Born in Beirut, Lebanon, I immigrated to the U.S. with my family in 1978 at the height of the Lebanese Civil War.  I am currently a high school art & design teacher in the Dearborn Public School system, a privilege that provides me with great fulfillment.

Having grown up in Dearborn, Michigan since the age of nine, I’ve come to witness consecutive, tumultuous waves of immigration from Arab countries that directly stemmed from the ongoing civil-political-social-religious-historical strife that still grips the region there, and the community here, in a merciless state of crisis.  I’ve also lived the ultra-complex social and economic systems and counter-systems that define the American landscape and its rapid, turbulent history.  Thus my upbringing was wrought with a struggle of my own that many of my generation underwent, dealing with defining and redefining identity and belonging, struggling against injustice, inequity and exclusion, reaching for truth, and envisioning an ideal that still writhes in mid-transformation.

I am a graduate of Wayne State University and also attended Lawrence Technological University for some architectural study.  Over the last handful of years I have begun to forge smallish inroads into the cultures and sub-cultures of art, education and politics. Upon experiencing certain established divides and fragmentations that exist within some of these communities, be they the institutionalized art community, the anti-war/activist community or the Arab community in southeast Michigan, I’ve attempted to make my presence felt in all of these groupings, for the purpose of making connections that eliminate the generational, racial, class and educational divides.  In 2004 I helped found OTHER: Arab Artists Collective in Detroit, a collaborative artistic/intellectual venture.

My own art attempts to re-create the lost consciousness of a misplaced homeland, as well as to portray the double consciousness of Arabs in America as they struggle between assimilation into the mainstream culture, and their efforts of retaining their deteriorating cultural connections.

I am married and a grateful father of three young children.