Passing a Camel Through Ellis Island: Arab-American Press and the Immigration Act of 1924
This post was written by Diogo Bercito, a Brazilian journalist who worked as a foreign correspondent in Jerusalem, Beirut, and Cairo. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in Arab Studies at Georgetown University, where he researches Arab migration to Latin America. He […]
A Waking Dream: Syrian Migrants’ Journey to the Americas
This post was written by Randa Tawil, a PhD candidate in American Studies at Yale University. Tawil’s dissertation focuses on early 20th century migration routes from Syria to North and South America, and explores how constructs of gender and race […]
“A Boatload of Horses”: Alan Jabbour’s Family Immigration Saga
This blog was written by Folklorist, Sabra Webber. Webber is a professor emerita at The Ohio State University in the Department of Comparative Studies and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. She visited the Khayrallah Center in the […]
Fighting Injustice: The Story of Herbert Nassour
Far too often, the complex history of Lebanese immigration is collapsed into a few “success” stories, measured by accumulation of fame and fortune. Such tales are certainly real and admirable, but fall short of telling the whole story of immigration. […]
“Like a wolf who fell upon sheep”: Early Lebanese Immigrants and Religion in America
For some early Lebanese immigrants, religion was a source of comfort. Its rituals, language and congregations provided a sense of home in an alien environment, and stability amid the fast-paced changes they experienced in their new lives. For others, it […]
A Tour of the Ameen Rihani Museum in Freike, Lebanon
Introduction In the summer of 2018, Khayrallah Center intern Hannah Chaya traveled to Freike, Lebanon to help digitize the contents of the Ameen Rihani Museum. The Khayrallah Center has embarked on an extensive project in collaboration with the Ameen Rihani […]
The Early Lebanese in America: A Demographic Portrait, 1880-1930
This post was written by Dr. Akram Khater, Director of the Khayrallah Center, and Marjorie Stevens, Senior Researcher. It is the third installment in the center’s Core Story, a series of essays detailing the broader history of Lebanese immigration to […]
Annie Abdo: A Peddler . . . A Tulsa Woman
This post was researched and written by Randa Hakim, Claire Kempa, Marilyn Drath, and Marjorie Stevens. Annie Coury Abdo was a first-wave Lebanese immigrant to the United States whose life both defies and exemplifies elements of the traditional cultural and […]
Getting to Know Sheikh Youssef Stephan – Community Leaders as Role Models of Diasporic Village Communities
This article is authored by Marie Karner, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. It is part of her dissertation project that studies different Lebanese diasporic village communities. She uses a multi-sited-research design to […]
Archive Spotlight: Historic Arabic Newspaper Digitization Project
In addition to our family collections, one of the Khayrallah Center Archive’s core collections is our growing trove of historic Arabic newspapers, literary journals, and magazines. Between 1890 and 1950, migrants from Greater Syria established a remarkably active and diverse […]