Rima Fakih: Arab-American -- How SportstownUSA Will Help Children Learn More About America's Rich Ethnic Diversity

    PITTSBURGH, PA, May 19, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- America's school children will learn this week that Arab-American Rima Fakih of Dearborn, Michigan has been named the new Miss USA, becoming the first Middle Eastern woman to take the title.

What's not clear is how many of our children could find Dearborn on a map, or recognize that Rima Fakih grew up in the largest Arab-American community in the USA.

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America's school-age kids rank next to last in the world in overall geographic knowledge according to a National Geographic/Roper survey. More than 10 percent could not find the United States on a map.

SportstownUSA is a new effort to help school-age kids learn American history and geography through the rich landscape of sports people, places and stories.

Vote here: Make SportstownUSA a winner in the Network Solutions Create Your Opportunity business development program.

Dearborn: Arab-American Success Stories
Rima Fakih is just one of many stories to come from the Arab-American community in and around Detroit. The suburb of Dearborn is known as the Arab capital of America. Close to a half million people of Arab descent live in the greater Detroit area.

Another success story is Justin Abdelkader, a forward for the Detroit Red Wings. Abdelkader's grandfather emigrated to Michigan from Jordan. Justin was named to the all-state hockey team and awarded the Mr. Hockey award, given to the top high school ice hockey player in Michigan. Abdelkader scored the game-winning goal in the 2007 NCAA Championship Game against Boston College, securing the NCAA Division 1 National Championship for Michigan State University and earning him the Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player.

Arab-American success stories: Rima Fakih and Justin Abdelkader. Two threads that become part of a much larger weave.

SportstownUSA will help kids develop a nuanced sense of place. How the success of California's 1950s Little League teams reflects its rise as America's Promised Land. How the invention of rubber fueled Chuck Taylor's crusade to sell a better basketball shoe and forever change the game. How Prohibition gave birth to NASCAR's first great driver, Junior Johnson.

Nick Boyon at Roper said: "When geography and life intersect, [kids] pay attention." SportstownUSA will inspire kids to pay attention.

SportstownUSA Extra Point
Visitors to Super Bowl XL enjoyed a tantalizing collection of Arab bookstores, groceries, nightclubs, restaurants and sweet shops along Warren Avenue and Dix Avenue in Dearborn.

Regional specialties include shish kebab, hot and spicy from a smoking fire and served in pockets of Syrian bread; khubz, round, thin sheets of bread flipped onto a domed griddle; zabeh, a kind of doughnut baked and packaged beforehand, spinach pies, stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh, falafel, tabbouleh and, for dessert, baklawa and katayef.

Each summer, the Arab-Chaldean World Festival attracts more than 100,000 people to enjoy a variety of Arabic and Chaldean food, exhibitions and entertainment.

Dearborn's new Arab American National Museum features two floors of exhibits covering the broad contributions of Arab culture to science and the arts, and three thematic galleries devoted to the Arab-American experience. (www.aanm.org)

RTE Communications provides editorial, PR, marketing consulting to global corporate and non-profit clients.

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