Census: Arab Americans now a majority in Dearborn as Middle Eastern Michiganders top 300K

Arab Americans, for the first time, now make up a majority of the residents of Dearborn, and Michigan's total Middle Eastern population has surpassed 300,000 residents, according to new census data.

About 54.5% of the 109,976 residents of Dearborn are of Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) ancestry, most of them Arab, according to 2020 census data. That's a seven-point increase from 2019 census data that showed 47% of Dearborn has Arab ancestry. The spike reflects a more accurate representation of the size of Dearborn's Middle Eastern communities because the 2020 decennial count was more thorough, advocates said.

The MENA category was used for the first time by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020; it includes people with roots in Arabic-speaking countries, as well as Iranians, Israelis, and ethnic identities such as Chaldean, Assyrian and Kurdish, among others.

Michigan has the second largest MENA population in the U.S. after California, which has more than 740,000 residents of Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, according to the new data released last week. In Wayne County, 7.8% of residents identified as MENA, the highest percentage of any county in the U.S., said the U.S. Census Bureau in a report released along with the data. Wayne County also has the highest percentage of residents with Lebanese ancestry among all U.S. counties. Iraqis are the largest Middle Eastern group in Michigan, the data shows.

“This release is incredibly important for the Arab American community," said Maya Berry, a Dearborn native who is executive director of the Arab American Institute. "For the first time ever, we are able to see data from the decennial Census on our community, and while we know the numbers do not yet reflect an accurate count, the Census Bureau has taken a monumental step moving us in the right direction."

The institute plans to have an online discussion Tuesday about the new data and its significance.

The Dearborn data from 2020 symbolizes the growth of a community that saw its first Arab American mayor take office last year, and has helped increase the Detroit suburb's population at a time when Michigan is struggling with growth.

Dearborn was about 30% Arab in 2000, and its population spiked 12% from 2010 to 2020. The new data also shows that the population of Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck are both now about 39% Middle Eastern or North African, most of them Arab. In Sterling Heights, 23.5% of residents are Middle Eastern or North African, of which 86% have roots in Iraq. Of the Iraqis in Sterling Heights, a majority are Chaldean. In Detroit, there are 16,238 Middle Eastern or North African residents, 2.54% of the city's population, with Yemenis the largest group among them, making up roughly one-third of MENA residents in Detroit.

Dearborn may now be a Muslim-majority city since most of the city's Arab American population is believed to be Muslim, though the percentage is unclear since the U.S. Census doesn't ask about religious identity. Dearborn has some churches with Arab American congregants.

Most of the 59,983 residents of Dearborn who are Middle Eastern or North African identified on the census form as belonging to specific Arab nationalities, such as Lebanese, or just as Arab. Among the non-Arab MENA residents in Dearborn are 145 Iranian Americans, 45 Chaldeans and 32 Kurds; their small numbers indicate that almost all of the MENA residents in Dearborn are Arab.

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Across Michigan, there are now 310,087 residents with Middle Eastern or North African ancestry, making up 3.1% of the population, according to 2020 census data. That figure includes groups such as Arabs, Chaldeans, Israelis, Kurds and other groups. Ancestry data from 2019 census figures indicated there were about 266,000 residents in Michigan with Arab or Chaldean ancestry.

The largest minority groups in Michigan are: Blacks or African Americans, who number 1.54 million, 15.3% of the state's population; Latinos, at 564,422residents, 5.6%, and Asian Americans, 411,298 residents, 4.1%, according to the 2020 census. Mexicans are the largest group among Latinos and Indians the largest among Asians in Michigan.

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The census data offers two sets of figures for the MENA population, one called "alone," which refers to those who list just one ethnicity; and "alone or in any combination," which refers to MENA people who may be multiethnic. In Dearborn, 51.5% of residents are MENA alone, meaning they identity with one group within the MENA category. That rises to 54.5% for those who are partly of Middle Eastern descent and partly of another ethnicity or belong to two Middle Eastern groups.

The largest group among Michigan's Middle Eastern population are people with roots in Iraq, who number 97,020. That 2020 census figure for Iraqi Americans includes those who identify as Iraqi, Chaldean, Assyrian, or Syriac. The second largest group among Middle Eastern people in Michigan are Lebanese, who number 82,085. The third largest group are Yemeni Americans, who number 32,899 in Michigan. In addition, there are 34,504 who identify just as Arab, without specifying a nationality. All of these figures are for those who identify either as one group or in combination with other groups. The data shows that many with Lebanese ancestry in Michigan have mixed backgrounds: If you include only those who only identify as Lebanese, the 82,085 figure for Lebanese Americans drops to 54,695.

There are 2,564 Israelis who live in Michigan, among the 310,087 MENA residents.

The largest Middle Eastern groups in Dearborn are: Lebanese (22,806), followed by Yemenis (14,513) and Iraqis (4,988). An additional 9,488 in Dearborn identify as Arab. The largest Asian American group in Dearborn is Indian Americans, who number 1,418.

If you exclude non-Arab ethnicities such as Iranian, Israeli and Kurdish, the percentage of Dearborn residents with MENA ancestry dips slightly to 51.4% or 54.4%, still a majority. The ancestry data from 2019 that showed 47% was based on a questionnaire sent as part of American Community Survey, which is a smaller sample compared with the decennial census held every 10 years that aims to count every American and is seen by demographers as more accurate.

In Hamtramck, the largest Middle Eastern group by far: Yemeni Americans. And in Dearborn Heights, Lebanese Americans represent the largest group, followed by Iraqi Americans.

Nationwide, there are 3.52 million MENA residents, or 2.54 million MENA alone, according to the new data. The largest groups among them are Lebanese, Iranian and Egyptian.

Respondents were asked on the census form to check the box for their race, followed by writing in their origins. Middle Eastern and North African are still classified as "white" by the U.S. government based on standards set in 1997 by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. On the 2020 form next to the "White" box, it read: "Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc."

Berry and other Arab American advocates have long pushed for the census to create a separate racial category of MENA, but were unsuccessful. They were, however, able to convince the census to at least include national origins and tabulate MENA people.

There was "low visibility on the census form because of the lack of a MENA category," Berry said.

But this time, people could "write-in their responses ... a key ask of our 2020 get-out-the-count campaign," she added. "Our job now is to keep pursuing accurate data by making sure we secure a MENA ethnic category, one that is inclusive of all, including transnational communities, and one that reflects the diverse racial makeup of people from the MENA region.”

To register for the Arab American Institute's online discussion at 4 p.m. Tuesday about the new census data, go to aaiusa.org/library.

Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com, Facebook.com/nwarikoo, X @nwarikoo.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Arab Americans now a majority in Dearborn, new census data shows