Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s support of Palestine, while far from new, has been roundly criticized in recent weeks as Israel responds to attacks by Hamas terrorists. Tlaib personally supports Palestine — her parents immigrated to Detroit from East Jerusalem and the West Bank — but she’s also representing the sentiments of many in her district, which contains the largest Muslim population in the United States.
Tlaib’s district, which is just to the west of Detroit proper, is mostly white. On paper, that is. The federal government arbitrarily defines the category “white” as including people with origins in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa, so it’s harder to parse out the actual demographics of the district’s 73 percent white population. In reality, Tlaib’s district is heavily populated by Middle Eastern immigrants, with about one in 14 households speaking Arabic as their primary language. In Dearborn, one of the main cities in the district, Arab-Americans constitute nearly 55 percent of the population.
Immigration from the Middle East began in the early 20th century, as immigrants from Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestine found work at the Ford Motor Company plant along the Rouge River. The first mosque in the United States was built in a nearby suburb in 1921. Years later, when Israel gained control of Gaza and the West Bank after the 1967 Six-Day War, Palestinian refugees made Dearborn their new home. Throughout the following decades, refugees fled the Lebanese civil war and landed in Dearborn, followed by Iraqi Shiite immigrants escaping the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
An average of five thousand Arab immigrants arrived in the area each year, Tlaib’s family among them. In 1975, Tlaib’s parents left their home in Beit Ur al-Fauqa, a village in the West Bank, settling in Detroit before her birth in 1976. Today, many businesses in Dearborn have signs in both English and Arabic. The local public schools serve 100 percent halal meat. Mass immigration has dramatically changed an area once shaped by earlier waves of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and Ireland.
Though Tlaib’s activism is unpopular in Washington, D.C., she’s winning support from constituents back in the district. In recent weeks, Dearborn has been a hotspot for pro-Palestinian protests, from well-attended rallies in the week following Hamas’s initial attack to a high school walk-out in support of Palestinians just a few days ago. On October 15, thousands of protestors took to the streets, carrying Palestinian flags and chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan widely interpreted as implying the removal of the state of Israel.
Palestinian Protesters fill the streets in Damascus — I’m sorry — Dearborn.
As in Michigan.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 17, 2023
One protestor spoke with a reporter, expressing his support for Rep. Tlaib and praising Hamas. “If it means we die for the freedom of Palestine, we are ready to die,” he said. “Hamas is our freedom fighters. That’s all we have — Hamas.”
Six thousand miles away from Gaza, the conflict is highly emotional for many voters, even though they left their home countries years — sometimes decades — ago to become Americans. With mass immigration and decreased cultural pressure to assimilate, this might just be the future of representative democracy. (RELATED: Rep. Tlaib, When You Tell Lies, You Should Apologize)
Interestingly, support for Palestine isn’t the only cause that has brought Tlaib’s constituents out in droves. Muslim parents in her district have previously made headlines for protesting pro-LGBTQ books at a school board meeting. Carrying signs such as, “Keep your porno books to yourself,” “Homosexuality Big Sin,” and, “If democracy matters, we’re the majority,” Dearborn’s Muslims proved that they haven’t fully bought into the polarization of America’s major parties. Conservatives got excited by the school board protests, but the Muslim voting bloc is only a sometime ally.
Tlaib won reelection in 2022 easily, earning over 70 percent of the vote, and faces no real challenge for her seat in the future. Across the nation, Muslims had the highest support for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, beating out Black Protestant voters with 93 percent support for the Democratic candidate. And while they’re certainly aligned with the Squad and other social progressives on the Palestine issue, not all Dearborn voters are on board with the left’s social agenda, which contradicts core tenets of Islam.
Rashida Tlaib is a radical in her own right, but her allegiance to Palestine isn’t just about her own heritage. Apart from the pride flag flying outside of her office, about which constituents don’t seem too concerned, Tlaib is a model representative for her constituents. Immigration has cultural consequences, and we’re seeing them play out both on the hill and back home in her district. If Hamas’s attacks on Israel are “what decolonization looks like,” as lefty academics keep saying, then Tlaib’s activism at the Capitol is a glimpse into the real effects of mass immigration.
Mary Frances Myler is a writer from Northern Michigan. Follow her work on X/Twitter at @mfmyler.
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