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Acknowledgments Meaningful research on the Arabic-speaking pioneers in the United States can take place only if their stories are faithfully captured. It is my privilege and honor to be entrusted by Roy (Rushd) Farah with the manuscripts of his father, Ameen Farah (1888–1975). I am deeply indebted to Roy and his wife, Pauline, of Grand Blanc, Michigan, for opening their home and their hearts to my family. They will always have a place in our hearts. Ameen’s papers enriched my life beyond measure and provided the tools for advancing the nascent studies on the early Arab immigrants in the United States. I am deeply grateful to Joy Totah Hilden for giving me unfettered access to the papers of her father, Dr. Khalil Totah, in her home in Berkeley, California . Khalil Totah’s work as the director of the Institute of Arab American Affairs from 1945 to 1950 deserves dedicated research beyond the chapter on the institute in this book. I am very grateful to my dear friends and neighbors in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Amal Dalack and her husband, Gregory Dalack, a great-grandson of Orthodox Archpriest Basil M. Kherbawi. Father Kherbawi spent a lifetime in the service of his countrymen. I vow to continue translating to completion “Syrian Immigration to the United States,” which he published in 1913. It has been a privilege to get to know Dr. Fuad Isa Shatara, the founder of the Arab National League, better, thanks to his granddaughter Barbara Tate Cerato; her mother, Gina Shatara; and her aunt, Hope Murphy Shatara. The family provided Dr. Shatara’s pictures and an audio disk from the 1930s. Gina Shatara shared her fond memories of this truly remarkable man. The research in this book on Dr. Shatara only begins to explore the staggering importance of this statesman, author, surgeon, and man of peace and vision . Arab Americans suffered a profound loss when Fuad Isa Shatara died on January 8, 1942, at the early age of forty-eight. His vision of coexistence and peace in Palestine lives on through his writings, letters, and commentary in archival repositories from Jerusalem to New York to Flint, Michigan. Although I had little success in locating the descendants of H . abīb Ibrahīm Kātibah, his writings and importance must also be remembered x Acknowledgments and acknowledged by students of immigration and ethnic studies everywhere . This task is possible thanks to Alixa Naff, who, I discovered after completing this study, preserved Kātibah’s papers as part of her collection at the Smithsonian Institution. I am grateful to Joe Hursey and the archivists at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History for accommodating me despite being short-staffed due to the budget sequester. Sadly, Alixa was frail and died before I had a chance to see her during my brief visit to Washington , D.C., to examine her collection. She left a massive wealth of untapped information for future generations of scholars. The Arab American community can ensure her legacy by underwriting proper preservation and cataloging of her collection, including the astoundingly important records of H . abīb Kātibah. I am eternally and deeply grateful to my PhD adviser at Wayne State University , Dr. John J. Bukowczyk, for pushing me to look at the larger picture when others suggested that one file from Ameen Farah’s archives would have been sufficient to support my dissertation. He nurtured my intellectual pursuits without compromise for the duration of my doctoral work at Wayne State while also allowing me to tend to my teaching career and care for my family. It is a privilege to be a beneficiary of Dr. Barbara Aswad’s kind support, pioneering scholarship, and long experience in Arab American studies. I will always remember with deep appreciation the generous words of encouragement from Dr. Janice Terry when I showed up in her office at Eastern Michigan University clutching several documents from Ameen Farah’s archives on Arab American organizations. “That is why we do our work,” she said to me, “so you can change it or build on it.” My research on the Arabic-language newspapers was greatly enhanced by the kind assistance of Gamil Youssef, the knowledgeable Middle East bibliographer in the Asian and Middle Eastern division of the New York Public Library , now retired. Mr. Youssef accommodated my research needs and made available untapped copies of Jurāb-ul-Kurdi and Al-Funūn in the summer of 2007. I share his hope that all...

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