business that supports those workers. it s interesting ali listening to the clip that just played, yes, this is an economic story but it s very much a social story as well. we re standing in the polish village cafe, which has been a fixture here since about the 1920s welcoming new immigrants into this area to come and work in these factories. i happened to be joined with the mayor of hamtramck right now, karen myoski. let s talk a little bit about that, mayor. we re essentially talking about the fact none of this would have been here without the auto industry. how did the auto industry end up in hamtramck? absolutely, hamtramck was born in the auto industry. in 1910 the dodge brothers came here. they built an enormous plant, and before that hamtramck had been a sleepy farm community. and it turned into one of e tthe fastest growing the fastest-growing place in
half residents speak a language other than english at home. we pride ourselves on that we re a welcoming community and community of opportunity. we also heard of the sacrifices that were made by this community and neighboring detroit when that plant was built. houses bulldozed, people moved out, there was quite a bit of protest over that. and yet now the plant is closing. is there some bitterness in the community because of that? i m sure that there is bitterness and, of course, there s a bitter irony to the fact that that factory was built on the foundation of so many of the american dream, of so many families who came here. they built houses on their weekends, worked in the factories, built houses on the weekends with their bare hands. and then lost them. created businesses and lost them. i guess the last question for the mayor is, do you still have hope? of course. after the initial kind of shock