“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”
For about a century, Polish and Ukrainian Catholics dominated politics in Hamtramck, a city of 28,000 surrounded by Detroit. By 2013, largely Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni immigrants supplanted the white eastern Europeans, though the city remains home to significant populations of those groups, as well as African Americans, whites and Bosnian and Albanian Americans. According to the 2020 census some 30% to 38% of Hamtramck’s residents are of Yemeni descent, and 24% are of Asian descent, largely Bangladeshi.
After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.
The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide, and other US cities have passed similar bans, with the vast majority driven by often white politically conservative Americans.
Hamtramck is described in the resolution as “one of the most diverse cities in the United States.” The city has a large immigrant presence and all the city council members are of the Muslim faith, city manager Max Garbarino told CNN Thursday. Hamtramck was also the first known city in the US to inaugurate an all-Muslim government, CNN previously reported.
Hamtramck, population 27,000, is an enclave surrounded by Detroit. More than 40% of residents were born in other countries, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and a significant share are of Yemeni or Bangladeshi descent.
