Dearborn Documentary

Today I attended Professor Smith's documentary on Arab/Muslim culture in Dearborn Michigan. I found the documentary very interesting. It was initially interesting simply because I had never heard of Dearborn Michigan or that it had a higher than average Arab/Muslim American population. After I got over the shock of learning these fantastic new facts I was interested because I wanted to know a little more about Arab/Muslim culture in America (which I did). The documentary reveled to me a something that I have never really given much thought to: that Arab culture and Muslim culture do not always go hand in hand with one another. This is why I've been using "Arab/Muslim", instead of one or the other, in the first part of this writing. It was interesting to find out that one half of this Arab/Muslim population in Dearborn wants to focus on Arab culture while the other focuses on Muslim Culture (there is a difference. The differing views put into perspective the dynamic between culture and religion that we have been talking about in class. Religion conducts aspects of culture, but culture also conducts aspects of religion (such as the National Center for Islam in Dearborn).