Tanni Deb is a freelance journalist.
By Tanni Deb
Around Carpenter Street, the divide between Detroit and Hamtramck, there are distinct signs of a Bangladeshi population: store fronts with signs in Bengali, people speaking in the native tongue and residents walking the street, clad in the traditional garb of the homeland.
The population before the 1990s in Metro Detroit was miniscule, measuring in the dozens. But in the 1990s, word got out about Detroit, and migration here really began to boom. Some migrated directly from the homeland, and others came from places like New York (more specifically, Queens) hoping to find more opportunity, auto-related jobs and less expensive living conditions, says Shah Khalish, a retired Detroit public school teacher and former president of the Bangladesh Association of Michigan, who migrated to Detroit from Bangladesh in 1983.
Today, the population in Metro Detroit is estimated to be about 25,000, according to Khalish.
He says folks are scattered all around Metro Detroit in communities like Warren and Sterling Heights, but the majority live in the very affordable Hamtramck-Detroit area around Carpenter Street, Conant and Joseph Campau, near I-75. He said some second-generation Bangladeshis have gone on to become lawyers, engineers and pharmacists. And he proudly points out that three of Hamtramck's city council members are Bangladeshi.
That being said, some in Metro Detroit have no idea that a sizable Bangladeshi community even exists.
Tanni Deb, reporting for Deadline Detroit, gives us a glance into the community.
