Anan Ameri, Director of Arab American National Museum, Will Retire
The founding director of Dearborn’s Arab American National Museum, Anan Ameri, will retire in May after seven years leading the only museum in the country devoted to Arab and Arab-American history and culture.
Those who know Ameri point to the successful completion of the museum’s $15.3 million building on Michigan Avenue, the high quality of shows she’s undertaken, and her work to make the museum a cultural center for the local community.
They also cite her efforts to bring different ethnicities together with events like the museum’s annual Concert of Colors, as well as steering the nascent institution, just 3 years old at the time, through the 2008 financial collapse.
“Anan played the central role in the creation of the museum,” says Ismael Ahmed, associate provost at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Ahmed hired Ameri in 1997 when he was director of ACCESS, the Arab-American social service agency that is still the museum’s parent.
“The task put before her was huge,” he says. “Essentially, she was asked to assemble Arab-American history from all possible viewpoints among Arab-Americans, and then find the artifacts to go with it.”
The museum has garnered a national reputation for mounting shows that illustrate the unique contributions Arab-Americans have made to U.S. society, including the recent, “Patriots & Peacemakers.”
That exhibit looked at Arab-American service in the U.S. military, the diplomatic corps and the Peace Corps. “Patriots & Peacemakers” is now on a national tour — no small accomplishment for an institution whose annual operating budget is only $3 million.
“Pound for pound,” Ahmed says, “the programming that comes out of this museum on the budget it has is close to amazing.”
The current ACCESS executive director, Hassan Jaber, says one of Ameri’s greatest accomplishments was winning affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
“It usually takes 10 years for a museum to even be considered,” Jaber says. “That was a very special honor for us. And it all came about because of Anan’s relationships” in the wider museum world.
Ameri, 67, is of Palestinian descent, but grew up in Amman, Jordan, and lives in Ann Arbor. Before coming to ACCESS, she was executive director of the Palestine Aid Society of America in Washington, D.C. Ameri has a master’s degree from Egypt’s Cairo University, and got a doctorate in sociology from Wayne State University. In the past, she’s been a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
“She’s going to leave a big hole,” says Jaber, “but she leaves behind a very healthy institution.”