In Dearborn, Middle East Meets Middle West

By Caroline Hendrie

Dearborn, Mich.

The dust-up in the lunchroom started with two boys trading menacing remarks. After one student shouted a slur about Arabs, it quickly escalated into a full-scale food fight.

Accounts of the cafeteria contretemps at Edsel Ford High School last December differ markedly--both in the particulars of what happened and what it said about intergroup relations in this fast-changing city. While some Arab-American activists depicted it as a "riot" in which ethnic barbs flew as fast as food, school officials say such exchanges were few and physical violence was minimal.

Yet in part because of these disagreements, the event's consequences have not been limited to the five student suspensions it produced. Instead, it set in motion a search for common ground that school and community leaders say is long overdue in a city that has now has one of the largest concentrations of Arab people and cultures...