“Why Do Arabs Own Grocery Stores?” Arabic-Speaking Merchants in Flint, Michigan

Abstract

The Michigan Historical Review 44:2 (Fall 2018): 67-96©2018 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved “Why Do Arabs Own Grocery Stores?” Arabic-Speaking Merchants in Flint, Michigan By Hani J. Bawardi In October of 1996, I volunteered to talk about the influence of Arabic civilization on Spanish culture to a class of children at Northern High School in Flint, Michigan. When it was time for questions, a student asked: “Why do Arabs own grocery stores?” A classmate answered: “Because the government gives them money, so they open stores.” Another said: “And they don’t pay taxes for seven years.” Then a third responded: “They [Arabs] sell the store to their relatives, so they don’t pay no taxes.” A few months earlier, and half a world away in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian I met at a gathering at the Mount Olive Hotel wondered about the same phenomenon: “How come so many of you [Palestinian immigrants and expatriates] own stores in America?” He used the English word “stores” although the question was asked in Arabic, suggesting his impression that the “store” was not so much an occupation as it was an experience for immigrant countrymen. These are valid questions, given that 104 out of Flint’s 108 convenience stores and supermarkets were owned and operated by Arabic-speaking immigrants in 1997. This overwhelming representation in grocery retail should not obscure the fact that Arab Americans overall have made substantial strides in a variety of businesses and professions. The descendants of those who migrated during the past century, and indeed the majority of the relatively recent immigrants who arrived after 1965 seeking education, are well represented in every conceivable profession. Among them there are artists, doctors, lawyers, educators, authors, and athletes, including many luminaries who made an indelible mark on popular culture in the United States.1 Today’s merchants in Flint 1 Habib Ibrahim Katibah (in collaboration with Farhat Ziadeh), Arabic-Speaking Americans, Pamphlet no 2 (New York: Institute of Arab American Affairs, 1946). In addition to this rich resource on the accomplishments of Arab immigrants, published over seventy years ago, the websites of the Institute of Arab American Affairs, the American Ara Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Arab American National Museum teem with similar examples. 68 The Michigan Historical Review are three generations removed from those predecessors who charted a path for them, and who also influenced their choice of location. Almost all are relatively recent arrivals. Many are either migrants from Palestinianoccupied territories or Palestinian population centers inside Israel, or Chaldeans (a Catholic ethnic group) mostly from the Iraqi city of Telkeif (Tal Kaif, a town near Mosul in the Ninawa District of northern Iraq). There are also some Jordanians and a few Lebanese families. Few of their businesses still bear the names of retail grocery dynasties, among them Farah-Khouri, Mansour, Zerka, and, for a short while, a single location under the once wildly successful Hamady name. These names trace to the first decade of the twentieth century. In fact, many of the most prosperous and prominent older Arab immigrant families in Flint made their fortunes in grocery retailing, and most of the Syrian immigrants first engaged in peddling before transitioning to owning stationary general stores by the 1910s. Between 1994 and 1997, I conducted several oral history interviews and collected a range of archival material related to the history of Arab Americans in Flint, some of which is now housed in the Hani Bawardi Collection at the University of Michigan-Flint.2 It became evident over the course of my initial research that the question of why so many immigrants still owned grocery stores in 1996 was part of a narrative worthy of investigation. In addition, such an inquiry proposes new questions about how business life enhanced intra-communal social cohesion and, ultimately, the characteristics and functions of business patrons in other social spheres. What follows is a brief background on Arab immigration to Flint, including early migrants who peddled wares and trinkets door-to-door, a practice that ran its course by the first decade of the twentieth century.3 Next, in order to understand the persistence of grocery retailing over...