Fatima Al-Rasool entered college as a person with a plan. But when her initial dream to study architecture didn’t unfold the way she thought it would, she regrouped and found an even deeper passion for anthropology. For her, it’s not just an academic thing. Anthropology colors her daily experience, whether that be helping her create stronger relationships with her parents or shining a spotlight on the under-told stories of Arab Americans in Southeast Michigan.

Fatima, in her own words

Pivoting to a new dream “I was always excited to study at the University of Michigan. I wanted to study architecture and they have a wonderful program at the Taubman College of Architecture. So I went to Taubman, and the vibe just wasn’t there; architecture as I wanted it to be just wasn’t how it was. So around 2018, I was kind of freaking out because I had this whole plan about being an architect. But I realized what I did love about architecture was all the theory: How people live and move around in space and build up spaces and places. And I realized that's all anthropology, so I decided to switch. And because I also wanted to be more involved in the community, and I wasn’t really finding that at Ann Arbor because I was commuting, it kind of led me to UM-Dearborn to study anthropology here.” 

Anthropology is all around us “What I really love about anthropology is that it’s not just academic. It’s so complex and so holistic that I can use it as a lens to examine the rest of my life. I now understand my parents better through anthropology. They are refugees, they had a difficult journey to come to the United States. Through anthropology, I’ve been able to see what difficulties they encountered, and how they survived those difficulties and have been able to raise a family. It’s helped me build a relationship that’s much stronger than the one I had with them in high school.” 

Recognizing the contributions of Arab Americans in metro Detroit “When I got to UM-Dearborn, I met Sally Howell, who is the director of the Center for Arab American Studies. She’s my professor, my mentor — she’s like a family member to me. And when I first spoke with Sally, she was like, ‘You’re Iraqi, you’re part of this community, you should join us on this project called “Unsettled Lives.”’ It’s about the local Iraqi community, refugees, and how they’ve built up business and mosques and the community around metro Detroit. We’re also working on a project called “Halal Metroplis,” which is about Muslim visbility in metro Detroit. And that’s allowed me to be in touch with more communities than just my own Iraqi community as we exhibit in areas around the region. I think what’s so important about these projects is that we’re exhibiting people’s own voices and own work. It’s their art, it’s their culture, their history. It’s my history, it’s my culture. And seeing these pieces of culture and history and fashion, you really see the differences we are making in the community.” 

Living without a plan “I had so much of my life planned in high school. Year by year, I knew what I wanted to do. So when I decided I didn’t want to do architecture any more, that took a lot of thinking to get through that and understand that no matter what happened to me, I was going to be faced with decisions and changes in the journey of life. Now, changing my major seems like a small thing. It seemed huge back then. I thought it was going to ruin my life. Now, I’m so much happier. I really feel like I can do anything with my life, and that’s so freeing.”