Arab American National Museum

(Dearborn, Michigan) Mark your calendars. The Grand Opening of the Arab American National Museum will be celebrated on May 5 at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Schaefer in Dearborn. Of 15,000 major American museums, it will be the first to tell the Arab-American story.

A 38,500-square-foot space, the museum will function as an educational facility, an institution of preservation, and a community center, with a 158-seat auditorium, classroom space, a library resource center, and shop. The permanent exhibitions focus on two themes: the Arab world and the Arab-American experience.

Since a person can't swing a cat in the U.S. without hitting a museum of some kind, it seems odd that this will be the first for the Arab community.

Arab Americans, as defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, are "an ethnic group that originates from seventeen Arabic-speaking countries in northern Africa and western Asia." Specifically counted as Arab were people who reported Arab, Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, North African, Palestinian or Syrian as an ancestry. The 2000 Census counted about 1.2 million people of Arab ancestry in the U.S. However, due to lack of consensus about the definition of an Arab ethnic category, the Census Bureau has expressed low confidence in the accuracy of its data. Helen Samhan, Executive Director of the Arab-American Institute Foundation, believes the census data is undercounting by a factor of three. As such, Samhan estimates that there are 3.6 million Arab Americans.

Interestingly, a 2000 Zogby survey found that only 23% of Arab Americans are Muslim, which is likely contrary to widespread belief. The balance is broken down as 42% of Arab Americans are Catholic, 23% are Orthodox Christian, and 12% are Protestant. So, there's a high likelihood of error if one automatically associates Arab ancestry with Islam.

As for the population of Muslims in the United States, Ms. Samhan said, "There's probably around 5 million, of which 20 percent are Arabs."

Approximately 40 percent of Muslims in this country, she said, are American blacks and another 30 percent hail from countries in South Asia including India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

I'm fairly certain that most Americans are unfamiliar with the details of what comprises Arabic ethnicity and the history of Arabs in America. The Arab American National Museum will surely help in promoting a better understanding and Interested-Participant applauds its opening.