From the Middle East to the Motor City

CENTURY CLUB
COMMENTARY || January
- February
2016
Lessons
Learned
From Centennial
Businesses
FIBER WARS
High Speed Data
Spurs Economic
Development
OUTSIDE BET
Detroit’s Casinos
Bank on More
Attractions
DETROIT’S PREMIERE BUSINESS JOURNAL
FROM THE
MIDDLE
EAST
TO THE
MOTOR CITY
More than 500,000 people of
Middle Eastern descent live
in metro Detroit and generate
$36.4B in economic activity.
COVER STORY || Immigration
How the Middle East
From
the Middle
East
Drives
the Motor
City
to the Motor City
More than 500,000 people of Middle Eastern descent live in metro Detroit,
and, combined, they generated $36.4 billion in economic activity in 2015.
While the road to self-reliance can take years due to language and cultural
barriers, the influx of refugees has been a boon to the regional economy.
BY NORM SINCLAIR |
48 DBUSINESS || March - April 2016
JACOB LEWKOW
Immigration || COVER STORY
SWEET SUCCESS
A customer, top photo, gets assistance at Shatila Bakery in Dearborn, known for its signature Middle
Eastern pastries and ice cream. Tania and Batoul Shatila, owners of Shatila, above, along with their
sister, Nada, and mother, Zinat, own and operate the bakery, a mainstay in the city for decades. The
bakery was founded by their late father, Riad Shatila, in 1979. Below, Yasir Bugrara of Ann Arbor and
Jawad Hussain of Boston enjoy desserts in the bakery’s dining area.
ust east of the new Chaldean
Community Foundation building
on 15 Mile Road in Sterling Heights,
an aging strip mall that was nearly
deserted a couple of years ago is undergoing an economic and cultural
revival that is transforming Sterling
Heights and neighboring communities
into the Dearborn of metro Detroit’s far
northeast side.
As far back as the 1920s, waves of Lebanese immigrants rebuilt East Dearborn into
the largest Middle Eastern enclave in America. More recently, refugees fleeing more than
a decade of sectarian violence and civil wars in
Iraq and Syria are putting an Arabic and Chaldean face on Sterling Heights, neighboring
Madison Heights, Warren, and, to a lesser extent, Troy, the Bloomfield communities, Shelby
Township, Macomb Township, and other area
neighborhoods.
Since 1980, the number of people from
the Middle East coming to metro Detroit has
tripled, and those immigrants now total more
than 500,000 people — 350,000 Arab-Americans and 150,000 Chaldeans — accounting for
10 percent of the region’s population. The influx
has accelerated since 2008, and has served to
repopulate neighborhoods, office centers, and
retail establishments affected adversely by the
global financial crisis.
As additional refugees arrive, President
Obama’s commitment to accept more immigrants from war-torn areas of Iraq and Syria
will generate additional economic activity. Still,
some are concerned that, as the United States
seeks to offer assistance to tens of thousands of
people fleeing attacks in the Middle East and
northern Africa by ISIS, terrorists might be
able to infiltrate our borders.
In response, the White House has said all
refugees that have applied to enter the United
States will be subject to intense and lengthy
security background checks. While some argue
the addition of foreign citizens takes away from
economic opportunities for Americans, Arab
and Chaldean-American officials point out that
the areas where immigrants have chosen to
reside and work in metro Detroit were largely
abandoned or deteriorating.
“We grew up as Christians in Baghdad, and
when Saddam Hussein came to power, our
family had to leave,” says Sam Simon,
chairman and CEO of Simon Group Holdings in Taylor, which includes Atlas Oil Co.,
March - April 2016 || DBUSINESS.COM 49
COVER STORY || Immigration
Atlas Transportation, and Fast Track Ventures,
among other companies.
“When my parents and us five kids arrived
in Michigan, we stayed in the basement of a
church, and the priest said he was going to ask
the parishioners to help us out. But my dad said
he didn’t want the money, he wanted work. He
wanted a job. So he worked at the parish, then
got a job in a bakery, and then a gas station,
and our family took it from there. Hard work
and the kind support of metro Detroiters is the
reason for our success.”
As a small case study of what Middle
Eastern Americans have accomplished on a
much broader scale, consider that the once-forlorn shopping center at the corner of 15 Mile
and Ryan is now vibrant with Chaldean-owned
businesses. There are signs with Arabic script
on a driving school, a hair salon, a restaurant, a bakery and coffee shop, and a national
insurance company’s branch office.
A brightly lit supermarket with a brick oven
baking fresh Middle Eastern bread and pastries opened late last year. On the outside, another store next to the supermarket resembles
any other store in metro Detroit. The
interior, however, would be unremarkable
in a Damascus suburb. Shelf after shelf along
one wall is stacked with displays of Persian
rugs and fine fabric window treatments, among
many other offerings. As in the other businesses
in the shopping center, prices are posted in
English and Arabic.
Although the migration of Arabs and
Chaldeans to this country dates back to the end
of World War I, the recent wars and violence
that are wracking the Middle East has added
an urgent impetus to the flow of refugees.
“Of the 500,000 Chaldeans in the United States, 150,000 are now living here in
southeast Michigan,” says Martin Manna,
president of both the Chaldean Community Foundation and the Chaldean-American
Chamber of Commerce in Bingham Farms.
“Since 2007, we have had 30,000 people
come from Iraq, Syria, Iran, and parts of
Turkey. A majority of those newcomers
are here in Sterling Heights, Warren, and
Madison Heights.”
Although they are from the Middle East,
Chaldeans are not Muslim. “Obviously we
speak Arabic, too, because we are from the Arab
world, but we are indigenous to Iraq and Syria
(originally Mesopotamia), and we speak the
language of Christ, which is Aramaic,” he says.
Since the chaotic civil war in Syria and the
rise of ISIS, more than 1 million Chaldeans have
been displaced from their homes in Iraq and in
Syria. Very few of that number have reached
this country — approximately 1,500 Syrian
50 DBUSINESS || March - April 2016
refugees have made their way to the United
States, with 120 of them coming to Michigan.
To meet the demands of an influx of
30,000 Chaldeans, the community center in
Sterling Heights that opened last November was
expanded to 11,500 square feet from 2,500
square feet. The original facility, which debuted
in 2011, was projected to serve 400 people
per year. But by 2014, the number of people
it served surged to 16,000, while last year, more
than 18,000 newcomers came through the doors
seeking assimilation essentials including health
care, career and immigration services,
interpretation of landlord-tenant documents, or
insurance forms. In addition, English language
classes are taught four times weekly.
Staff members working out of the center
include physicians, lawyers, social workers,
counselors, and instructors from Macomb
Community College in Warren who teach
English and computer skills to the newcomers.
“We assist them in every way we can to help
them become acculturated and transition them
into American life,” Manna says.
Manna proudly points out that the support
from the established Chaldean community has
the foundation halfway to its goal of raising
the $5 million needed to pay off the cost
of building the center, and to being able to
establish a fund to help find long-term
housing solutions for refugees.
That campaign also supports the Chaldean
Loan Fund, set up to provide low-interest
loans for refugees to purchase motor vehicles, a
vital necessity in an area where public
transportation is scarce.
While Chaldeans tend to cluster and live
near relatives, or close to their churches, it is
difficult to establish an official count of the
number of residents. “School data, however,
shows in some Catholic schools the number
of Chaldean students ranges from 30 percent
at Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield
Township to 70 percent at Our Lady of
Refuge in Orchard Lake Village,” Manna says.
A recent report in The Detroit News, based
on U.S. Census Bureau data showed a corridor
from Clawson to Troy to Sterling Heights and
Shelby Township was the region’s fastest-growing area for foreign-born residents, outpacing
perennial leaders Dearborn and Hamtramck.
Troy now ranks second to Hamtramck with the
highest percentage of foreign-born residents,
while Dearborn ranks third, according to the
census data.
Still, no city in the region has undergone
the population shift that Hamtramck has
experienced in recent years. Its early settlers
were Polish workers attracted to the area
by jobs in the Dodge Main motor vehicle
assembly plant, run by John and Horace
Dodge, that began operations in the 1920s.
Later arrivals were mostly from Eastern Europe.
Today, 43.6 percent of the 22,256 people
who reside in Hamtramck are foreign-born,
and migrants from Bangladesh have replaced
the city’s Polish identity. They make up nearly
40 percent of the foreign population, followed
by another 30 percent from Yemen.
Along Conant Avenue, where Polish and
Eastern European storefronts once flourished,
Bangladeshis now operate multiple businesses.
Last November, the city dedicated a new
honorary name for that stretch, renaming it
Bangladesh Avenue.
Another distinction for Hamtramck: It is the
first city in America with a Muslim majority city
council. In elections held last November, four of
the six new council members were Muslim, and
three of them drew the most votes.
GATHERING PLACE
The recently expanded Chaldean Community Foundation
building in Sterling Heights offered assistance to nearly
18,000 people last year seeking assimilation essentials
including health care, career and immigration services, and
housing guidance. Martin Manna, at the counter and above
right, is president of both the Chaldean Community Foundation and the Chaldean-American Chamber of Commerce in
Bingham Farms.
Of the 500,000 Chaldeans in the United States, 150,000
are now living here in southeast Michigan. ... We assist them
in every way we can to help them become acculturated
and transition them into American life.
— MARTIN MANNA, PRESIDENT OF THE CHALDEAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
In the earlier days of migration, the attraction to the region, especially for those coming
from the Middle East, was automotive jobs
and a close proximity to Canada, as many new
arrivals had relatives or family friends
living in Windsor. In tandem with the influx,
Henry Ford recruited workers from Iraq and
Yemen with the lure of his $5-per-day jobs on
his assembly line, says Fay Beydoun, executive
director of the Arab American Chamber of
Commerce in Dearborn.
When Ford opened his Highland Park
Assembly Plant in 1910, where millions of
Model Ts were produced, workers arriving
from faraway lands settled around the manufacturing complex. When the Ford River
Rouge Complex was completed in 1928,
many workers moved with the plant and settled in Dearborn. The Highland Park facility was eventually closed, and today it serves
as a storage complex, with plans for a future
museum and tourist attraction.
For the majority of Arab-Americans, the
assembly line was a first step on their way
to owning their own business. Work on the
assembly line was particularly appealing
because anyone with basic skills could get a
job, even though they couldn’t speak English.
Craig Sarafa, who, with his family, owns
March - April 2016 || DBUSINESS.COM 51
COVER STORY || Immigration
WOOD STOCK Fadiya Sarafa, center, and her daughter, Christa Sarafa, and son, Craig Sarafa, own and operate Public Lumber and Millwork Co. in Detroit, established in 1927, and later bought by
Fadiya’s late husband and brother-in-law. It is one of the few lumber companies in Detroit, and the only Chaldean-owned lumber company in Detroit.
Public Lumber and Millwork Co. on East Seven Mile Road in Detroit, says his father, Hani
Sarafa, followed that route to get into the lumber business. The elder Sarafa was on a fasttrack career as an engineer at Ford when he
quit the car company in 1976 and, with his
brother, Zuhair, bought the lumber yard from
the original owners.
“Their plan was to build the business up and
flip it,” Sarafa says. His father, however, bought
out his brother, and kept the lumber company.
Sarafa says his dad’s decision to switch from
working for a boss to owning his own business
is a move that most Chaldeans make as they,
like other Middle Easterners, tap into a strong
entrepreneurial trait. “You have to be born with
it; I call it the merchant gene,” he says.
While Hani Sarafa earned a master’s in
engineering, many of his peers at the Ford
plant couldn’t speak English.
“I asked an old family friend who was well
established in business, why did Chaldeans
come to Detroit instead of Texas or California or
someplace else?” Sarafa says. “He said it was the
same reason a lot of other non-English-speaking people came here. They were offering jobs
52 DBUSINESS || March - April 2016
in the auto industry to people who couldn’t
speak English. They could work and make a
decent salary while learning to speak English.
Soon the word got around, and one family member would tell another, and they all came here.”
Sarafa, 38, who graduated from the University of
Michigan, is now running the company with his
mother. His father died in 2012. “It was only natural,” he says. “I’ve been working here since I was
12. I worked on the weekends and during the
summer, so it seems like I’ve been here forever.”
While a Chaldean-owned lumber business
is unique in Detroit, they are joined in the city
by many of their native countrymen. According
to data provided by the Chaldean-American
Chamber of Commerce, Chaldean-Americans
own 90 percent of the liquor and convenience
stores in Detroit, and 75 of 80 supermarkets.
Almost as prevalent are Chaldean-owned gas
stations in the suburbs.
Over time, many Arab and Chaldean-Americans haveentered professional services, including the medical and legal industries as
well as hospitality (hotels and restaurants),
insurance firms, and financial agencies.
Manna says while more second-generation
Chaldeans are more educated than their parents,
they still share an entrepreneurial spirit. “It’s no
longer a corner grocery store; it’s Plum Market.
Instead of a corner gas station, it’s USA 2 Go with
a Tim Horton’s or a Subway connected to it, and
with multiple locations. It’s not one Sprint store
or Metro PCS store, but 230 T-Mobile stores
across the country,” he says.
Plum Market, an emerging collection of
gourmet markets with locations in Bloomfield
Township, West Bloomfield Township, Detroit
Metropolitan Airport, Ann Arbor (two stores),
and now Chicago, was co-founded by Matt
Jonna. Kevin and Mark Denha, along with Saber Ammori, own 230 Wireless Vision stores
spread across 13 states, while Akram Namou,
president and CEO of A&M Hospitality in
Southfield, owns more than 100 hotels and has
10 more projects under development.
Arkan Jonna, meanwhile — principal of
A.F. Jonna Development in Bloomfield Hills
— recently acquired the Palladium Building in
downtown Birmingham, which is part of some
50 mostly retail developments he oversees in the
region. Frank Jonna and his family are leaders in
commercial and residential development and
Immigration || COVER STORY
POPULATION GROWTH OF MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES
The population growth rate of the Middle East and North Africa are among the
fastest in the world according to the latest figures from the World Bank, with 3.7
percent growth predicted for 2016 and in 2017.
RANK
COUNTRY
POPULATION *
PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION
1
Egypt
92.6 M
21.9%
2
Iran
79.6 M
19.2%
3
Turkey
79.2 M
19.1%
4
Iraq
37.1 M
8.9%
5
Saudi Arabia
31.9 M
7.7%
6
Yemen
27.2 M
6.5%
7
Syria
18.5 M
5.7%
8
United Arab Emirates
9.2 M
2.18%
9
Israel
8.1 M
2.0%
10
Jordan
7.6 M
1.7%
11
Lebanon
5.9 M
1.0%
12
Palestine
4.7 M
1.1%
13
Oman
4.7 M
1.0%
14
Kuwait
3.9 M
1.0%
15
Qatar
2.2M
0.5%
16
Bahrain
1.3 M
0.4%
17
Cyprus
1.1 M
0.2%
* In millions as of February 2016
construction projects, while Joseph Jonna owns
Jonna Luxury Homes in Birmingham and
Jonna Facility Services, which provides
building maintenance at more than 500
locations in 31 states nationwide.
For most metro Detroit Middle Eastern
refugees, the transition from new arrivals to
productive residents and eventual citizenship is
still an arduous journey.
When Gov. Rick Snyder pulled out Michigan’s welcome mat for Syrian refugees late
last year following the terrorist attacks in Paris, it touched off a national backlash against
Syrians. Local activist immigration leaders
like Haifa Fakhouri, president and CEO of the
Arab American and Chaldean Council in Troy,
were dismayed by the reaction. She saw the
plight of refugees up close during a recent trip
to Jordan, where 1.6 million displaced Syrians
fled and some 600,000 — mostly women and
children — live in primitive conditions in
camps. Jordan, she points out, is the same size as
Indiana, but is a relatively poor country without
the resources or infrastructure to support such
an influx of people.
“There are 4,000 children between the ages
of 7 and 16, which is a very vulnerable age, who
don’t have any parents. They have no names.
They (the Jordanians) don’t know who they
are, they have no documentation, and their
department of social development, which is
equal to the Department of Social Services here,
is trying to help them,” she says.
The Arab American and Chaldean
Council has been settling immigrants and
refugees since 1979, and is the area’s largest
such support group. Fakhouri’s 160 employees,
many of whom are bilingual or trilingual,
include doctors and psychologists who operate
40 outreach centers in the region, including a
collection of five buildings along Seven Mile,
near John R. Last year, Fakhouri says ACC
serviced more than 70,000 people. During an
interview on a recent afternoon, three ACC
clients talked about their experiences. One was
a 50-year-old Iraqi who fled the country after
his wife was killed in 2013, leaving him to raise
three boys, aged 16, 15, and 11. All would have
been prime targets for ISIS recruitment.
The man doesn’t speak English, and with
relatives still in Iraq, he didn’t want his name
used. He left all his possessions there, and together with his sons he made his way to Turkey,
then flew to the U.S. and applied for asylum.
Ghessan Younan, who oversees the ACC’s
Pathway program and is assisting the family,
says he is trying to get the 50-year-old a job as
a cook while working with him on his English
lessons. The man’s three sons are enrolled in
schools in Sterling Heights. “He is in bad shape,
but getting an education for his kids is the most
important thing to him,” Younan says.
Another Syrian, a 32-year-old man, holds
a bachelor’s degree from the University of Damascus. He received a visa to visit the country
two years ago, and finally left last year at the
insistence of his parents and his sister. Because
kidnappings of men his age are a daily threat,
he made his way to Dearborn Heights and
applied for asylum.
He says the immigration lawyers he spoke
to wanted $5,000 to fill out the application,
so he did it himself. He believes he may have
to wait two to three years for an interview.
Without authorization to work, he cannot
get a Social Security card or a driver’s license.
After the interview with immigration officials,
it could take as much as nine months for a
decision on his case, he says.
The third ACC client, Dr. Mohammad
Adajani, is a Palestinian who earned a doctorate degree in chemistry in Iraq. He moved from
Iraq to Malaysia, where he met his American
wife. They moved here in 2012.
Adajani, who speaks English and gained U.S.
citizenship last year, says he had a six-month
assignment doing cancer research at the
Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute
in Detroit, but has been without a job since
that program ended. Since then, he has been
working on a project aimed at fighting cancer,
but he needs grant money or a foundation to
sponsor his work.
He continues to seek employment, but
is often told he is overqualified. “I have a
degree, I have the language, but nothing seems
to change,” he says. In Dearborn, Beydoun,
executive director of the American Arab
Chamber since 2008, says she came to America when she was 6 years old and has played a
leadership role in the growth and influence
of the Arab population in Dearborn for nearly
two decades.
“Back in the ’80s, Warren Avenue was like a
ghost town. Most of the buildings were empty,”
she says. “Then you saw the influx of Lebanese
immigration. As the Italians moved out, the
Lebanese moved in, and they revived Warren
Avenue and East Dearborn.”
Not only is she involved with the Arab
chamber, she also serves as COO at Tejara, a global business development center,
and is executive co-chair of the Council
of Ethnic Chambers, whose membership
includes nine other area chambers
representing different nationalities.
Continued on page 55
March - April 2016 || DBUSINESS.COM 53
COVER STORY || Immigration
Open Our Arms and Trust, but Verify
BY DAVID LITTMANN
FROM AN ECONOMIST’S PERSPECTIVE,
each legal immigrant holds the potential for
augmenting “human capital,” the ultimate
source of growth and prosperity for a region
or nation. Human capital is best regarded as a
stock of knowledge and habits, as well as social
and personality attributes that include
creativity and personal responsibility — all of
which is manifested in each individual’s
ability to perform productive labor with
transgenerational value.
Immigrants who adopt citizenship tend
to possess characteristics associated with
economic success. A prime example is the
estimated 150,000 Chaldeans, principally
Iraqi Christians, who reside in metro Detroit.
Attracted by Henry Ford’s $5-a-day wage at
the Highland Park Model T Plant a century
ago, the Chaldean population first moved to
Detroit, before spreading out to Oakland and
Macomb counties.
Chaldean entrepreneurship is now firmly
documented in the evolving economic history
of metro Detroit. An estimated 60 percent
of the local Chaldean population derives its
household income from the ownership of a
business. For Michigan, this is an exceptional
and significant number.
Consider that despite falling rates of
immigration between 2000 and 2012, largely
the result of the 2008 global economic crisis,
Michigan ranked second (only behind
California, the most populous state) in the
attraction of Iraqis, the chief source of new
Chaldean immigrants. Remarkably, 92 percent
of recent immigrant Chaldeans selected
Michigan as a destination, according to Data
Driven Detroit.
Significantly, disinvestment and decay in
many Detroit neighborhoods since 2000 had
lowered the cost of initial capital investment
to those merchants wanting to build new
enterprises. As a result, Chaldeans — already
known for establishing corner specialty stores,
service stations, restaurants, groceries, and
lodgings — expanded their entrepreneurship
throughout the region.
Today, more than 500,000 people of Middle
Eastern descent reside in metro Detroit, and
they accounts for 10 percent of the population and make an annual economic impact of
54 DBUSINESS || March - April 2016
ANNUAL ECONOMIC
IMPACT IN
METRO DETROIT
TOTAL REVENUE:
$36.4 Billion
CHALDEANS
ARAB-AMERICANS
$10.7B
$25.7B
TOTAL POPULATION:
500,000
CHALDEANS
ARAB-AMERICANS
150,000
350,000
Source: 2015 estimated figures by David Littmann,
former chief economist, Comerica Bank
$36.4 billion.
Notwithstanding this encouraging scenario,
present-day realism requires considerably
more citizen vigilance and caution vis-à-vis
future immigration practices. Households
have legitimate concerns over the inability of
our state and nation to balance budgets or
fund the burgeoning, unfunded liabilities of
existing government programs (now topping
$45 billion for state and local employees in
Michigan alone).
Deteriorating infrastructures such as
water systems, roads, and bridges, as well as
insecure utility centers and dilapidated schools,
foreshadow proliferating economic weakness
and financial insolvency. For Michigan, compensating for these deficiencies will cost taxpayers
in excess of $15 billion by 2020. Meanwhile,
greater portions of our lower and middle-class
youth struggle to land good-income, full-time
employment.
Americans now question what they perceive
as an absence of social and economic justice
when they are required to further subsidize
enclaves of unknown people who may be
suspect in their willingness to adopt the values,
language, culture, and constitutions of
Michigan and the United States. They compare
current documented and undocumented
entrants with prior generations who were eager
to become self-sustaining members of their
community and who contributed greatly to
what brought our nation pre-eminence. We are
a compassionate and generous people, they
say, but we no longer have the resources to
subsidize yet another class of dependents and
still meet our pressing responsibilities at home.
Then there is the issue of national security,
fostered by well-documented reports of terrorist plans and actual deeds of mass violence. In
Detroit, these fears are justified. On Christmas
Day 2009, the “underwear bomber” nearly
destroyed Northwest Flight 253, with 290
passengers aboard, over the city of Detroit. It
is already known that national and UN-related
agencies lack access to documentation that
would properly vet these refugees in a timely
manner, thus preventing the entry of malevolent individuals under false pretenses.
Chaldean entrepreneurs have rapidly
transformed their earlier, small-business
employment into professional services, and
they now own large telecommunication, real
estate, food, and lodging enterprises. It is
possible that the saga of Chaldean migration
and development will foreshadow the human
capital prospects of Middle Eastern migration
to Michigan and metro Detroit. But there is
no assurance of positive social and economic
results without honest, transparent scrutiny
of the health, motivation, and credentials of
prospective immigrants to our shores.
BY THE NUMBERS
The economic and cultural
impact of Arab and ChaldeanAmericans in metro Detroit
» Michigan is home to the largest
concentration of Arab and Chaldean Americans
in the U.S.; about 350,000 Arab-Americans and
150,000 Chaldeans.
» More than 80 percent of Michigan’s Arab
and Chaldean-Americans reside in Wayne,
Oakland, and Macomb counties.
» Following metro Detroit, other large cities
with sizeable concentrations of Arab and
Chaldean-Americans are San Diego, Chicago,
Phoenix, and Las Vegas.
» According to the most recent estimate, 25
percent of Sterling Heights’ population is of
Iraqi/Chaldean descent.
» More than 60 percent of ChaldeanAmericans own at least one business, and
nearly 40 percent own two or more. Chaldean
Americans own an estimated 15,000
businesses in Michigan.
» Arab-Americans earn more than $7.7 billion
in wages and salaries in southeastern Michigan.
» In metro Detroit, 72 percent of Arab and
Chaldean-Americans were born outside the
U.S., and 79 percent are U.S. citizens.
» Arabs and Chaldeans have been in
southeast Michigan for more than 120 years.
Sources: Arab American Institute, Chaldean-American
Chamber of Commerce, Detroit Arab American Study,
Arab American and Chaldean Council, Arab American
Chamber of Commerce.
CENTER FOCUS
Mary Romaya, executive director of the Chaldean Cultural
Center located inside the Shenandoah Country Club in West
Bloomfield Township, says in the early days Chaldean immigrants were drawn to Detroit because of automotive jobs and
the proximity to Canada. Oftentimes, family members who
passed required physical tests entered the Unites States,
while others who did not pass, chose Windsor as a nearby
option to live and work. At far left, a grocery store display is
modeled after a typical Chaldean owned shop in the 1930s
at the Chaldean Cultural Center, due to open later this year.
At near left, writing is pictured on a replica of the Code of
Hammurabi (the original is at the Louvre).
March - April 2016 || DBUSINESS.COM 55
COVER STORY || Immigration
FINDING SUPPORT
Syrian refugee Refaai Hamo, left, speaks with case manager/job developer
Usama Batarseh at the Arab American and Chaldean Council’s Oakland PATH
(Partnership. Accountability. Training. Hope.) Refugee Employment and
Training Program in Troy. Hamo fled war-torn Syria where his wife and one
daughter were killed in a missile attack. He resettled in Troy with his three
surviving daughters and a son in December. He was a guest of first lady
Michelle Obama at the 2016 State of the Union address in January.
LESSON 101 Teacher Ikhlas Kerma leads a level one English speaking class at the Oakland PATH Refugee Employment and Training Program, where immigrants and refugees learn English for job placement. She has taught at the PATH program for three years.
“Tejara is an incubator and accelerator
that focuses on the ethnic and immigrant
communities,” she says. “It works with startups,
and works with some of the existing businesses,
56 DBUSINESS || March - April 2016
and it has a strong track of exporting. It allows
us to work more with the various ethnic and
immigrant communities that still have ties to
their respective countries. They already know
how business is done in their countries, and
they will succeed because of that.”
An example of the work they do is the sale
of used cars overseas from Michigan. “The
largest numbers of used cars that are shipped
overseas come out of the Dearborn area, and
they get shipped all over the Middle East, as
well as to Africa and Asia,” she says.
Yousif Ghafari, who grew up in a small town
in Lebanon with no running water, electricity,
or a phone, moved to metro Detroit in 1972
and, soon after, was enrolled at Wayne State
University in Detroit. Over the course of a
decade, the Maronite Catholic earned master’s
degrees in applied mathematics and computer applications and chemical engineering.
In 1982, he launched an architectural,
engineering, consulting, and construction
services company which today employs more
than 400 people and operates 10 global offices.
“The Lebanese people started to come to
Detroit in the late 1800s, and we opened stores
and became doctors, lawyers, and engineers,”
Ghafari says. “When I came here, I followed
my uncle who had moved to Detroit in 1951. I
attended college, and like many Lebanese, I
grew up in an entrepreneurial environment.
After college, I put together a business plan,
opened my business, and never looked back.
Everyone I know from the Middle East wanted
to pursue the American Dream.”