Amira Kassem

Amira Kassem is a teacher at home as much as she is a mother in the classroom, according to her daughter Julia Kassem, who teaches advanced English at Dearborn High School. 

Julia Kassem was taught the dual nature of the Arab American identity by her mother, who embraced American values without forgetting her roots. 

Amira Kassem, who was named Dearborn’s Educator of the Year, in 2008, lived between Lebanon and the United States throughout the 1970s until she settled here in 1985.

Julia Kassem is currently attending her mother’s alma mater— the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

“She pays homage in her character to both West and East and her character as an educator and as a mother,” Kassem said of her mother. “She taught us cultural intersectionality and gave us that sense of perspective.”