Arab American Studies Research Guide: Archival Collections/Repositories

Miscellanous repositories of primary and secondary materials around the country.

Arab American National Museum (Dearborn)

The Arab and Arab-American Collections (MSU Museum).  The largest and most concentrated community of Arab Americans in the United States live in metropolitan Detroit with smaller enclaves in Lansing, western Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula. Peoples and cultures of the Arab world and Arab Americans are represented in the collection by materials on topics concerning textiles, musical instruments and traditional music, food markets and bakeries, foodways and being Arab American. Arab American materials in the collection include Palestinian garments, wind instruments, qanun, a pair of Chaldean dolls, samples of calligraphy on glass, which were donated or acquired with research support from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Archival materials include photographs, videos, audiotapes of interviews and music, field reports, books, and articles.

Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University

is dedicated to research about Lebanese immigrants in the US and throughout the world, and to preserving and sharing that knowledge with the scholarly community and general public.

Faris and Yamna Naff Arab American Collection, ca. 1880-1950. (Smithsonian)

This collection grew out of a major research project by Dr. Alixa Naff on the study of the early Arab immigrant experience in the United States--ca.1880-World War II. The study began with oral history interviews in 1962 and became a major project in 1980 with a grant from NEH. The collection process continues. A new series, No. 13, "Arab Americans since World War II," brings some aspects of the collection into the present.

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