Expats Build Up Yemeni Community in America

Описание: (5 Mar 2018) As Yemen falls deeper into war, those who have left the Arab world's poorest nation are picking up the pieces in far-flung locales.
The roughly 3-year-old civil war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced 2 million and spawned an alarming cholera epidemic as the nation's health system collapses
Many have joined an existing community around Detroit, where their fellow expatriates for years have lived in the shadows of the area's more prominent Lebanese and Iraqi neighbors.
Even as their homeland deteriorates, though, Michigan's Yemeni are increasingly building up themselves _ and helping to develop the community around them.
A new strain of entrepreneurialism has spurred upscale restaurants and cafes, and activism has led some to run for office much more than in the past.
Ibrahim Alhasbani (ih-bruh-HEEM' ahl-hahs-BAH'-nee), who recently opened a cafe in Dearborn called Qahwah House, left Yemen in 2011 but maintains close personal and business ties _ his coffee is made from beans harvested on his family's farm. Alhasbani laments the destruction of his homeland but is grateful to bring a taste of it to America, saying he wants to be "a messenger for my country _ to give the right picture about the people over there."
The scene in Hamtramck, a traditionally Polish city now with significant communities of Yemeni, Bangladeshi and Bosnians, is inspiring to Abraham Aiyash (EYE'-ahsh), a first-generation American running as a Democrat for state Senate.
Aiyash, the seventh of eight children and among the younger half born in the United States, said his fellow Yemeni-Americans have come to understand "that the only way" to help those back home "is to achieve success in America."
The Detroit area has the highest population in the U.S. of Yemenis, who also have settled communities in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Buffalo, N.Y. About 43,000 people of Yemeni ancestry are in the U.S., according to Census data from 2015, the latest figures available

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