Arab-American Studies

Arab-Americans

"Arab Americans are Americans who have Roots in the Arab world...The Arab world includes much of the Middle East, the region that spreads across southeastern Asia and northern Africa.  The of the Arab World include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia,  the United Arab Emirates and Yemen." World Book Encyclopedia, 2016

According to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau about 3,500,000 Arab Americans live in the United States." 

Arab American Biography

Arab American Biography by Hall, Loretta; Hall, Bridget K. 

Call Number: Ref E184.A65H351 1999
ISBN: 0-7876-2955-3
Publication Date: 1999

Chapters arranged by subject present information about the history, immigration, economics, languages, religion, holidays, literature, education, jobs, politics, and other aspects of Arab Americans.

Dept. of Justice Affirms in 1909 Whether Syrians, Turks, and Arabs are of White or Yellow Race.
Courtesy of the Arab American Historical Foundation

In 1909, the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., took a hand in the controversy whether Middle Easterners belong to the white race and are therefore entitled to naturalization as American citizens, or the yellow race, and are to be excluded from the privileges of citizenship, as contended by Chief Richard K. Campbell of the Bureau of Naturalization of the Department of Commerce and Labor. William H. Harr, the attorney general’s assistant for naturalization matters, announced that instructions would be sent to attorneys throughout the country to hold in abeyance all proceedings until the matter could be further investigated.

.

United States 2020 Census

Lebanese, Iranian and Egyptian populations represented nearly half of the 3.5 million who reported Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in the 2020 Census — the first census to specifically solicit MENA responses.

The Census Bureau’s classification for the MENA population is geographically based and includes Arabic-speaking groups, such as Egyptian and Jordanian, and non-Arabic speaking groups, such as Iranian and Israeli. It also includes ethnic and transnational groups from the region, such as Assyrian and Kurdish.

In response to public feedback and testing over the last decade, the U.S. Census Bureau added a write-in response area to the White racial category, including German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese and Egyptian as examples.

Taking Root, Bearing Fruit: The Arab American Experience

This document reports on an examination of lifestyles, cultures, and heritage of Arab communities within the United States. After a historical overview of the arrival and settling of Arab-Americans in wave after wave of immigration, the work provides close-up views of different communities across the country. Each of those views introduces a few of the people who live in the community. The document includes an examination of Arab-American community building, surveying the different regions in which Arab-Americans have built up business, family ties, education, and social life. In addition, the document offers a look backward at the terms of life and the struggle for recognition and identity of the pioneer and forebears of the present generation. Among the many essays that comprise the work are "Detroit: Our Ellis Island" (Jane Peterson); "Arab Muslims in America: Adaptation and Reform" (Yvonne Haddad); and Talbott Williams' "'Pioneers': The Syrian in America."

Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience
(coming soon)

A unique study in American immigra­tion and assimilation history that also provides a special view of one of the smaller ethnic groups in American society.

Naff focuses on the pre-World War I pio­neering generation of Arabic-speaking immigrants, the generation that set the patterns for settlement and assimilation. Unlike many immigrants who were drawn to the United States by dreams of industrial jobs or to escape religious or economic persecution, most of these ar­tisans and owners of small, disconnected plots of land came to America to engage in the enterprise of peddling. Most planned to stay two or three years and re­turn to their homelands.

The Muslims of America by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad 

ISBN: 1423738462
Publication Date: 1993-01-01

This collection brings together sixteen previously unpublished essays about the history, organization, challenges, responses, outstanding thinkers, and future prospects of the Muslim community in the United States and Canada. Both Muslims and non-Muslims are represented among the contributors, who include such leading Islamic scholars as John Esposito, Frederick Denny, Jane Smith, and John Voll. Focusing on the manner in which American Muslims adapt their institutions as they become increasingly an indigenous part of America, the essays discuss American Muslim self-images, perceptions ofMuslims by non-Muslim Americans, leading American Muslim intellectuals, political activity of Muslims in America, Muslims in American prisons, Islamic education, the status of Muslim women in America, and the impact of American foreign policy on Muslims in the United States.

 Add / Reorder