Many who grew up in Dearborn, Mich., would add to the list: your first hookah.
Located just outside downtown Detroit, Dearborn is home to one of the United States’s largest Arab American communities: Nearly 50 percent of residents identify as having Arab ancestry, according to the U.S. census.
Middle Eastern shops, where you may find portable hookah cups, dot the streets.
There is also the Arab American National Museum (which sells hookah-themed socks) and the Islamic Center of America, one of the nation’s oldest and largest mosques.
“A spot like a hookah lounge, it’s sacred,” particularly for immigrants and refugees far from home, said Marrim (pronounced Mariam) Akashi Sani, 25, who is Iraqi-Iranian.
Persons:
Marrim, Akashi Sani, ”
Organizations:
United, Arab American National Museum, Islamic Center of America
Locations:
Dearborn, Mich, Detroit, Iraqi