New mural celebrates Bangladeshi community of Detroit, Hamtramck

Niraj Warikoo | Detroit Free Press

Painted on a tall mural on the side of a school in Detroit, a smiling girl of Bangladeshi descent wrapped in a green and red shawl gazes on the block as Muslim students walk by.

The colorful scene Thursday afternoon on Carpenter Street on Detroit's east side, next to Hamtramck's border, showcases the shifting demographics of an area increasingly known as Banglatown, where one-third of the residents have roots in Bangladesh.

For decades, the Bangladeshi immigrant community in Hamtramck and Detroit has steadily built up and revitalized areas with new stores, businesses, houses of worship, helping repopulate the area.

But they have also struggled to gain visibility and the attention of the wider region. Now, a new mural — believed to be the biggest outdoor painting in the U.S. depicting Bangladeshi life — will be unveiled Sunday in a public celebration. The mural, which stands 55 feet wide and 46 feet high, is on the side of a middle school and is being painted by Victor Quiñonez, an artist from New York City called Marka27 who was born in Mexico and known for his neo-indigenous style of art.

The $56,000 mural project was developed by One Hamtramck, led by Hamtramck activist Bill Meyer, who worked closely with members of the Bangladeshi-American community on the content of the mural, which was determined by them. Leaders in the Bangladeshi community say they're pleased with the painting. More than half of the project was paid for the by Bangladeshi community, with some funding from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

"It brings an identity, a reflection of the community in a big way, because a lot of people don't know about the community," said Asm Kamal Rahman, a community advocate in Hamtramck born in Bangladesh. "Bangladeshis played a vital role in the revitalization of Conant Avenue for the last 25 years at least. But there isn't something other than stores that commemorates the presence in a big symbolic way."

About a quarter of Hamtramck's residents are of Bangladeshi descent, according to U.S. Census figures. The population spills over into neighboring Detroit, both west and east of Conant Avenue, the main commercial strip for the community. Metro Detroit has the third biggest population of Bangladeshi-Americans in the U.S. after New York City and Washington D.C., according to Pew Research Center. There are more than 15,000 Bangladeshi immigrants in Michigan, and thousands more Bangladeshi-Americans born in the U.S.

In 2013, Meyer and One Hamtramck had developed a mural in the south end of Hamtramck that depicts the Yemeni-American community, with images of two Yemeni women. The group then worked on a plan to depict Bangladeshi life, forming a committee based on public input and meetings.

"The community was involved in every stage of development — choosing the right wall for the huge painting, selecting the right artist for a unique project like this, deciding what elements would be in the mural and then raising a huge amount of money to pay for all this," Meyer said.

As with any public art project, there were intense debates over what should go on it. Some conservatives raised religious objections over depicting people, saying the art should be limited to scenery, designs, and buildings, said Meyer. Last year, some had objected to a "Welcome to Banglatown" sign nearby in Detroit on Conant Avenue because it depicted a rickshaw and a singer, which some considered offensive. The design was later changed.

The committee for the new mural decided that showing a person in it would help draw attention and interest. The mural also reflects the background and history of many of the Bangladeshi community in Detroit and Hamtramck.

In the lower left of the mural are the green tea farms of the Sylhet region of Bangladesh, where about 80 percent of the Bangladeshi community in Hamtramck and Detroit are from, Rahman said. The green fields then change into the color red (green and red are the colors of Bangladesh's flag), which also appear as a shawl of a girl. The girl was painted based on a photo of an American girl of Bangladeshi descent.

The red part of the mural contains images of the Bengal tiger, a water lily popular in Bangladesh called shapla, and an embroidery pattern Bengalis create called Nakshi Kantha.

At the bottom is an image of the Shaheed Minar, a monument erected in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to remember the Bengali people killed in 1952 by Pakistani government forces who crushed protests by Bengali speakers demonstrating against government attempts to impose the Urdu language on them. In 1971, Bangladesh was born as a separate country after rebelling against Pakistani government forces attacking Bengalis.

For many Bangladeshis, the Bengali language is an important part of their identity. And so on the upper left of the mural across from the girl are four big letters, two consonants and two vowels, that are near the beginning of the Bengali alphabet.

"It's a great representation of the community," said Raihan Rahman, the interim principal of Bridge Academy West, where the mural is located. "That's something that people should be proud of."

For the Bangladeshi community, "it's validation because we've had other countries and other cultures represented so this is the first time that they get one," said Rahman, who is of Bangladeshi descent. "It's public validation and it's something that's going to be long-term. This is something I'm sure that people will be very proud of."

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Working long hours in the cold, Quiñonez and another artist, Curtis, took a break Thursday afternoon to explain the mural and their role. They've been painting long hours, using a crane to move up and down, careful not to run into electrical wires on poles behind them.

"Being a father, being a person of color, I know how incredibly important it is to represent your culture in a positive and uplifting way, especially when you're living during a time where there's demonizing of certain cultures, there's negative talk when it comes to Mexican culture or Muslims," Quiñonez said. "It's just that much more important to show people how beautiful these cultures actually are and how important it is for people to be exposed."

This week, Quiñonez has spent time meeting and staying with Bangladeshis in metro Detroit who invited him into their homes for food and conversation.

"For me, being Mexican and feeling a lot of the same pressures that other cultures do, it's interesting because you have a beautiful community that is not just Bengali, but they're also American," he said.

"They're from Bangladesh, growing up in America. A lot of the people that are Bangladesh were born here from several generations so your identities are dual. To show people, 'We're here and we're a part of this community and we want to continue to have children here and show our pride.' "

Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Follow him on Twitter @nwarikoo

If you go

A public celebration and grand opening of the mural featuring music, talks, and snacks will be held 2-5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, at 3105 Carpenter St., Detroit, across the street from Hamtramck, outside Bridge Academy West. It's free and open to all.