Immigrant Island Cities in Industrial Detroit

Abstract

This paper dissects the ways in which Fordist and other corporate and state actors laid social and urban frameworks for Detroit in the early twentieth century and considers the urban practices of immigrant groups as these industries declined. I look at Arab and South Asian immigrants, many of whom arrived in the United States during periods of intense economic and national crises, and examine how they navigated through an “Americanized” and industrially fractured landscape. I argue that these immigrant groups drew into dense immigrant-oriented neighborhoods, where each community had their own means of propagating identity through national and religious forms, constructing and reusing buildings through a range of architectural references, and reinventing local and traditional building forms. Half a century later, these neighborhoods served as platforms that put forth the visions of immigrant communities, economically sustained a deteriorating industrial landscape, and became the vehicles by which immigrants claimed territoriality and belonging in Detroit.