reports before Tuesday night. Stay tuned for that and we’ll see you then.

-Max and Max

RocaNews co-founders