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Capital Campus Library

Capital Arab American Heritage Month

Famous Arab Americans

You can find biographical information by accessing Capital's biography databases, located on the library homepage.

  • Mehmet Oz
  • Zayn Malik
  • Ramy Youssef
  • Hassan Minhaj
  • Riz Ahmed
  • Shohreh Aghdashloo
  • Shakira
  • Salma Hayek
  • Steve Jobs
  • Rami Mailk
  • Bella Hadid
  • Gigi Hadid
  • Tony Shalhoub
  • Michael Nouri
  • Michael DeBakey
  • Casey Kasem
  • Danny Thomas
  • Marlo Thomas
  • Jenna Dewan
  • Jamie Farr
  • Alia Shawkat
  • Vince Vaughn
  • Joseph Abboud
  • Paul Anka
  • Helen Thomas
  • Hoda Kotb
  • Ralph Nader
  • Rashida Tlaib
  • John H. Sununu
  • Doug Flutie
  • Robert Saleh
  • Akon
  • DJ Kahled

Introduction

Here is your guide to Arab American Heritage at the Arthur C. Banks Library at Capital Community College. Notice the tabs along the top of the screen; select the one that best matches your informational need.

Hoda Kotb, Co-host of the Today Show

Egyptian American

Hoda Kotb, wearing a bright pink suit with a white shirt, taken in a TV studio, with blurry people and American flags in the background.

Arab American Heritage Month is an annual observance that takes place in April to celebrate Arab American heritage and culture. It honors the contributions of Arab Americans and Arabic-speaking Americans to the wider American community. The Arab American Institute reported that about 15,000 Middle Eastern immigrants from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq migrated to the U.S. yearly in the 1960s. The celebration of the holiday has previously been observed sporadically in various states and at different times of the year since the 1990s until 2017 when Arab America began a national initiative to coordinate all states under National Arab American Heritage Month.

The origin of Arab American Heritage Month celebration goes back to the ‘90s when it was sporadically observed — mostly in schools across the country, due to the long presence of people of Middle Eastern descent in the U.S.

Arab Americans and Americans of Middle Eastern heritage have a long history in the United States that started when people of Middle Eastern descent first began to enter America in large numbers in the 1800s. Historians noted these immigrants were the first wave of Middle Eastern people to immigrate to the U.S. circa 1875.

According to the U.S. government portal, the second wave of immigrants arrived in the 1940s followed by thousands of yearly Middle Eastern immigrants migrating to the country from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq in the 1960s during the heydays of the vicious Lebanese civil war.

Today it is reported that over four million Arab Americans live in the United States with many holding positions in the military, entertainment, politics, and every other aspect of social life. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Lebanese Americans constitute the largest group of Arabs in the U.S. followed by Egyptians, Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians, Moroccans, and Iraqis. About half of the Arab Americans profiled by the Census Bureau in a survey conducted in the year 2000 were born in the U.S. with men constituting the largest percentage of the Arab American population and most living in households as married couples.

Taken from https://nationaltoday.com/arab-american-heritage-month/

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