Executive Committee Meeting 10-15-24

President's Report

Page 52 of 95

EXPLORE DETROIT

DEARBORN

and the other, artistic and interactive, about how the F-150 is manufactured. You then get to see the assembly line proper, passing through six elevated platforms, from where you can observe workers on the job: you see how the doors are installed, and the windscreens, and how the vehicles are tested before they leave the factory. It's said that if all the pick-ups produced here in one year were placed end to end, they would easily cover the distance from Detroit to New York (480 miles)! ARAB AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM a 13624 Michigan Ave - t 313 429 2535 - arabamericanmuseum.org - Thu.-Fri. 11am-6pm (weekend from 12pm) - $8. When arriving at Detroit airport, visitors may be surprised to see signs in... Arabic. After California, the State of Michigan has the country’s second largest Arab population , mainly concentrated in the town of Dearborn. Opened in 2005, this unique museum in the United States has a mission to raise public awareness on the diversity of Arab communities and cultures. Mixing traditional architecture with its dome, mosaics, and ceramics, the building houses interesting collections of objects, most of which come from donations made to the museum. The visit is underpinned by two basic questions: What does it mean to be an Arab? How do you stay true to your culture and values while integrating into American society? On the first level, displays show visitors what humanity owes to the Arabs

Ford Museum entrance, 9:20am-3pm - $26 (child $19.50). The fourth Ford plant, opened in 1917, was named after the Rouge River, whose waters here merge with the Detroit River. This location wasn't chosen by chance: thanks to this powerful waterway, Henry Ford was able to ensure the self-sufficiency of his factory, where he brought in the necessary raw materials by boat. There were docks, 100 miles of railways, a huge foundry, a power plant, but also a hospital, a fire department and a police station, all served by more than 100,000 people in the 1930s. At this its peak, The Rouge, where 1,500 tons of steel were melted and 500 tons of glass were produced every day, a car came off the production line every 49 seconds! Henry Ford had succeeded in lowering production costs by dint of Taylorism : the scientific management of tasks associated with the mobile assembly line, and filling repetitive or even mind-numbing jobs accepted with the promise of attractive wages. After producing Models A and B, Thunderbirds and Mustangs—not to mention military equipment during the Second World War—the plant now manufactures exclusively F-150 pickups , the country’s best-selling vehicle. It is a modern-day plant that focuses on ecological concerns (solar panels, rainwater recovery, and others), efforts that have paid off as migratory birds can be observed passing through once again. The factory tour encompasses a small museum and the screening of two films , one about the history of the site

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M. Wells/Alamy/hemis.fr

Ford Rouge factory tour.

of the September 11 attacks , which left Americans of Arab origin in shock, and the moving support they received from Americans of Japanese origin, who themselves paid a high price for Japan's entry into conflict with the Allies in the Second World War.

in cultural and scientific terms. But it is on the second level that the journey begins, via three complementary sections: Coming to America , Living in America , Making an Impact. History on an epic scale is told through personal stories. We learn that more than 60% of the Arabs in America are Christians. They arrived in several waves of immigration, in the early 20th century, fleeing the Ottoman Empire, then Palestine in the 1950s and 1960s, Yemen after 1960, and Lebanon in the 1970s-80s. We discover the religious, food, and clothing traditions , but also the prejudices and stereotypes that are hard to dispel, particularly through the representations of Arabs in movies. We can also see the impact