As part of the 2023 Fall Theme Semester: Arts & Resistance, the U-M Arts Initiative presented Little Amal, the internationally celebrated 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl who visited Ann Arbor in the Fall of 2023 as part of an epic 6,000-mile journey across the United States. An international symbol of human rights, especially those of refugees, Amal is walking across the United States to learn firsthand about a country that has long been a refuge for those seeking safety and opportunity – but is simultaneously struggling with how to manage long-standing issues related to immigration. Amal’s engagement with hundreds of communities across the country will help spark meaningful conversations to help us better understand who we are and where we come from.
Along her epic cross-country 6,000-mile journey, she met with a wide range of displaced and disenfranchised people, including North American Indigenous people, communities of color whose contributions to the story of America have historically been overlooked, recent migrants, and the ancestors of earlier immigrants, to learn more about the stories of the American people who established roots in these communities over the last hundred-plus years.
View photos of Little Amal's Ann Arbor walk.
