EconomyMuslim World

Hamtramck to have America’s first all-Muslim City Council

Mayor-elect Ghalib was born in Yemen and came to the United States alone as a young man, with a smattering of broken English and little else

Hamtramck (USA): Hamtramck will become the first known city in the US with a government made up entirely of Muslims, according to the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which says it has no record of any other such administration, CNN reported.

In the 99 years since its incorporation, every mayor of Hamtramck has been Polish American. That ends January 2, in Hamtramck’s centenary year, when Amer Ghalib will be inaugurated, along with an entirely Muslim city council.

Mayor-elect Ghalib was born in Yemen and came to the United States alone as a young man, with a smattering of broken English and little else. He’s now 42, works in the medical field and is studying to become a doctor.

Amer Ghalib won 68.2 percent of the vote to become the suburb’s mayor, upsetting incumbent Karen Majewski who brought in 31.4 percent.

For decades, Hamtramck was known as Michigan’s “Little Warsaw,” a city of just two square miles of tightly-packed houses and factories, spitting distance from downtown Detroit.

Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla visited once, back in 1969, before he became Pope John Paul II. A statue of Wojtyla, arms outstretched, still casts a shadow over what’s now called Pope Park, where a huge mural of Polish folk dancers stretches almost an entire city block, CNN reported.

Hamtramck’s heyday had apparently passed. The city was decaying. Many factories had closed. Many second and third-generation Polish Americans had moved to the Detroit suburbs and beyond in the past two decades. Immigrants, largely from Yemen and Bangladesh, took their place and Hamtramck, locals say, is now majority Muslim, CNN reported.

In nearby city of Dearborn, which carries the country’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, Michigan State Rep. Abdullah Hammoud defeated former State Rep. and former Wayne County Commissioner Gary Woronchak to become mayor by 54.6 percent to 45.2 percent.

Related Articles

Back to top button