Hanna Shina in West Bloomfield, Michigan

Hanna Shina lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and serves the two institutions most closely identified with Chaldean-American life there: Shenandoah Country Club, where he has sat on the board for more than 20 years and was named the club’s first Mayor of Shenandoah in 2025, and the Chaldean Cultural Center, the first and only Chaldean museum in the world, of which he is a founder and founding board member. Both are at 5600 Walnut Lake Road.

A West Bloomfield Resident

West Bloomfield is where Hanna Shina makes his home today, after a working life that began in Telkaif, Iraq and passed through the storefronts of the 7 Mile corridor in Detroit. He remains active in the township’s civic and club life — the kind of member who is still on the list of people called when something needs organizing.

West Bloomfield and the Chaldean Community

West Bloomfield Township, in Oakland County, is one of the centers of Chaldean-American life in the United States. Families who first settled in Detroit moved north and west across the second half of the twentieth century, and West Bloomfield became a place where the community’s parishes, clubs, foundations and — finally — its museum could stand together in one township.

Shenandoah Country Club, 5600 Walnut Lake Road

Shenandoah Country Club, acquired by the Chaldean Iraqi American Association of Michigan, functions as a gathering place for the whole community as much as a club. Hanna Shina has served on its board for more than 20 years, and in 2025 the club named him “Mayor of Shenandoah” — the first time in its history the title has been given. Read the full account on the Shenandoah Country Club and Mayor of Shenandoah page.

The Chaldean Cultural Center

The Chaldean Cultural Center occupies museum space inside the same address. Conceived in 2003 at Southfield Manor, built beginning in 2013 and opened in 2017, it is the first and only Chaldean museum in the world, and Hanna Shina is one of its founders. His part in it — including the hologram of him in the Chaldean Village Life gallery — is told on the page about Hanna Shina and the Chaldean Cultural Center.

Metro Detroit

His life has spanned the region: Detroit, where he opened a store, a coffee shop and a restaurant in the 7 Mile area; and then Oakland County — Southfield, where the Cultural Center was conceived at Southfield Manor, along with Bloomfield Hills, Farmington Hills and West Bloomfield, the corridor where Metro Detroit’s Chaldean community largely settled. The route he took is set out in the biography of Hanna Shina, and it starts in Telkaif, the village he comes from.