Pathbreakers of Arab America—Ismael Ahmed

By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
This is the seventy-third of Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, arts, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our seventy-third pathbreaker, Ismael Ahmed, is an Arab American born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Lebanese mother and an Egyptian father who grew up in a typically working-class family. Ismael lived a working-class life until he decided to attend the University of Michigan-Dearborn. That experience shaped his life as a social activist, a public servant at state and national levels, and, significantly, a strongly pro-active Arab American.
Growing up as a working-class American, Ismael Ahmed’s early life and subsequent educational opportunity led to a lifetime of social and cultural activism
Ismael Ahmed was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947 to a mother whose family was from Lebanon and a father of Egyptian origin. His family was like everyone else in Brooklyn at that time–living in a neighborhood of mixed immigrants from all over the world. Ahmed’s family moved to southwest Detroit and then Dearborn while he was still a child. Following his parent’s divorce, his mother married an autoworker from Yemen, who became Ismael’s stepfather. Even as a child, Ahmed’s worldview was rapidly expanding.
Speaking much later about his childhood, Ismael said, “As a child in Brooklyn, I had an African American Muslim woman as a babysitter. Our neighbors were Puerto Rican and Irish and people from around the Arab world. When we moved to southwest Detroit, the area had a mix of whites, Latinos, and Blacks. And when we moved to Dearborn, I lived in a neighborhood that made it into “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” because there were people from 52 different countries living within a two-square-mile area.”
After high school, in the 1960s, Ahmed was drafted into the Army, serving a tour of duty in South Korea. His brother served in Vietnam, where he was exposed to and eventually died from Agent Orange poisoning. This experience led both men to become “super-radicalized” anti-war activists. Ahmed also did stints at sea as a merchant marine, then became a union activist while working the assembly line at several auto plants.
When asked about his diverse circumstances growing up, Ahmed said that they sowed the seeds for his embrace of multiculturalism as an adult. When queried about how much discrimination he experienced growing up, he responded, “Not much at all. Like all people of color, you learn to tread carefully around police. You didn’t call the police unless you really had to because they could end up attacking you. But my first real experience with racism came when I was drafted into the Army at age 19, and I had a drill sergeant in basic training who called me ‘camel.’”
After graduating from the University of Michigan-Dearborn with a Bachelor of Arts in secondary education and sociology in 1977, Ismael began neighborhood and community development work. In 1973, he co-founded the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS). In 1983, he was appointed executive director of ACCESS, responsible for the overall operations of the organization as well as the executive administration of the Arab American National Museum. At that time, ACCESS was the largest Arab American human services organization in the U.S., with affiliates in 11 states and offering more than 90 programs serving more than 900,000 clients annually.
A man of many talents, Ismael Ahmed, is a beacon of hope for Arab Americans with aspirations for community and national leadership
After graduating, Ismael worked for a decade at his alma mater–the University of Michigan-Dearborn. His role was to connect academic initiatives with community, business, and governmental partners. The aim was to improve life in the surrounding communities and launch the ‘Public Allies’ low-income youth leadership program. Previously, Ahmed had served as director of the Michigan Department of Human Services, overseeing over 11,000 employees and administering an annual budget of $7 billion. In this position, Ahmed initiated projects to stem the poverty in the state and increase access to fresh food sources in Detroit.
Ahmed also has an artistic side, seen in his production since 1998 of his show, ‘This Island Earth,’ on public radio station WDET in Detroit. As a one-time autoworker, he contributed a chapter on the ‘Arab Worker’s Caucus in Detroit’ in “Arabs in America: Myths and Realities,” Abu-Laban and Zeadey eds. On June 23, 2021, Ahmed was nominated to serve as a member of the National Council on the Arts by President Joe Biden, for which the entire Senate confirmed him.
Another honor bestowed on Ahmed was the Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, given by the Detroit Free Press and Metropolitan Affairs Coalition. He has also received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the University of Michigan–Dearborn and the Diversity Business Leader award from the Arab American Chamber of Commerce.
A man of many talents, Ismael also founded the National Arab American Museum in Dearborn, one of the first museums of its type. In 2009, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Michigan-Dearborn for his lifetime of service to others and for providing outreach for cultural understanding. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Ismael serves on many boards and committees, including board member of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Executive Committee member of the Early Childhood Investment Corporation, Regent for Eastern Michigan University, Chair of the Immigration Task Force and Cultural Change Network for New Detroit, and the Vice President of the Michigan Democratic Party.

In an interview with ACLU-Michigan during Arab American Heritage Month, Ahmed responded to several broad questions, including “his experiences with racism, his passion for multiculturalism, and the reason he has hope for a brighter future despite the hateful rhetoric coming from politicians who see opportunity in stoking divisiveness.”
Ismael began, “On one level, I identify as a person of color and an Arab American. But I also identify as a planetary citizen. That’s not just a term I use on ‘This Island Earth,’ my world music program on WDET. I use it because it reflects my belief in who we all are and who we need to be. In the end, we are all planetary citizens.” He noted that as a child in Brooklyn, he had an African American Muslim woman as a babysitter; his neighbors were Puerto Rican and Irish, as well as people from all over the Arab world. In Detroit, Ismael noted a mix of whites, Latinos, and Blacks, while in Dearborn ,he described the earlier-mentioned mix of people from 52 different countries living within a two-square-mile area.
When asked by the ACLU interviewer where he thought the country was going social justice-wise, he opined (and we quote the entire response since it is so relevant to the divisive times in which we find ourselves today):
“I think we are at a crucial point. During the 1990s and early 2000s, I thought we were moving forward in terms of removing the divisions that exist between different racial and ethnic groups. But since Donald Trump’s entry into politics, I’ve seen how strong the undercurrent of racism still is and how he and others have focused on racial issues to try and drive us further apart. Because of that, I think America is at a point where we are going to go one way or another. Are we going to have a democracy and be able to live in a country where its people embrace fraternal welfare and everyone has the opportunity to be successful regardless of race and economic status? I don’t know. There’s a huge amount of activity by politicians on the right to liberate hate for political reasons, and I’ve been flabbergasted by how well it has worked for them. And I do not think it is something that will go away if Trump goes away.

In another interview with the Detroit Free Press, Ahmed addressed the Gaza war issue: “I, like so many others, have been horrified by the slaughter that has taken place in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. Over 41,000 reported dead, many of them children, to continue an illegal occupation. The murder of Israeli civilians and the taking of hostages. As an Arab American, and as a just plain American, like others, I worked to convince our government to do more to end all this and for a peaceful solution that respects the rights of both peoples.”
In the final analysis, Ismael Ahmed is a most principled human and an asset to the Arab world and, indeed, the entire planet!
Sources:
–“Ismael Ahmed,” Wikipedia Series on Arab Americans, 2024
–“Meet a real American: Ismael Ahmed,” Detroit Free Press, Metro Detroit
12/11/2002
–“Ismael Ahmed,” National Endowment for the Arts, Farmington Hills, MI (no date)
–“Ismael Ahmed, Difference Makers,” University of Michigan, Dearborn (no date)
–“Spotlight on Arab American History Month: Ismael Ahmed,” ACLU-Michigan 4/26/2022
–“Opinion: I’m an Arab American activist. We have no choice but to vote for Kamala Harris,” Ismael Ahmed, Op-ed contributor Detroit Free Press, 10/8/2024
John Mason, Ph.D., focuses on Arab culture, society, and history and is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.
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