Rena Xuereb (pronounced “Shweer-eb”) was four years old when she woke from a nap and saw her first American building – the train station in Detroit.
“Thousands of people came through that train station,” she said. “I am glad the station was able to be preserved. It holds a lot of memory.”
Xuereb recently wrote a book about her family migrating to the United States from Malta in the 1950s. The book, “Courage of a Maltese Immigrant” pays homage to her mother, Josephine, bringing six children from their family farm to Detroit. Her father, John, had come a year earlier to work for the Ford Motor Company.
“I don’t know where she found the courage to bring six children to a foreign country,” she said. “My mom could not speak English. It must have been scary for her.”
Xuereb now lives in Belleville after residing in Corktown and Southwest Detroit. She said younger relatives would continuously ask about family history and she decided she would compile it in written form for them.
“My nieces and nephews were always asking questions,” she said. “I decided to write an outline. It was pretty good and I made it into the book.”
The train station always loomed large in her life. It was her entryway into Detroit, it was always in the background of where she lived in the area and it made her sad to see it slowly decay.
“It was always there,” she said. “My sister took the train to and from college and my son often walked past it on the way home from class at Cass Tech High School. “Everything has come full circle.”
The Ford Motor Company spent six years and $950 million renovating the train station as part of a 30-acre innovation hub in Corktown.
Dominick John Davis, Xuereb’s son, said the renovated station means a great deal to his family’s history. He plays bass in Detroit native Jack White’s band and they friends grew up together and remember the station’s gloomy appearance.
He performed along with White on June 6th at the debut of the renovated building. Their mothers were in attendance, he said.
“It was amazing,” Davis, now of Nashville, Tenn., said. “It was wild running into people from back in the day.”
There are anywhere from 14,000 to 40,000 people of Maltese descent living in metropolitan Detroit, according to various surveys. The largest population of people of Maltese descent outside of Malta is in Australia. That is where Xuereb’s father was headed before deciding to come to America and work for Ford.
It took about a year, but he saved enough to buy a home and a car and send for his family, who were living at their farm.
“It was such a hard life farming,” she said. “My mom was amazing. I wanted her story out there. Now our family history is preserved.”
About the Author: Rena Xuereb is the youngest of seven children of John and Josephine Xuereb. She lives in the city of Belleville, Michigan with her husband Fernando Campos. They have five children and six grandchildren. She is a member of the Maltese American Community Club in Dearborn where she is a trustee on the executive board.
