Harun Nasrullah
Two Muslim Arab Americans made history on November 2 when they were elected mayors in Michigan. Abdullah Hammoud (Dearborn) and Amer Ghalib (Hamtramck) became their cities’ first Muslim mayors.
State representative Hammoud, 31, defeated former Wayne County Commissioner Gary Woronchak with nearly 55 percent of the vote.
‘Dearborn, we won! I’m honoured & humbled by today’s support. Our residents spoke loudly – we want change & bold leadership to tackle the challenges our city faces. We live in the greatest city in America and I’m excited about what we can achieve together. Let’s get to work!’ he wrote on Twitter following his projected victory.
“The people of Dearborn spoke loudly. They want change and bold leadership to tackle the challenges we face,” Hammoud said in a statement. “We live in the greatest city in America and I’m excited about what we can achieve together when we rally around a common vision.”
Hammoud has been serving the community since 2017 as a state representative. His tenure saw him secure 200 million dollars for small businesses and workers who were hard hit by the pandemic, as well as 10 million dollars for public schools.
Further, he vehemently advocated for climate change by holding leading companies accountable.
“To the young girls and boys who have been ridiculed for their faith or ethnicity, to those of you who were ever made to feel that their names are unwelcome, and to our parents and to others who are humiliated for their broken English and yet persisted — today is proof that you are as American as anyone else, and there is a new era in Dearborn,”
Hammoud, whose parents are Lebanese immigrants, told supporters. In Hamtramck, Amer Ghalib defeated Mayor Karen Majewski to become the city’s first non-Polish mayor in a century. Ghalib, a health care worker and immigrant from Yemen, defeated Majewski 68-31 per cent.
A long time Polish enclave, in recent years the city has seen an influx of immigrants from Yemen and Bangladesh, but now, Polish-Americans make up less than 7 per cent of the city.
Hamtramck is the only city in America with a Muslim majority population.
Ghalib will oversee a locale surrounded by Detroit, with more than 28,433 residents, according to the 2020 Census.
That’s roughly 6,000 more than a decade earlier but far from its peak, around 56,200 in 1930, city documents show.The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) congratulated the two mayors-elect for their victories in the elections.
“Their victories are signs of not only the increased political engagement of Muslims in our region but also the comfort fellow Michiganians of other faiths have in supporting Muslim candidates,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR-Michigan.
