East Side Story: Bridging the divide

Ishtar Restaurant in Sterling Heights is one of the most popular restaurants with Chaldeans and offers Mediterranean cuisine such as lentil soup and grilled lamb

By Adhid Miri, PhD

Albert Einstein has been credited with saying the only constant in life is change. Accordingly, the Chaldean community is in a constant state of change, evolving on all levels– social, educational, professional, economic, and geographic. This story pertains to the latter two levels.

The Great Divide

The first group of Chaldeans to gather in Michigan settled along the 7 Mile corridor in Detroit. The tightly knit and walkable community known as “Chaldean Town” included homes, shops, markets, and coffee houses. As they prospered, some moved north to the suburbs, crossing the Eight Mile divide. Southfield, Oak Park, and Sterling Heights may be the first places successful Chaldeans relocated to, but in the last few decades, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills, and Commerce have welcomed their share as well.

Unlike the north/south geographic and financial divide that defined the development of the community during the slow immigration years of the last century, a new east/west thinking seems to have entered the vernacular. This new divide is a figment of the imagination and lacks focus, making it ingenuous and erroneous—requiring clarity and correction.

Terms like “Boater,” “Eastsider,” “Storechi,” and “Tahinchi” are degrading and should not be used. These derogatory terms have been applied to new immigrants and implies that people who arrived on boats, clinging to the ways of the old country, are not integrating into American culture. It is a stereotype with a negative connotation, a contrived division that does not represent our identity.

The term “Storechi” (referring to owners of a convenience store) is outdated but still used. The wording is a subtle sign of ill-informed mindsets, and one wonders what might lie behind the misconception. Today, less than 16% of Chaldeans own convenience stores; they have shifted their interest to gas stations, cellular stores, hotels, real-estate, development, and professional services.

Undelivered expectations, discrimination against newcomers, the blame game, and prejudices on both sides play an important role in perpetuating this fiction, although clashes of real interest or disagreements of substance surface from time to time. It is helpful to unbundle some of the key assumptions underlying the divide and check each one’s validity.

This new divide does not seem to correlate with measures of integration or modernization. Certainly, there is a difference in the immigration timeline along with a steady evolution of people in Chaldean immigrant communities; however, one marked difference could be the economic status of inhabitants and access to education in each area.

Myths and Misconceptions

Although we acknowledge there is a divide, the idea that East Side and West Side Chaldeans have turned into discrete camps divided by many issues is a misconception. Apart from their relatively varied per capita incomes, the two groups have a lot in common besides just their shared Chaldean history. However, Chaldeans as a single “social bloc” are about as diverse as any other community in the US.

Twenty years after the “big bang” immigration and refugee crisis that started with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, one would expect the dividing line between pre- and post-invasion myths and distinctions to have faded away. According to our observations and community members’ commentary, the opposite appears to be the case. The rift is often perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for the cohesion of the community, although the last three years have seen a decline in immigration numbers and the rift may be growing smaller.

In addition to being immigrants from the same country and culture, there are many issues where the interests of the two groups are well aligned. One is the shared interest in a successful future, well-funded organizations, common goals, advocacy, and community interest policy that is based on accurate census data that can help reduce the gap in economic development among the community members and increase the profile of the community.

Job security tops the priority list for newcomers, and there is no doubt that the industrial East Side is very different from the West Side marketplace. For the most part, issues result from weaknesses in governance and lack of effective community institutions—issues the Chaldean Community Foundation (CCF) is working to remedy. It will take considerable time to create the required institutional capacity, and the legacy of six decades of immigration is certainly an additional handicap.

It may be overoptimistic to assume that the engagement process would remedy these deficits within a few years. But there is hope that over time, the situation will improve as it has in other communities. The real challenge for the Chaldean community is to develop incentives to support this process and sharpen the instruments to combat misinformation and misconceptions.

Investments in the East Side

A check of the experience of the past twenty years demonstrates that altogether, the community expansion and contributions to the East Side of the metro Detroit tri-county area has been an impressive success story.

Over the last few years, nearly all the retail shops along Ryan and Dequindre Roads and 12 through 16 Mile’s intersections have become occupied by Chaldean stores, clinics, pastry shops, restaurants, and markets—enough to feed the Middle East! Shopping centers, services and commercial real estate owned by Chaldean families are everywhere you look.

Major organizations like the Chaldean Community Foundation, the Chaldean Catholic Diocese, churches, social clubs, and banquet facilities have found homes where the community lives. This shows commitment and determination to grow and expand.

Our Chaldean community is succeeding and contributing throughout the state of Michigan. The city of Sterling Heights is a prime example. The community invested $10 million in the development and expansion of the 30,000 square foot Chaldean Community Foundation facility at 15 Mile and Ryan Road.

Sterling Heights, voted recently as the safest city in the United States, will also house the CCF’s $30 million affordable housing mixed use development with 9,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor on Van Dyke Road between M-59 and 19 Mile Road.

Conclusion

We can’t firmly determine which of the cultural systems of East Side or West Side Chaldean communities is more advantageous. What is more important is how people of both sides respect and accept each other’s values, path and living system.

Today as well as in the future, our organizations, churches, social clubs, and civic activists from both sides should consult with each other more frequently, take joint initiatives across the divide, and help find common ground for collaboration and unity. Investing more community and cultural resources, promoting round tables educational discussions, and sharing civil society activities could make a difference in keeping our community united and moving forward.

Wherever we live, a greater awareness of these facts can help us all understand our own minds a little better. We are one people; the differences are imaginary, irrational, and sentimental.

Sources: 100 Questions and Answers about Chaldean Americans by Michigan State University School of Journalism; Chaldean Iraqi American Association of Michigan; Chaldeans in Detroit by Jacob Bacall; Wikipedia.