Immigration, Migration & Origin Stories
Hamtramck has always been a city of immigrants. The affordable housing costs, available auto factory and industrial work, and ease of access to all types of stores, banks and businesses in the two square mile city make it an ideal home for the thousands of immigrants and migrants who have established themselves in Hamtramck in the last century. When asked about how the city had changed in the last fifty years as the Polish population declined and the populations of Bosnian, Yemeni and Bangladeshi Americans grew, many were quick to observe that the Polish had also been one of many immigrant groups arriving in a predominantly German Hamtramck in the first half of the 20th century. The new sign welcoming visitors to Hamtramck reads: The Whole World in Two Miles. On this page are the stories of how people came to Hamtramck from all over the world and what this international diversity means to Hamtramckans.
Abdul Motlib, president of Al-Islah Islamic Center, reflects on the patterns of immigration in Hamtramck: how one wave is followed by an exodus and another wave follows.
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Abdul: You know they are benefitted for this one. This city build and grow by Polish people, especially. When they’re getting good price, they’re selling their house. Now they go to better place like Bloomfield Hills, Rochester Hills, richer cities. And we are the low income people. We choose to come here because of, I told you before, everything is convenient here.
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Reverend Darla Swint discusses her family's diverse ethnic background and their arrival in Hamtramck from the south.
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Darla: So like now we’ve got this influx of Bengalis and Arabics and things, you had an influx of Polish people and they came here because of the plants. They needed work, that’s what brought them here. The blacks came up from the South during World War II. Henry Ford actually went into the South and brought blacks up to work in the plants because the white men had gone off to war.
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Throughout the city there are visible signs of international diversity. Signs, buildings and public art feature many of the dozens of languages spoken in Hamtramck. Photographed here is the European American Market, the Yemeni Islamic Market, and a sign from Hamtramck Disneyland featuring the artist's Ukranian American pride.
Common Word Alliance founder Arif Huskic talks about growing up in Bosnia and finding a new home in Hamtramck. He remembers early years in the US when he and other Bosnian refugees would speak about their experiences of the war. As they adjusted to life in a new country, they began to refocus their attentions to American ways of life.
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Arif: My name is Arif Huskic. I’m from Bosnia Herzegovina and the state of war as a refugee program took me to United States, which I’m thankful. Now I live in Hamtramck since ’97 and I’m so glad to be Hamtramckan, so glad to be American citizen.
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People are human, wherever they are, whether they live in peace and freedom or they live in war. Peace is number one, this is, this is really number one. To be hungry, somehow probably you can survive but without peace, there is no survival.
-Arif Huskic
Greg Kowalski shares memories of his Polish grandparents. Kowalski recalls that his immigrant grandfather never learned English but was a deeply patriotic American. He reflects on how this has influenced his view of what citizenship and being an American means.
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Greg: I did know my grandfather, my mom’s dad, who lived with us until he died in 1973. And he always maintained that he was an American. He had no desire to go back to Poland. He had no real, strong contacts with family back there, there was some but they kind of faded over the years.
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The Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church on McDougall St (left) and the Ukrainian American Museum Library on Charest St (right) serve as reminders of the Ukrainian immigrants who came to Hamtramck in the early twentieth century.
Ted Palac looks back on his first experiences in the United States. He explains that after years in Hamtramck, he could never live in Poland. To hear Ted's story about leaving communist Poland for a boxing match in Sweden and never coming back, visit the sports page.
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Ted: You know, I have family in Chicago but, you know, if I come from Sweden to New York, you know, I go to my family, you know it’s funny, old woman I think so my uncle she very old like 89 you know she say “Ted, don’t come in my house Chicago because you know I have 5 dogs” [Laughs] “They gonna bite you!”
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Joan Barrios tells of how her grandparents came to live in Hamtramck in 1895 and 1902. She remembers one grandmother's story of traveling in the hold of the ship and another grandmother's German reprimands.
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Joan: For my Polish grandparents, one came over in 1895 and the— and then my grandma came over in 1902 and it says on their listing, it says German-Poland, so way back then, I’m, theres stuff in history books about Poland and German being kind of blended. And they came over on the boat. And my German parents— grandparents, they came over 1902 and then my father was born in 1903 and they came over on the boat too because my oldest aunt, she would tell stories about being in the hold of the ship and like the people who, you know, could afford to pay to go over on the ship got better quarters and then they couldn’t afford so they stayed in the hold and the people used to pass fruit down through the air vents in the floor to the people down there. My grandma that we lived with, she didn’t really speak that much German to us or even around the house. She didn’t talk that much. Mostly she would just tell us, [speaks in German] which means get out. You know, because we were bothering her, but they, you know, she, she would talk to her, her kids that way and my mother too she would talk to her mom because both my grandpas died before I was born so I never knew them. But yeah, they used to talk and then relatives would come by and you know, they’d all chit chat in German or Polish but I never really learned either one of them.
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George Cvetanobski talks about leaving his home city of Bitola, Macedonia at age 29 because of the communist regime. He moved from Macedonia to Australia and eventually from Australia to Hamtramck. George remembers leaving his wife in Macedonia and his first impressions of Hamtramck.
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George: That’s the largest city in— second city in Macedonia by the name Bitola. B-i-t-o-l-a. And I was born there, till I was 29 years old and after that, I left the country, you know. If you ask me the reason why I left, that goes a little bit complicated. The regime was little bit different. That time was social communist regime, something like that. They didn't let us to put somebody else to work for you, you have to work yourself. Otherwise you have to go in a, in a place where everybody working. Not because I didn't like it but they didn't pick me that you know and I decide to leave the country, you know
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Muhammed Alagi remembers scenes of his youth in rural Yemen: an old man under a tree, his mother's cow, and the camels that would help carry supplies up and down mountains. He reflects on moving to Saudi Arabia as a teenager to send money back to his family in Yemen and coming to Hamtramck in 1979.
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Muhammed: My name is Muhammed Alagi. Born 1/1/55, come in Hamtramck in ’79, beginning in 80s.
Interviewer: And where were you born? Muhammed: Back in Yemen. Interviewer: Where in Yemen? Muhammed: In Ibb. Back then, where I grow up, all we have is just one old man sitting under a tree. We have no house to go to school in either and the village would sit under the tree and the old man teaching us. Some of the kids like it, some of them, they don’t. We used to get beat up, too. But now, everybody they have schools, everybody, they have schools, everybody learned language good, everybody go to schools. Back then, they don’t have no school, especially the country peoples. |
Abdul Kaed, interpreted by Omar Alkusari, discusses the culture of his home city of Ibb, Yemen and his changing impressions of Hamtramck over the years.
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Abdul: In Ibb. Well it was a little village so and after that I lived when I was little to Kuwait. I take my education in Kuwait. I was— I have— my uncle was there so he take me and I was in a school until 1973.
Sometime you know when you think about back home, especially when you born over there, to me, when you born in place, you like it, you feel to go back there, to inside your heart, to go. [Speaks in Arabic] It’s too much trouble. |
Adele Wojtkowski explains why changing waves of immigration is nothing new to Hamtramck. She recalls the few remaining French and German immigrants that lived in the city during her youth.
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Adele: Well Hamtramck’s gone through transitions before. You know the city was founded by the French and the Germans who lived on the South End. As a matter of fact, when I worked at St. Ann’s Community House there was a group of women who came in and played bridge once a week and they were of French and German parentage. Their families were the ones who settled first in Hamtramck and it was all south of Holbrook, in that area. When I was growing up this community became— well I guess because they moved here for the auto industry, and the Dodge Factory was just down the street on Joseph Campau. The Dodge Brothers built a factory, a lot of men worked there. The Polish people settled in this area and Ukrainian families came in and they lived south of Holbrook. I went to school with a lot of— I had a lot of Ukrainian friends. But it seemed each nationality replaced the other, you know. Most of my neighborhood now is Bangladesh. They’re wonderful neighbors. Their oldest, my immediate neighbors, their oldest daughter just finished her first year at U of M with a full scholarship.
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