1
25
15
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/7831773abc961108148d8117029935a6.pdf
e077a92c946d7568961699d1c7923249
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19311211_reaction_14
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching to Florida Governor Carlton
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
A letter from Arthur Raper of the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching to Florida Governor Carlton, dated December 11, 1931. The letter originally accompanied a copy of the Commission's report.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1931 December 11
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1930s
Discrimination
Florida
Letters-English
Reports
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/49c9f68386f71f0fe56823e3dad076fd.pdf
2b0fb37928a4bee3691d072a22a9b3be
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19310831_reaction_13
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from K.I. Hamway to Florida Governor Carlton Regarding Lynching
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
A letter from K.I. Hamway of Brooklyn, New York to Florida Governor Carlton, dated August 31, 1931, regarding outrage over white complicity and participation in lynchings in the South.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1931 August 31
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1930s
Discrimination
Florida
Letters-English
New York
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/91b1a9db365208fe22dee6f10b1f6b3d.pdf
87098d9bdb2cf073355ee6ccf18e32da
PDF Text
Text
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19301103_reaction_12
Title
A name given to the resource
Telegram from "A Group of White Women" to Florida Governor Carlton Regarding Lynching
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
A telegram from twenty-two women throughout the South to Florida Governor Carlton, dated November 3, 1930 expressing outrage over the sharp increase in lynching and urge Carlton and other governors to "erase this crime from the record of his state".
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1930 November 03
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1930s
Crime
Discrimination
Florida
Telegrams
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/a7cd56c01990be2f0f292b12744c61ba.pdf
5a4f1148120b6edffb77c5dc6637c155
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19300612_reaction_10
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from The General Conference of the Religious Society of Friends to Florida Governor Carlton Regarding Lynching and Anarchy
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
A letter from Arthur Jackson, Chairman of The General Conference of the Religious Society of Friends in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Florida Governor Carlton dated July 12, 1930. The writer is "shocked at this year's record of twleve lynchings."
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1930 June 12
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1930s
Crime
Discrimination
Florida
Letters-English
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/57e14c6de437c0559a4ab65385ee98e9.pdf
9b3e4bc7fe21709722b4adbaa0bdb067
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19291111_reaction_8
Title
A name given to the resource
Telegram from Commission on Interracial Cooperation to Governor Carlton Regarding Third 1929 Florida Lynching
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
A telegram from W. Alexander Director of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation to Florida Governor Carlton regarding the third lynching in Florida in 1929 and calling for action to be taken.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1929 November 11
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1920s
Crime
Discrimination
Florida
Telegrams
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/14d17fca58f5324888250032a74b17bd.pdf
a7c71bccf1de4c81b8cdd262cae6b5c7
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19220630_lawencounters_4
Title
A name given to the resource
Newspaper Article in The New York Times
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
An article in The New York Times, published in New York City, New York on June 30, 1922 "Another Beaten In South: Georgia Business Man Says He Was Seized by Five in White Robes". The article reports the beating of Nola Romey by five white robed and hooded men old him to stop selling whiskey, drinking, and talking to white women.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1922 June 30
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The New York Times
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1920s
Articles
Crime
Discrimination
Georgia
New York
Newspapers
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/a028a2ee5bfe7ad7fa24581d0004b050.pdf
b5f58b6ad765d2fe23157ac6915af1e0
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19220629_lawencounters_3
Title
A name given to the resource
Newspaper Article in The Valdosta Daily Times
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
An article in The Valdosta Daily Times , published in Valdosta, Georgia on June 29, 1922 "Valdosta Man Is Taken Out And Given Beating". The article reports the beating of Nola Romey by "five white-robbed and hooded men" who alleged he "rather familiarly addressed a lady who entered his place of business" they also told him to stop selling moonshine, drinking, and talking to white women.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1922 June 29
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Valdosta Daily Times
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1920s
Articles
Crime
Discrimination
Georgia
Newspapers
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/6144c80a337c54fbc190c8d25d34f3e7.pdf
7d1d312aad2026401aeb58a81f781482
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical note</h4>
<p>In the early morning hours of Friday, May 17th, 1929, a Lebanese immigrant was lynched in Lake City, Florida. He was shot multiple times and left to die along a lonely stretch of the road heading south out of Lake City to Fort White.</p>
<p>N'oula Romey (نقولا رومي) was the fourth victim of racial terror that year in Florida, and one of ten people who were lynched by white mobs across the US in 1929 alone. Just hours before, his wife Hasna (Fannie) Rahme was fatally shot by Lake City police in their store. Their tragic murders were the most gruesome and violent attacks on Lebanese immigrants in the US, but this was not an isolated incident. Their killing was a part, and the culmination, of a widespread pattern of racially-motivated hostility, vitriol and physical abuse directed at early Arab immigrants who came to, worked, and lived in America between the 1890s and the 1930s.</p>
<h4>Scope/Contents note</h4>
<p>The Romey Lynchings: A Story of Lebanese Immigrants collection includes primary sources used in <a href="https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/explore/projects/romey-lynchings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Romey Lynchings</a> project.</p>
<p>Materials date from 1905-1932 and include newspaper articles and correspondence that contain accounts of anti-immigrant discrimination that predate the Romey lynchings, contextual material from the time period, racial violence, corruption in the law, and personal stories surrounding the tragic deaths of Nola and Hasna.</p>
<p>Researchers should be advised that m<span>aterials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.</span></p>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Lebanese Americans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sandra Moses Ryland
Teresa Bishop Angove
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905-1932
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sandra Moses Ryland and Teresa Bishop Angove
Processed by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2019-2020. Collection Guide written by Amanda Forbes, 2020.
Collection Guide updated by Laura Lethers, 2024 February.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0046
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0046_19200430_news_11
Title
A name given to the resource
Memo from the NAACP Regarding Prejudice Against Greeks and Syrians
Description
An account of the resource
Content Warning: Materials in this collection contain harmful content, including racist and white supremacist language, graphic descriptions of lynching, and other forms of violence.
A memo from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dated April 30, 1920 regarding a political ad for J.D. Goss's campaigne for coroner in Birmingham, Alabama.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1920 April 30
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
NAACP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lynching--Florida
Racism
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
1920s
Advertisements
Alabama
Discrimination
Politics
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/91aa4d0cd0ad4bb9ca4847c34bce0589.pdf
844a5c27c6b2c040806a807ffa37a1ba
PDF Text
Text
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Joseph Family Papers
Subject
The topic of the resource
Belly dance
Lebanese Americans
Marines
Photographs
World War II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1931-2015
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Inventoried by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2022 May. Processed by Allison Hall and Rachel Beth Acker, 2023 April-August. Collection Guide created by Allison Hall, 2023 September.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
French
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0062
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Digital material in this collection is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Physical material in this collection is also available to researchers. For questions or to access a collection, please contact us at kcldsarchive@ncsu.edu. Please give at least 48 hours for responses to any inquiries regarding the materials.
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve R. Joseph, also referred to in the collection as Genny, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on February 6th, 1963. Genevieve R. Joseph has three siblings, including an older sister Beatrice Ann Joseph (1947-2008) and two older brothers, one of which is Michael James Joseph (born October 16th, 1954). She earned an Associate’s degree in Liberal Arts Honors and Communications and Media Arts in 1983, a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from SUNY Albany in 1985, and a Master’s degree in Sociology with a concentration in Race and Ethnicity, also from SUNY Albany, in 1988. She then <span>worked as a social science researcher for the State of New York. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph took up Middle Eastern belly dancing as a hobby and was a member of the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yallah Dance Ensemble based in Albany, New York in the early 1990s. In 1996 she moved to North Carolina and became involved with the Triangle Lebanese Association; she coordinated the first Lebanese Festival at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in 1999. In North Carolina, she <span>worked as a nonprofit program manager for global education and cultural exchange, and fundraiser for visual arts and conservation of nature. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph married Philip White in 200</span><span style="font-weight:400;">6.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve Norman Joseph (1924-2011), Genevieve R. Joseph’s mother, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York to Sam Norman (1883-1972) and Rose Nader Norman (1889-1955). Rose Nader Norman ran a neighborhood grocery store and the couple managed their home as a boarding house. Genevieve Norman Joseph, also known as Gen, married Charles Michael Joseph (1918-2002) of Wendell, North Carolina on March 2, 1946. Genevieve Norman Joseph was a member of the Lebanese American Daughters, an organization closely related to the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Lebanon-American Club of Poughkeepsie. She also </span><span style="font-weight:400;">worked as a Nursing Aide. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Charles “Charlie” Michael Joseph, Genevieve R. Joseph’s father, was born in Connecticut to parents Namy </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yusef Becharra</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> and Julia Asmer in 1918 and was raised in Wendell, North Carolina from the age of eight months. He had nine siblings: Lucy, Eddie (Naim), Mamie (Thmam), Charlie (Khalil), George (A'Eid, Geryus), Evelyn (Jamila), Helen (Thatla), Abe (Ibrahim), Joe (Yusef), and Dolores (Julia).</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> His father, Namy Joseph, ran a store on Main Street and another one beside the family home. </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Charlie Joseph served in the US Marines during World War II and was honorably discharged in 1945 as a corporal. He was stationed in Recife, Brazil and Guam during the war. In Poughkeepsie, Charlie Joseph ran a luncheonette and was active in the Lebanon-American Club, serving as its president from 1962 to 1966. Upon their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph’s graduation from SUNY Albany in 1985, Genevieve and Charlie moved from Poughkeepsie to Wendell, North Carolina, Charlie’s hometown.</span></p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The Joseph Family papers contain materials related to three generations of the Joseph family as well as families related to them. The collection focuses on the lives of Genevieve Norman Joseph, her husband Charles Joseph, and their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph. The collection also includes materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s grandparents and their extended family, both in Lebanon and in the United States. </span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Much of the collection consists of photographs from the early twentieth century to the twenty-first century. The photographs primarily include family photographs and portraits, as well as photographs from Charles Joseph’s deployment during World War II in Brazil and Guam. Also included in the collection are materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s dance career, newspaper clippings, articles from the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, materials related to Charles Joseph’s time in the Marines, event pamphlets and flyers, prayer cards, obituaries, academic materials, correspondence, and some physical objects.</span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Editorial titled "Taking Root, Bearing Fruit: The American-Arab Experience"
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lebanese Americans
Description
An account of the resource
Special issue of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee editorial ADC Reports. After two introductory articles, the special issue describes 11 unique communities of Arab-Americans across the United States.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
undated
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0062_1_1_004
1980s
Articles
Discrimination
Immigration
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/8aeae2240802079ebe5df4d3d3e80fbe.pdf
26e690fa184b8c443502e01dfbdf30f5
PDF Text
Text
•••••••••••••••••••
I
I
�Table oi Contents
Introduction
Songs
•
4
Jokes
•
5
Television
•
•
3
5
Political Cartoons
Comics
•
8
Movies
•
10
•
6
Analyzing the Stereotypes
•
Confronting the Stereotypes
References Cited •
18
•
21
Negative Images oi Arabs
in American Popular Culture
22
M
~ssues
1731 Connecdcut Avenue NW, Suite 400
Wmthington, O.C . .20009 • (.20!i) 797-766!i
ADC Executive Director: James Zogby
ADC Research Institute CCX>rclinator: Eric Hooglund
Acknowledgements
Author's note: I would like to
acknowledge Dr. Laura Nader, who
encouraged me to write the first
version of this paper in 1975. Thanks
also to Raif Hijab, Eric Hooglund,
Frederick Huxley, Mary Layoun and
Audrey Shabbas for useful criticisms,
although they do not necessarily
share the views expressed here.
2
ADC Issues is published by the ADC Research Institute and informs ADC members on issues of
special significance. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC ) is a
non-sec tarian, non-partisan service organization committed to defending the rights and
promoting the heritage of Arab-Americans. The largest grass rCX>ts Arab-American organization
in the United States, ADC was founded in 1980 by form e r U.S. Senator James Abourezk in
response to stereotyping, defamation, and discrimination directed against Am e ri can s of Arab
descent.
ADC serves its nationwide m e mbership through direct advocacy in cases of defamation,
through legal action in cases of discrimination, and through counseling in matters of
immigration. ADC publishes information on issu es of concern to Arab-Americans and provides
education materials on Arab history and c ulture as well as the ethnic experience of Arabs in
America. It also sponsors summer inte rnships in Washington for Arab-American college
students. ADC's Save Lebanon project addresses the special needs of Lebanese and
Palestinian victims of war.
Printing by International Graphics.
IDDLE East specialists
sometimes deplore American
ign orance about the Arab Worldits people, culture, politics and
h istory. Strictly speaking, however,
this is not true. Americans know a
gr eat deal about Arabs. The
problem is that so much of what is
known is wrong. The task of
lea rning about the Arab World
b egins, therefore, not so much
wi th learning new things, but
rather with unlearning the things
we thought we knew.
School textbooks and Orientalist
scholarship have been deseivedly
criticized as possible sources of
prejudice about Arabs and about
the Middle East in general.
However, our misconceptions
about Arabs probably come at least
as much from informal as from
formal education. Our negative
stereotype of Arabs begins with
and is nurtured by what has been
called upopular" or "folk"
culture-songs, jokes, television
programs, cartoons, comic strips,
movies and the like.
The Western image of the Arab
is a fascinating one-arguably
more interesting than the Arabs
themselves. It is not that Arabs are
uninteresting. Quite the contrary,
the Arab World is a diverse and
interesting place, and Arabs have
made important contributions to
Western civilization. However,
when we consider the Western
image of the Arab- Ali Baba,
Sinbad the Sailor, the thief of
Baghdad, the slave merchant, the
harem dancer, the curse of the
mummy, horsemen in flowing
robes attacking the Foreign Legion
outpost, and so on-we have to
admit that, at least in the case of
the Arabs, fiction is stranger than
truth.
This American stereotype of
Arabs is important for two reasons.
First, the Arab stereoJyR · erferes
witl} our understanding of a ~ tally
important area of the world andJts
people. Arabs are by far the
majority in the modem Middle
East and North Africa, numbering
about 155 million people. Second,
the Arab stereotype, while it
teaches us little about the Arabs, it
teaches us a good deal about
ourselves and about mechanisms
of prejudice.
Perhaps the best method to
begin a study of the American
stereotype of Arabs is to examine
in sequence different areas of our
popular culture about Arabsjokes, cartoons, popular songs, and
especially cinema. Let us consider,
then, some of the many forms in
which one encounters the
stereotyping of Arabs in daily life.
3
�Songs
P
OPUIAR and folk songs
with Arab themes have been
present since at least the Roaring
Twenties. "The Sheik of Araby"
(Snyder 1921 ), for example, began
with the following lyrics:
I'm the sheik of Araby.
Your heart belongs to me.
At night when you're asleep,
Into your tent I'll creep.
©1921, Waterson, Berlin and Snyder Co.
Sigmund Romberg's 1926 operetta
"The Desert Song" had a similar
theme. It presented the desert as a
romantic but dangerous place,
where at any moment one might
be set upon by Arab raiders singing
the "Song of the Riff ':
Ho! So we sing as we are riding!
Ho! It's the time you'd best b e
hiding!
Ho! It means the Riffs are
abroad!
Go! Before you've bitten the
sw ord!
©1926, Harms, Inc.
The most recent version of the
musical "Kismet" (1955) wove
exotic Arab themes through su ch
s ongs as "Baubles, Bangles a nd
Beads" and "Not since 1inevah."
Oscar Brand recorded a baw dy folk
ballad called "Kafoozalem ," with
the r efrain,
Heigh-ho Kafoozalem , the
harlot of Jerusalem
Prostitute of ill r epute a n d
daugh ter of the Baba!
©1955, Frank Mu sic Corp.
More recent popula r songs with
Arab them es include "Little Egypt,"
about a ca rnival b elly dancer ("She
walks, sh e talks, s h e crawls on her
b elly like a reptile"). The most
popular song of the rock-and-roll
era has probably been "Ahab the
Arab," (pronounce "Ay-rab")
r ecor ded in 1962 by Ray Stephens
and r e-r ecorded by many otherssuch as Kinky Friedman.
4
Let me tell you about Ay-hab,
the Ay-rab,
The Sheik of the Burning
Sands.
He had emeralds and
rubies just dripping off.
of him
And a ring on every
finger of his hands.
He had a big old turban
wrapped round his head
And a scimitar by his side
And every evening about
midnight
He would get on his camel
named Clyde
And ride, straight to the te nt of
Fatima, etc.
©1962, Lowery Music Co.
The highpoint of "Ahab the Arab" is
when Ray Stephens babbles
incoherently in imitation of
"Arabic. "
Kinky Friedman recorded a ¥ersion oi'
the 8ong "Ahab the Arab" about a
stereotypic de8ert sheik who h ad
"emeralds and nabies just dripping off oi
him."
Jokes
Television
W
T
HE average American p robably
does not recall ever having
met an Arab in person (due in part
to the low visib ility of ArabAmericans, a p roblem w hich we
will discuss later ). But
Americans welcome dozens of
Arabs into their living
rooms-via television. Setting a side
television news, which has its own
kind of bias, television's Arabs are a
form of modern folklore- fi ctional
figures, not even played by Arab
actors. Almost all of them are
"Wonder Woman," "Trapper John,
M.D." and others. "Charlie 's
Angels" and "Rockford Files" were
among the worst offenders, each
with multiple anti-Arab programs.
Th ere are also television wrestlers
with stage names like "Abdullah
the Butcher" and television
commercials that stereotype
Arabs- by Frigidaire and
Volkswagen, for example
(Romdhani 1982, Shaheen 1980).
Most offensive, though, is the
stereotyping of Arabs in television
villains and buffoons- terrorists,
Oriental despots, back-ward sheiks,
wealthy playboys, assassins, white
slaver s, etc.
A mass communications
scholar, Dr. Jack Shaheen,
reported that an anti-Arab image
appeared on a prime time
progr a m n early every other week
du r ing a media study conducted
from 197S to 1980. Shaheen noted
negatively stereotyped Arabs on
su ch programs as 'Vegas,"
"Fantasy Isla nd," "Bionic Woman,"
"Th e Six Million Dollar Man,"
"Police Woman," "Mccloud,"
"Hawaii Five-0 ," "Cannon,"
"Columbo," "Medi cal Center,"
programs for children, whose
views of the world are just being
formed (see Shaheen n.d. ). Such
programs teach children that
Arabs are evil and foolish. Cartoons
frequently include Arab villains.
"Electric Company" features
"Spellbinder," a troublemaker who
looks vaguely Middle Easternswarthy, with a turban and curling
moustache. Even "Sesame Street,"
which usually promotes ethnic
pride and interethnic respect, used
an Arab figure to illustrate the
word "danger."
E have all heard the jokes
about Arabs at one time or
another-such as the old saw
about Egyptian tanks having backup lights. Arabs themselves are fond
of jokes; Egyptians in particular
are famous for satire about their
own leaders, such as Nasser, Sadat
and Mubarak. In the United States,
however, jokes about Arabs tend
more to racism than to wit.
The Folklore Department at the
University of California at Berkeley
has files of folk materials,
including ethnic jokes, collected
by students. Jokes in the file about
Arabs show themes of stupidity
(six jokes), cowardice (six jokes),
and filthiness or repulsiveness (four
jokes). Some of the jokes combine
m ore than one theme. Each entry
is labelled according to who heard
the joke, when, where, and from
whom . Although the sample is
small, the dates of the entries
suggest that jokes about Arabs may
have declined after the 1973 warperhaps because the relative
success of the Egyptian and Syrian
forces made th e jokes about
cowardice and stupidity inappropriate.
"Charlie 's Angels" h 88 been a mong the
worst offendel'N in using negati¥e
Arab 8tereotypes.
5
�Political cartoons
r--------~
P
OLITICAL cartoons offer the
advantag~ of being quick and
easy to understand. Where a book,
an article, or an editorial may be
complex, a political cartoon by its
very nature must be obvious and
unmistakable in intent- pure
opinion expressed in images and
unencumbered by much fact.
Oliphant of the Denver Post
produced a classic syndicated
cartoon about Arabs in 1974, at the
time of the "oil crisis." It shows a
group of Arabs-fat, bearded,
hooded, hook-nosed, snaggletoothed, and seated on pillows. A
buxom woman dressed like a belly
dancer is serving them a roast pig
on a steaming platter. One of the
Arabs is throwing a single cleanpicked bone to a naked and
starving Black child, labelled
"Africa. " The message was
presumably that oil price increases
were hurting the Third World,
offset only by token aid from the
Arabs.
This was typical of "political
commentary" in the mid-1970's.
Americans were angry about
higher gasoline prices and
frustrated at waiting in long lines
at gas stations. The popular mood
was receptive to scapegoating.
Unfortunately, the Arabs became
the scapegoats, vilified throughout
the country in editorial-page
cartoons, of which Oliphanf s was
typical.
Thus, Oliphant was able to
ignore a number of facts- that
American oil companies were
making record profits, that OPEC
includes several non-Arab
countries, that the price increase
had been instigated not by Arabs
but by the Shah of Iran and that
the most populous Arab countries
have little or no oil. The roast pig
was a particularly offensive detail,
since Muslims do not eat pork. A
final point, directly contradicting
Oliphant's cartoon, is particularly
noteworthy. At the time that the
cartoon appeared, Saudi Arabia
was the world's largest donor of
6
SHEIKH KF£00
Political cartoonists ponrayed Arabs as
greedy and rich sheiks (above left) durin~
the "oil crisis" oi the 1970'8 and as
de serving victims (abm1e) during .t he oil
glut. Some resorted to sub-human
depiction"' such as the "l'asir Ararat."
foreign aid: Saudi aid to the Third
World was $3 billion per year, and
foreign aid donations as a
percentage of national product were
more than ten times higher in
Saudi Arabia than in the United
States.
Arab villains in political
cartoons are a relatively recent
development. The political
cartoons in most American
newspapers during the 1948 and
1956 Mideast conflicts were, with
few exceptions, neutral. The
political cartoons of the San
Francisco Chronicle during Middle
East conflicts are a good example.
Only one mildly anti-Arab cartoon
appeared in the Chronicle in the
1948 war-attacking the Lebanese
for interfering with an American
ship bound for Haifa. In the 1956
war, the Chronicle also had only
one anti-Arab cartoon-criticizing
Nasser for nationalizing the Suez
Canal. However, there were ten
anti-Arab cartoons during the 1967
war and five during the 1973 war.
At their best, political cartoons
can be pithy, amusing and
thought-provoking, and a certain
amount of satire is inherent in the
genre. At their worst, however,
political cartoons can reflect and
perpetuate raci~t attitudes. Some
have gone so far as to portray in a
positive light the maiming and
killing of Arabs. "Save oil. .. Burn
Sheeks," shows an Arab sheik
being burned for fuel (Zogby 1982:
5); "Sheikh Kabob" shows an Arab
sheik being impaled with a dipstick
labeled "oil glut" (Meyer, 3/14/ 82
San Francisco Chronicle); and
"Yassir Ararat, " shows a rat in a
kaffieh whose head has been
crushed in a trap shaped like a six
pointed star (Bensen, 7/1 / 82 San
Francisco Examiner). Such
cartoons are not limited to a single
newspaper, but are of more than
local scope; Bensen's political
cartoons, for example, are
syndicated from the Arizona
Republic through the Washington
Post Writers Group and appear
throughout the country.
Since the late 1960's and early
1970's, the anti-Arab political
cartoon has unfortunately become
standard fare on the editorial
pages of American newspapers.
The portrayal of Arabs in these
cartoons has been unrelievedly
negative. Sometimes-as in the
examples above-it can only be
described as racist. James Zogby
has correctly noted that such
material is comparable to
European anti-Semitic cartoons of
the World War II era. In both cases
a particular ethnic group is being
made a scapegoat for the complex
economic and political ills of a
whole country (Zogby op cit).
~
A satirical representation oi a sultan with bis numberless wives.
Thomu Huwlandson (1756-1827)
7
�Comics
J\ RAB characters appear in daily
.Fl.and Sunday comic strips as
well as in comic books. One can
open a newspaper and find Arab
villains in daily comic strips as
diverse as Broom Hilda, Lolly, Short
Ribs, Berry's World, The Wizard of
Id and Funky Winkerbean. For
example, in a cartoon that
appeared at Thanksgiving in 1979,
Dennis the Menace says, "Dewey's
havin' meat loaf. His Dad says
some Arab is eatin' THEIR
Thanksgiving Turkey."
The Sunday comics offer the
Arab stereotype in color. Consider
some recent examples:
• Little Orphan Annie in early 1980
featured a hook-nosed Arab
villain named "Bahd-Simel," who
attempted to kidnap Annie and
hold her ransom for energyrelated secrets. The sequence is ·
mitigated somewhat by a good
Arab, "Abu Kaf-tan," who, as Daddy
Warbucks puts it, "alone of all
his countrymen seems to realize
that if the economy of the world is
shattered- he and his people,
being part of this world, must
eventually suffer also."
• Barbara Cartland 's Romances, a
Sunday comic based on the
successful romantic novels of
Barbara Cartland, ran a story in
early 1982 called "Passions in the
Sand." A young Englishwoman
goes to Syria to find her cousin.
On the ship she sees a horse
mistreated by an Arab groom,
and later she is kidnaped by a
fat, wealthy sheik who tries to
force her to marry him.
• A Bloom County Sunday comic
strip in March 1982 featured
a group of insects, one of whom
is named "Ahmed," who undertake
a "cockroach revolution" and
throw a man out of his house.
• Brenda Starr is the most'
frequently anti-Arab of the Sunday
comics. In an early 1983 episode,
Urenda Starr is held hostage for a
"memory chip that will change the
face of naval warfare" by Arabs
who roll her up in a rug, which
they dangle over a cliff. In
August, the comic introduced its
second Arab villain of 1983-Abu
Sindel, a snake-wielding
international assassin (SF Sunday
Examiner/ Chronicle, 8/ 7 / 83).
Shaheen mentions a Brenda Star
story of a previous year which
featured yet another Arab villain,
named "Oily O-le-um."
This same negative Arab
stereotype can be found in comic
books. An example is the
September 1974 issue of the war
comic, Sergeant Rock. In a story
called "A Sergeant Dies," a Roman
Legionnaire dies in a battle after
killing many of the Egyptian
soldiers; a Crusader falls to the
Saracens; an American sergeant in
North Africa falls to the Germans;
and an Israeli sergeant is killed
defending a kibbutz against an
Arab attack. As one of the Arabs
walks away he comments, "If it
took so long for us to take one
hill from one sergeant. .. what will
it take to stop his nation?" The
message is clear: the Romans,
Crusaders, Americans a nd Israelis
are the good guys; the Egyptians,
Saracens, Germans and Arabs are
Brenda Starr by Dale Messick
THIS MAN MAY LOOK TO YOU
A RUN-OF-THE-MILL FUN-AN D
GAMES RECREATIONAL S NAK
TRAINER .. , BUT .THAT COUL
SE MORE WRONG
the bad guys.
Similar Arab villains can be
found in Conan the Barbarian,
Tarzan, and numerous other
mainstream comics. Heavy Metal, a
comic designed for a young adult
audience, has a March 1982 story
in which a harem flees an evil
sultan who swears that he will
capture them and feed their flesh
to the vultures.
One could continue listing
instances of the stereotyping of
Arabs in still other categories of
American popular culturebillboards, pulp magazines,
popular novels, paintings,
musicals, plays, etc. However, the
main introductory points should
by now be clear: that the
stereotyping of Arabs is pervasive
in American popular culture and
daily life, that the Arab stereotype
in America is overwhelmingly
negative, and that for some reason
the norms of ethnic respect in
America are not extended to Arabs.
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T h e "B renda Starr" comic 8trip (above)
b a8 bee n repea te dly oiie n8ive to Arabs.
An "Annie" 8trip at le it illu8trate 8 bow the
European image oi the Arab a8 cn1el
a ffl!e niary (whic h probably date8 back at
le a8t to the Cni8ade8) ba8 been pas8ed on
to Americ an c uJture.
On the iac ing page are other e x ample8 oi
"ellil" Arabs in the c omJc8, including a
ii8t-cle nching "8u1tan" irom He a vy Metal
magazine.
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8
�Movies
R
ATIIER than continue a catalog
of diverse slurs, let us instead
investigate in greater depth the
Arab stereotype in a single key
category of American popular
culture- the movies. Cinema is
undoubtedly the area of popular
culture which offers the most
detailed picture of the American
stereotype of Arabs, both now and
in its historical development. In its
origins and in its world
distribution, cinema is a
particularly American phenomenon and a powerful cultural force.
Americans love the movies, and
never more than in recent years.
The 1983 International Motion
Picture Almanac reports that
Americans annually spend nearly
$3 billion for movie tickets. There
were about 1,100,000,000
admissions to films in America's
16,712 movie theatres in 1981-up
4.5% over 1980. Of the total
American public over age
twelve, 27% are frequent movie
goers (once a month or more) and
another 24% are occasional movie
goers (once every 2-6 months).
Younger and more impressionable
people are the biggest movie fans;
most avid are the 16-20 year old
age group, most of whom are in
the "frequent" category (Gertner
1983). Even after they leave the
theatre circuit, old movies still
don't die; instead they reappear on
the television late show.
American cinema has been
fascinated from its very beginnings
with the idea of the Arab. The
world's first film studio was built
by Thomas Edison in 1893 in West
Orange, New Jersey, and one of
Edison's first films-designed for
the kinetoscope, a coin-operated
viewer-box-was called "The Dance
of the Seven Veils" (Allen 1979, 11-12).
Americans are avid movie-goerH and
cinema is a powerful iorce in 8haping
their world-view. After a lull in
mid~entury, due probably to the impact
of televl81on, cinema attendance ba8
80ared to record heights in recent year8.
10
With the development of film
projection technology, moving
pictures progressed from viewer boxes to theatres, spreading
throughout the world- especially
throughout Europe and the United
States. After World War I, with
Europe in ruins, America moved
during the prosperous 1920's into
pre-eminence in world cinema, a
position it has never relinquished.
What people enjoyed on the
screen, then as now, was the
exotic, and the most exotic setting
imaginable was the Middle East. At
least 87 films were produced in the
1920's which had major or minor
"Arab" themes. The list of actors
and actresses who played in these
exotic films reads like a Mw 's INho
of early American cinema. Leading
men such as Gary Cooper, William
Powell, Ronald Colman and
Ramon Navarro fought in the
Foreign Legion or rescued
legendary beauties such as Alice
Terry, Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson
Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921)
and Son oJthe Sheik(1926)portrayed the
Arab a8 a lu8tv abductor oi white women
(far leit and b; low ). At leit i8 a 8cene irom
Ali Baba Goe,s to Town.
•
and Norma Talmadge from evil
sheiks. Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson
rode the range with Arabs. The evil
Bela Lugosi was there. Oliver Hardy
appeared in One Stolen Night in a
straight hero role, and William
Boyd- later famous as Hopalong
Cassidy- appeared with Mary Astor
•
•
3 0 0 0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - ---=-
Admissions To U.S. Movie Theatres
2500------------------------
2000------------------------1
MILLIONS OF $
1500------------
1000----------
500
I
o--------YEARS 1940
•
1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980
Source: International Motion Picture Almanacs (1980 and 1983 Eds.l
and Boris Karloff in Two Arabian
Knights, a romantic comedy set in
Palestine in World War I.
These 1920's fiims about the
Middle East fall into two main
groups. Most are exotic adventure
melodramas set in the desert. In
these, Arabs are associated with
violence and sexuality- abducting
white women or sweeping in
hordes out of the desert to attack
the Foreign Legion outpost. A
second genre of Middle East
movies is the light comedy, with
Arabs as buffoons, sometimes
good-natured and sometimes not.
The best-known exotic
adventure melodramas of this
period are probably Rudolph
Valentino's movies- The Sheik and
Son of the Sheik- silent movies
which inspired no less than a cult.
A photograp h of Valen tino clad in
flowing robes, standing at the
entrance to a tent, glowering down
at a flimsily clad girl he has swept
into his arms, is a standard entry
in every coffee table book on the
history of cinema.
These Middle East melodramas
of the 1920's set the tone for
countless films to come. The
themes they contained are apparent
from some typical plots:
• The Sheik (1921 l: An English girl
goes on an adventure to the
Sahara disguised as a slave girl
in a gamb1ing casino, where she
meets and is captured by Sheik
Ahmed, who tries to force her to
surrender to his will.
• The Song of Love (1923): Ramlika,
an Arab chief in Algeria, has
plans to drive out the French
and to crown himself king in
North Africa; he is later killed by
the Fren ch troops.
• A Cafe in Cairo (1924): An Arabian
desert bandit, Kali, kills a British
couple, sparing their small
daughter on condition that one
day she b e given him in
marriage. She is rescued by an
Englishman, Barry Braxton, but
not before Braxton is bound by
the Arab villain and thrown into
the Nile.
The Arab (1924): Jamil, the son of
a Bedouin tribal leader, is
disowned by his father for a
desert raid at the time of the
feast of Ramadan. He is
reformed by Mary, the
missionary's daughter.
A Son of the Sahara (19241: A boy,
Raoul, is reared by a desert tribe.
Later he falls in love with
Barbara, an officer's daughter,
who rejects him until she finds
that he is not really an Arab.
Son of the Sheik (1926): A boy,
Ahmed, falls in love with
Yasmin, a dancer and daughter
of a renegade Frenchman.
Believing Yasmin has tricked
him, Ahmed abducts her and is
about to rape her when his
father, the Sheik, intervenes.
The Desert Bride (1928): A French
officer and his sweetheart are
captured by Arab nationlists.
Kassim Ben Ali, their leader
tortures them both, but they
resist, escape, and Kassim is
killed in the end.
The Arab in these films is
associated with theft, abduction,
rape, knives, fighting, murder,
sexuality, and anti-Western
attitudes. However, he is not
complete]y bad. The early screen
Arabs played by Douglas Fairbanks
and Rudolph Valentino possessed a
certain primitive charm. Fairbanks'
Arab, though, is still a lazy thief in
The Thief of Baghdad and
Valentino 's Arab in The Sheik turns
out at the end of the film to be not
an Arab at all, but the son of a
European. The sexual racism is
apparent; the Arab lusts after a
white woman, whom he tries to
capture, but interracial love is not
allowed- unless the Arab is really a
European.
11
�Of course these films were only
loose representations of the Middle
East. They were intended mainly as
entertainment. American moviemakers were marketing exoticism
in an attempt to draw moneypaying crowds. As Leon Carl Brown
has pointed out in criticism of The
Desert Song, the Moroccan Rif is
mountains, not desert (Brown
1981). Another example of ignorance
of the Middle East on the part of
screen writers is the "Arab" names
they chose. All too often the "Arab"
names from serious fiJms are
ridiculously improbable- such as
Kali, Kada, Chala, Ahleet Metaab,
Batooka, Irad Ben Sabam, and
Chidder Ben-Ek.
These films were representative
of the popular literature from
which they drew their plotsnovels, plays, magazine stories and
serials. There were relatively few
original screenplays. For example,
a novel by Edgar Selwyn was the
source for the plot of The A rab.
Beau Geste was also a nove l in 1924
before coming to the screen.
Kismet was a play by Edward
Knoblock before its numerous film
versions. And Desert Song was a
successful stage musical in 1926
before being adapted as a film.
These early films of the 1920's
were mainly silent black-and-white
productions of five to eight reels.
In 1928 and 1929, we see the
appearance of some sound
technology, with Movietone
musical scores, sound effects and
some talking sequences. Beau
Geste in 1926 featured a short
experimental color sequence.
Renegades (1930) was the first full
sound production among movies
with Middle East themes.
T
HE 1930's and 1940's brought
new film technologies, and
larger budgets- but th ere was no
reason to change the themes, since
they continued to attrac t p e ople to
theaters. There were remakes and
re-remakes of the same films, as in
The Garden o.f Allah (1927,1936),
12
Molfiemakeni perpetuated Arab
8tereotype8 every time they produced a
re-make oi an older film. The image oi
the "exotic Arab Ea8t" remained constant
in the 1930 (right) and 1955 (below)
versions oi "1smet. Coundess Foreign
Legion melodrama8 glorified European
coloniali8m in Arab North Airica. The
1939 (bottom) and 1979 (bottom right)
venii ons oi Beau Geste are just two
examples.
The Thief of Baghdad (1924, 1940,
1961, 1978 ), and Kismet (1920, 1930,
1944, 1955 ). Ronald Colman's
original Beau Geste has been
redone so many times- including
the still-televised Gary Cooper and
Telly Savalas versions, (1939 and
1966)-that Marty Feldman entitled
his 1977 Foreign Legion comedy
spoof, "The Last Remake of Beau
Geste. "
Often the Arab is only part of
the background- invisible or
faceless. Casablanca (1942), with
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid
Bergman, one of the most famous
films in history, is a good example:
it has American, French, German
and even Czech characters, but
where are the Arabs? Apart from a
minor Moroccan villain played by
Sidney Greenstreet there are no
Arab characters, which is odd
considering that the story is set
m a inJy in Morocco. Leon Carl
Brown ha s also noted the irony of
th e scene in w hich the French sing
the "Marseillaise" to drown out the
Ge r mans singing "Die Wacht am
Rhein "- ''both national groups
b eing on alien soil blithely ignoring
the mute claims to independence
and identity of their reluctant
Moroccan host" (Brown 1981). As
in many other adventure films, the
Arabs simply provide an exotic and
slightly sinister background- a
colonial setting for the comings
and goings of Westerners.
No inventory of Middle East
film genres would be complete
without mention of the "mummy"
movies. Boris Karloff's The Mummy
(19321 has a typical plot: a mummy
revives after thousands of years
and pursues an innocent Western
woman that he believes is the
r eincarnation of his mate.
Frequently, it is the penetration by
Westerners into a forbidden place,
su ch as a tomb, that activates a
curse and brings the vengeful
mummy to life. Many of the great
horror specialists enacted mummy
roles- including Boris Karloff in
The Mummy (19321, and Lon
Chaney in The Mummy 's Tomb
(1942 ) and The Mummy 's Curse
(1944).
The mummy genre was
successful because it paired a
frightening creature with a
sinister setting. The mummy, the
Middle Easterner, is a threatening
figure. As in the "sheik" movies, we
find the threat of miscegenationthe Middle Eastern male, in the
horrible guise of the mummy,
relentlessly pursuing the Western
woman but-thank goodness!never quite catchjng her.
D
URING the period after World
War II, production costs
increased- from an average of
$400,000 per film in 1941 to over $1
million in 1949, and to $11.3
million in 1982 (Getner op cit).
There had been many small
companies in the 1920's but such
high capital requirements
gradually led to an industry
dominated by just a few. Cinema
also became an international
business, with international stars
and coproductions among
American, British, Italian and
French film companies.
In the 1950's and 1960's
Hollywood continued to make light
comedies in Middle Eastern
settings- such as Donald
O'Connor's The Wonders of
Aladdin (1961 ) and Elvis Presley's
Harom Scarum (1965). But these
films were not always innocuous.
For example, in Kiss the Other
Sheik (1968), a Roman husband
attempts to sell his wife to a series
of Arabs, the first of whom tries to
cheat him and the last of whom
turns out to be a homosexual,
more interested in the husband
than the wife.
Another kind of film about the
Middle East is the "strong man"
movies, which substituted muscles
for Douglas Fairbanks' acrobatics.
Examples include Steve Reeves'
Thief of Baghdad (1961 ), a
swashbuckling Captain Sinbad
(1963), and The Mighty Crusaders
(1961 ), in which the conquering
Christians hack at bald-headed
Saracens.
The Middle East continued to
be a favorite setting for war, spy and
adventure mmries. Examples from
the 1960's include Desert Attack
(1961), Desert Patrol (1962), and
Where the Spies Are (1966). Flight
of the Phoenix (1966) is a good
example of the faceless Arab in a
sinister setting: James Stewart
pilots a plane that crashes in the
Libyan desert; two of the
passengers approach an Arab
caravan for help, and the Arabs cut
their throats for no apparent
reason.
Some of the films of the 1960's
allowed a faint glimmer of humanity
in their generally negative
portrayals of the Arabs. An
example is Lawrence of Arabia,
which in 1962 won seven Academy
Awards, including best motion
picture. The film shows that the
British reneged on their promises
of independence to the Arabs. But
the Arabs emerge as incompetents,
hopelessly divided by tribal
jealousies. When they reach
Damascus before the British, the
Arabs quarrel among themselves
and are unable to run the city. After
a day or two, the Arabs slink out
and the British move in. The film
version of history here is false,
since the Arabs under Faisal
13
�governed Damascus for two years,
until they were driven out by the
French army, not the British.
Another film that is not entirely
negative toward Arabs is Khartoum
(1966), about the Mahdi-led
Sudanese revolt of 1833. In this
primarily British production,
Laurence Olivier endowed the role
of Mahdi with considerable power
and dignity. Generally, though, the
Sudanese come off as half-naked
fanatics, eventually impaling
Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Paul
ewman, and Sal Mineo. The
Arabs, on the other hand, are cruel
s olcliers, unseen or seen only from
a distance. In Exodus, for example,
they brutally kill a 15-year-old
refugee girl, played by Jill Haworth,
and in Cast a Giant Shadow,
described by the New York Times
r eviewer as "the latest chapter of
Hollywood's history of Israel, " the
Arabs leer and laugh as they shoot
an Israeli woman trapped in a
In the 1960 iilm E;mdus (below leit),
Arabs are portrayed as cniel terrorists
seen onlv irom a distance. In other
motion pictures, however, they are
presented with some dignity. In
lihnrtoum (below) Laurence Olivier
played the Sudanese Mahdi. And despite
some hi8torical inaccuracies, Laurence
of Arabia ( bottom) Nhowed a i'aint glimmer
oi humanity in the generally negative
portrayal ni Arabs.
truck at the b ottom of a valley.
Th ese movies present the
Israeli-Arab conflict in much the
same way as Cowboys and Indians:
the Arabs are always the bad guys,
th e Israelis the good guys. The
point h ere is not that the film s
should have rever sed the
formula - Arab good guys and
Israeli bad guys would b e equally
stereotypic- but simply that
cinema should r efrain from gross
oversimplifications which distort
history and interfere with
understancling the Middle East.
Exodus, for example, is based on
Leon Uris 's 1958 b est-seller , which
was condemned as highly
inaccurate by a wide range of
pub1ications- including The New
York Tim es Sunday Magazine
(Gilroy 1958 ), Midstream (Sykin
19S9), The New York Post (Boroff
19S9l, Congress Bi-Weekly (Kahn
1959), Isra el Horizons (Leon 1959),
and Commentary (Blocker 1959l.
From the standpoint of avoiding
ste r eotyping, it is ironic that those
Israeli movies which have been
shown in the United States have
tended to be better than American
ones. For example, They Were Ten
(1961 ), se t in Palestine in the late
19th Century, deals with a group of
A plot by Arab terroriNts to kill
the NpectatorH in the Superbowl
provide!i the !iU!ipense ior Blaek
Sunda.11 (leit) and Arabs are
called "medieval ianatics" bv
Peter Finch in Network (bel~w).
with a spear.
Beginning in the 1950's, a
popular new cinema genre
developed around the Arab-Israeli
conflict. At least ten films were
made on this theme in the 1960's
alone. Survival (19681 is a
travelogue-documentary, juxtaposing WWII concentration camp
footage and the June war. Journey
to Jerusalem (1968 ) is a
documentary of a concert on
Mount Scopus, celebrating the
unification of Jen1salem under
Israeli mle. Exodus (19601, Judith
(1966) and Cast a Giant Shadow
(1966) are all strongly pro-Israeli
films.
In these war movies, Israelis
and their American friends are
played by popular actors such as
Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, John
14
Russian exiles who settle in
Palestine and win over their
initially hostile Arab neighbors.
Sa/ah (1965) satirizes the Israeli
bureaucracy, with an Arab Jew as
its main character. Sands of
Beersheba (19fi6 ) includes among
its characters the peaceful
patriarch of an Arab hamlet. In
Clouds over Israel (1966), set in the
Sinai in the 1956 war with Egypt,
an Israeli anti-Arab softens when
he is befriended behind enemy
lines.
·THE
stereotyping of Arabs in
American cinema has
continued into the 1970's and
1980's. Some examples:
• In The Wind and the Lion (1975)
Sean Connery plays an Arab
described by one critic as "a
1904 forerunner of today's
terrorists kidnapping an
American woman (Candice
Bergen) in Morocco and making
huge ransom demands on
President Theodore Roosevelt"
(Eames 1975, 369). The film 's
claim to historical truth is rather
loose, since in the 1904 incident
the person captured was a male.
• Network (1977) has a bitter antiArab scene in which a crusading
television news commentator,
played by Peter Finch, warns
that the Arabs are taking control
of America. He calls the Arabs
"medieval fanatics" (mistakenly
referring to the Shah of Iran as
an Arab ). The film won four
Academy Awards.
• Black Sunday (1977), based on
a best-selling novel by Thomas
Harris, concerns an Arab
terrorist plot to kill the
spectators at the Superbowlincluding the President of the
United States- with a horrible
device to be detonated in a
television blimp over the stadium.
An Israeli major is the hero and
the Arabs are the villains.
Oddly, the film attributes a
fictitious act to a real
organization- the Palestinians of
1S
�•
•
•
•
the Black September group.
The Black Stallion (1979) shows
Arab grooms aboard a ship
mistreating a horse. When a
boy comforts the horse, an Arab
catches him and twists the boy's
ear and when the ship is sinking,
the Arab comes at the boy with
a knife and steals his life jacket.
The classic children's novel by
James Farley, upon which the
film is based, had no such evil
Arab characters.
In Rollover (1981 ) "the Arabs"
destroy the world financial
system. In publicity interviews,
Jane Fonda has made her
movie's message explicit: "If we
aren 't afraid of Arabs, we'd better
examine our heads. They have
strategic power over us. They
are unstable, they are fundamentalists, tyrants, anti-woman, antifree press. That we have to
depend on them is monstrous. "
(quoted in Anderson 1981l. Reviewers have pointed out that the
film is inaccurate and racist
(Aufderheide 1982), and that
"the 'Arab Conspiracy,' like the
'Jewish Conspiracy ' before it,
scapegoats a group of people for
a potpourri of economic ills"
(Johnson 1982 ).
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981 )
is another film set partly in the
Middle East, but in which the
Middle Easterners form a
generally sinister background.
The minor Egyptian character who
helps the archaeologist hero to
find the lost Ark of the Covenant
is more than offset by another
character, a scimitar-wielding
Arab who is in league with the
azis.
Paradise (1982 ) is the story of
a teenaged boy and girl in a
Middle Eastern desert oasis"with no adult supervision and
almost no clothing" (Variety
5/12/ 82 ). An Arab slave trader called
"The Jackal" pursues the English
girl into the desert, slaughtering
and raping. In the end David, the
boy, shoots the Arab villain dead
with bow and arrow.
16
W ,
'
fl 01<>(\
"t ou''"
ILSA'S
BACK !
...MORE
FIERCE...,--~
THAN
EVER
A oew kind of anti-Arab movie is the
pornographic iilm. Ilsa, Harem 1'.eeper
of the Oil Sheiks promises sex and
violeoce io a Middle East settiog.
• Wrong is Right (1982 ), based on
Charles McCarry's novel The
Better Angels, stars Sean Connery
as a television news reporter .
The story involves "an Arab king
who seems ready to turn over two
mini-atom bombs to a Khaddafilike r evolutionary leader, with
the devices to be detonated in
Israel, and later ew York,"
unless the U.S. president resigns
(Variety 4 / 7 / 82). A typical line:
"No trouble today because there are
no Arabs on the street."
• In Trenchcoat (1983), Margot
Kidder plays a stenographer who
flies to Malta in search of experiences upon which to base a novel.
She is caught in a web of multinational intrigue and kidnapped
by Arab terrorists who inject her
with a huge hypodermic needle
(People 3 / 28/ 83, p. 6 l.
• The Black Stallion Returns (1983)
opens with an Arab villain with a
hypodermic needle attacking a
horse. This image is somewhat
mitigated later in the film, with the
introduction of "Good Arab " characters who eventually overcome
the "Bad Arabs. " Advertis ements
for the film unfortunately emphasize the "Bad Arabs, " showing the
boy on his horse in a Middle Eastern setting, fleeing from sinister,
spear-carrying figures on horseback.
More such films with Arab
themes are in preparation.
• Sahara, directed by Menahe m
Golaan and currently b eing filmed
in Israel, features Brooke Shields
in the role of a girl who "is
kidnapped, raped and finally
charmed off her feet by an Arab
sheik, played by Richard Gere "
(Variety 3 / 31 / 821. The advance
poster for the film shows an Arab
on horseback brandishing a
sword and carrying off a white
woman.
• Louis Malle is reportedly
preparing a film on "Abscam"an operation in which FBI agents
posed as "sheiks," on the
assumption that Arabs are the
kind of p eople who offer bribes.
• Paramount Pictures is reportedly
considering a $15 million dollar
movie version of the novel, The
Fifth Horseman. The plot concerns
Palestinians with Libyan support
planting a nuclear bomb in
ew York City.
Despite this trend of
increasingly negative portrayal of
Arabs, there are at least a few
encouraging counterexamples.
Moustafa Akkad, a Syrian-American
filmmaker, has produced two films
that portray Arabs in a less
stereotyped and more realistic
manner.
• The Message (1977) (also called
Mohammad, Messenger of Godl is
a dramatization of the origins
of Islam. It portrays the revelation
to the Prophet Mohamed (who is
never shown on-screen) and the
subsequent spread of the Islamic
faith. The film was done in two
versions-one in Arabic with Arab
actors and one with Anthony
Quinn, Irene Pappas and other
actors, for Western audiences.
• Lion of the Desert (1981 ), Akkad's
second film, is about Omar
Mukhtar, a Libyan Bedouin
hero who fought Mussolini's
Fascist armies in Libya. Omar
Mukhtar led Libyan resistance
fighters against Italy's mechanized
army of tanks and cannon for
twenty years, until his capture
in 1931. The film maintains a
scrupulously high level of
historical accuracy and has had
a measure of popular success.
An example of a recent
potentially positive film with Arab
characters is Hanna K , scheduled
for release in fall 1983. An article
from the New York Times wire
services reports that this Frenchproduced, English-language
Universal Studios film by Greek
director Constantine Costa-Gavras,
starring Jill Clayburgh, "leans
toward the Palestinian side." The
film "asks whether Palestinians
can get justice from the Israelis
and answers negatively." Although
Costa-Gavras "does not treat its
Israeli characters with the same
hostility he applied to the
American officials in Missing," he
nevertheless "presents the Israelis
as arrogant but conscience-ridden
masters whose sense of fairness
can be lost in their fear of Arab
claims to Israel's soil" (Harmetz,
1983).
Syrian-Americao iilmmaker Moustafa
Akkad haN produced two iilms that
portray Arabs in a realiNtic manner: Uon
of the Deserl (top and above) nrith
Anthony Quinn and The Me.ssage (right),
a dramatization of the originN oi INlam.
17
�Analyzing
the Stereotypes
L
ET us pause at this point for a
moment and ask ourselves
whether we are being too harsh on
the film industry. Granted, a
considerable number of films have
clearly stereotyped and defamed
Arabs. But can we legitimately
generalize that the American
cinema industry as a whole has
consistently defamed Arabs?
An objective answer lies in two
reference catalogs prcxluced by the
American Film Institute-one for
films of the 1920's and the other
for films of the 1960's (Munden
1971). (These are the only two that
have been issued so far. l There is
information on every American
film made during these two
decades-including a plot synopsis
and a list of the major themes in
each film. For example, the themes
listed for the Rudolph Valentino
1920's film Son of the Sheik are:
sheiks, thieves, charlatans,
dancers, jealousy, abduction,
ransom, deserts, and Arabia. The
chart below tallies the most
frequent themes in the 87 Middle
East films from the 1920's, and the
118 Middle East films of the 1960's,
to get a profile of the stereotype of
Arabs-to see whether it is indeed
negative and whether there has
been any change from the 1920's to
the' 1960's. These statistics on movie
themes show three main things:
1. The Arab World has changed,
but the Arab stereotype has not.
Royalty, deserts, sheiks and
harems were the mainstays of the
Arab stereotype in both the 1920's
and the 1960's. In the 1920' s, most
Arab countries were indeed
monarchies. But this is currently
true of only a few Arab countriesmainly smaller ones. Also, few Arabs
live in the desert anymore. Sheiks
are rare: most Arab governments
are Western in form, with ministries
and parliaments. Polygamy has
been abolished in many countries,
and "harems" are quite rare.
2. Hollywood 's Middle East has
become a more sinister place. The
Arab stereotype in the 1920's was
18
one primarily of exoticism. It
contained negative elements, to be
sure-such as abduction, theft,
jealousy, bandits, revenge and
slavery- but these were relatively
minor themes, occurring further
down the list. The 1960's list, on
the other hand, shows an
increasing incidence of violence in
the Arab stereotype. "Murder"
registered a spectacular increase,
moving from 27th place in the
1920's theme list up to second place
in the 1960's list. Slavery, theft and
abduction all moved into the top
ten themes; and a number of new
violent and illicit themes have
appeared-perfidy, torture,
explosions, prostitution, revolts,
smuggling and treason.
3. Finally, there has been a
change toward more explicitly antiArab movie genres. Arab-Israeli
wars have entered the list, and spy
and war movies have become
more common. Another new kind
of movie is the pornographic film,
of which the AFI catalog lists at
least a dozen which are related to
Arabs. Some examples are The
Politicians (1970), in which women
are procured for an Arab sheik,
Eve and the Merman (1965), in
which a woman fantasizes about
being part of a harem, and Fly
Now, Pay Later (1969 ), in which
Moroccans are portrayed as
abducting and sexually abusing
airline hostesses.
T
HUS, there is overwhelming
and undeniable evidence that
there exists a harshly pejorative
stereotype of Arabs in American
cinema. Given this, a number of
questions arise: what promotes
such an image, where does it come
from, and why does it persist?
Some point to the prominence
of Jews in the American film
industry as a possible explanation
for the negative stereotyping of
Arabs in cinema. American Jews
tend to be supportive of Israel, and
this may have some influence.
Such an explanation is
unsatisfactory, however, for a
number of reasons. First, polls
indicate Americans in general tend
to be pro-Israeli- Jews only slightly
more so than other groups.
Second, Arabs are stereotyped not
just in cinema, but in other areas
of popular culture as well. And
fi.nally, the negative element in the
stereotype of Arabs is much older
than the Arab-Israeli conflict or the
invention of cinema. It is
important not to scapegoat Jews
for the scapegoating of Arabs.
Where, then, did this negative
image come from? The Arab
stereotype did not originate in
America. A negative stereotype of
the Middle East has existed in
Europe at least since the spread of
Islam. Europeans feared Middle
Eastern peoples as the formidable
adversaries they indeed sometimes
were. After all, the Arabs
conquered Southern Eur ope u p to
Central France, and in Eastern
Europe the Ottoman successors of
the Arabs fought to the very gates
of Vienna. Later, in the 19th
century, the Middle East came to
represent potential colonial
possessions and subject peoples.
The Middle Eastern stereotype can
be seen in European proverbs,
novels, plays, travelogues, poetry
and painting. Such prejudices are
simply part of America's European
folk heritage.
Stereotyping is a universal
phenomenon- a kind of folk
social science. From an early age,
we all have ideas of what people in
other parts of the world might be
like. We populate our mental
worlds with stereotypes, drawn
unfortunately but necessarily from
second-hand sources. However, not
all stereotypes are negative or
racist. Arabs stereotype Americans
too. But they do not ma S__p cxluce
and _I!)arket a negative stereotype
of ~ s, as ~~d_!? of them~
T.E. Adorna and other scholars
of the Frankfurt School have
described the process through
which people construct
stereotypes, beginning with a
perceptual dichotomy between
"self' and "other" (Adorna 1969l. In
such a way "Arab " in American
popular culture has become
"other''-a category into which we
project the negation of our values
and the enactment of our taboos.
Arabs are not the only ethnic
group in America to suffer from
negative stereotyping. At different
historical periods, other groups
have had to contend with similar
treatment-Blacks, Irish, Jews,
American Indians, Japanese, Poles
and others. Cinema has also
stereotyped other groups besides
Arabs- Stepin Fetchits, the
inscrutible Charlie Chan,
bloodthirsty Indians, Mexican
bandits, Russian Cold War villains,
and so on. But many of these
ethnic grou ps have protested
effectively. Arabs are one of the
few groups who are still fair game
fo r slander. As one critic wrote,
"Arabs have replaced Commies and
Nazis as the new movie meanies
(Rainer 1981)."
,
One major reason why the "Arab"
has come to represent "otherness" is
probably that Arabs are the major
world people that Americans know
least about.
Things that might have mitigated
the negative stereotyping of Arabs
have been absent in America. For
example, there was no significant
Arab population to counter the
stereotype. Arabs have made up
only a small percentage of the
American melting pot. The 1970
census estimated Americans of
Arab origin at only 0.7 of one
percent of the population. The
Arabs who migrated to America at
the turn of the century were
primarily poor Lebanese and
Syrian Christians. Thus, ArabAmericans were not strictly
representative of Middle Eastern
Arabs, the great majority of whom
are Muslim.
Until recently, Americans of
Arab origin have not been a very
Frequency oi Themes in Movies About Arabs
1921-1930
no. oi
iilms
18
17
16
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
87
theme
foreign legion
royalty
Egypt/ Egyptian
sheiks
Arabs, deserts
Sahara
Arabia
bedouins, Algeria/ Algerians
dancers
disguise, harems, Morocco, Paris
British Army, infidelity
England/ English, abduction/ kidnaping,
theft/ thieves
Africa, brothers, courtship, Islam, jealousy,
nobility
alcoholism, bandits, filial relations, France/
French, murder, physicians, revenge,
slavery, spies, World War I
Total
1961-1970
no. oi
films
theme
32
royalty
murder
Americans in foreign countries, deserts
harems
slaves/ slavers/ slavery
sheiks
Egypt/ Egyptians, theft/ thieves
abduction, Algeria/ Algerians, perfidy,
torture
air pilots, explosions/ explosives,
Morocco, police
London, marriage, prostitutes/ prostitution,
revolts, smugglers/ smuggling
disguise, documentation, filial relations,
photographs, soldiers
Beirut, Germans, jealousy, infidelity, Jews,
revenge, self-sacrifice, traitors/ treason,
World War II
24
20
17
16
14
13
12
10
9
8
7
118
Total
19
�Confronting
the Stereotypes
visible minority group. The average
American, at least in urban
settings, encounters people who
are identifiably African, Asian, Latin
American and European in
descent-but very few Arabs. Few
people can name any prominent
Arab-Americans; if they think hard,
they may come up with Sirhan
Sirhan, but most are unaware that
Danny Thomas and Ralph Nader
are of Arab origin. This lack of
visibility of Arab-Americans may be
due to repressed ethnicity. Such
was the case with JapaneseAmericans in the middle of this
century: because of the war
Japanese ethnicity was unpopular.
An indication of repressed
ethnicity has been the tendency of
Arab immigrants not to pass on
knowledge of Arabic to their
children, to a greater degree than
is true of immigrant groups
speaking other languages. It is
estimated that 20 percent of the
second generation and 70 percent
of the third generation of ArabAmericans can neither understand
nor read Arabic (Elkholy 1969,121.
Neglect of the language of origin
may also have arisen from relative
poverty and upward mobility
among early Arab immigrants.
Arabs in America are by no
means a corporate, well-organized
interest group. Rather, they are a
diverse people, originating in
different countries, speaking
different dialects, professing
different religions and espousing
different political programs. Arabrelated groups in America have
diverse memberships- including
Arab-Americans, Arab students,
recent non-naturalized immigrants,
non-Arab spouses, and so on. Some
groups (such as the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee)
appeal to all Arabs, some to Arabs
of one nationality (such as
Egyptian or Yemeni organizations),
and some to only one community
(such as the Ramallah Club, whose
members come from a single Arab
community on the West Bankl.
20
T
Most Arab-American groups are
relatively apolitical, tending more
to cultural or community self-help
activities. However, they are
becoming more politically involved,
no doubt partly in response to the
public slurs they suffer so
regularly.
Thus there have been relatively
few Arab-Americans; they have
tended to assimilate; they have been
unrepresentative of Arabs in
general; they have low visibility;
most of their organizations are
apolitical; and few of them have
been willing to speak out against
the defamation of Arabs.
Americans have little contact with
Arabs at home or abroad, and this
estrangement has no doubt
contributed in good measure to
stereotyping and misinformation.
Stereotype8 abound in boob and
magazine8 a8 well. Erica Jong'8 Fe,ar of
F1yln" ha8 a chapter called "Arub8 and
Other Animal8" (right). The illu8tration
below il'i irum Esquire magazine and
depict8 "Arab" leader8. l'a88er Araiat and
the non-Arab Shah oi Iran are
8tabbing 8word8 into the globe.
YI OF
ERJCA
J~"c
HERE have been recent
indications of possible
improvement of the image of
Arabs. In recent years, ArabAmericans have become more
assertive of the validity of their
ethnic heritage. One reason for
this is that immigration from the
Arab World has changed since the
turn of the century. Whereas Arab
immigrants were once heavily
Lebanese or Syrian, immigrants to
America today include numerous
Egyptians and Palestinians and are
more broadly representative of the
Arab World. These new ArabAmericans and the children of the
older generation of Arab-Americans
tend to be professionals, highly
educated, and less disposed to
accept defamation. Typical of the
new breed of Arab-Americans is
Detroit lawyer Abdeen Jabara.
When the Nixon administration in
the 1970's targeted him as part of
"Operation Boulder," a program of
harassment and electronic
surveillance of individuals of
Arabic-speaking origin in America,
Jabara took the Justice Department
to court.
In recent years Arab-Americans
have also developed organizations
to articulate their interests- such
as the National Association of ArabAmericans (NAM), the Association
of Arab-American University
Graduates (MUG) and ADC. Events
in the Middle East have no doubt
played a role as well. Especially
since 1973, there has been a
general tendency to assert and to
validate rather than to repress
Arab ethnicity. Sons and daughters
of assimilated Arab-Americans, who
were not taught Arabic by their
parents, are rediscovering their
roots, and studying Arabic as a
foreign language in our
universities.
Despite these signs of
improvement, the American
stereotype of Arabs continues to be
essentially negative. American
popular culture still presents Arabs
as villains and buffoons. The same
people who would find ethnic
slurs about Blacks or Jews
distasteful-as well they shouldsomehow see nothing wrong when
the target is Arabs. The result is
tha 4 probably more than any other
ethnic group, Arabs are maligned
in American popular culture. It
remains to be seen whether Arabs
in America will accede to the
fundamental ethnic respect which
is due them and which should be
accorded to all human beings.
21
�References Cited
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Allen, Don (ed.). The World of Film and
Filmmakers: A Visual History. New York:
Crown Publishers, Inc., 1979.
Anderson, Nancy, "Believe That Fonda
Believes," Santa Monica Evening Outlook,
12/11/ 81, 20.
Aufderheide, Pat. "Romancing the
Bankers," (Chicago) In These Times,
Art/ Entertainment, 1/ 13-19/ 82, 20.
Blocker, Joe. "Fantasy of Israel,"
Romberg, Sigmund (music); Otto Harbach
and Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd (words). "The
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Romberg, Sigmund (music); Otto Harbach
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Romdhani, Oussama. "The Arab Image in
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Eames, John Douglas, The MGM Story:
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Francis Wheeler (words!. "The Sheik of
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Commentary, June 1959, 539-541.
Boroff, David. "Exodus-Another Look,"
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Johnson, Penny. "Rollover Targets Arabs,"
Syrkin, Marie. "On Jewish Survival, "
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Midstream, Winter 1959, 101-102.
Gilroy, Harry. "The Founding of the New
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Zogby, James J. "The Other Antisemitism: The Arab as Scapegoat." ADC
Issues no. 3. Washington, D.C.: AmericanArab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 1982.
Elkholy, Abdo A. "The Arab-Americans:
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The Arab-Americans: Studies in
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Williamette, Ill.: The Medina Press
International, 1969, 3-17.
Gertner, Richard (ed. ). 1983 International
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Hagopian, Elaine. "Minority Rights in a
Nation-State: The Nixon Administration's
Campaign against the ArabAmericans,"Jouma/ of Palestine Studies, Vol.
5, nos. 1-2 (Autumn 1975/Winter 1976), 97114.
Harmetz, Aljean. "Hollywood Tac kles Hot
Issues." San Francisco Chronicle, 9/ 12/ 83,
Cartoon Credits for Pages 6-9
Pat Oliphant in the Denver Post.
©The Los Angeles Times Sy ndicate,
December 26, 1974.
Mey er in the San Francisco Chronicle.
©chronicle Publishing Co., March 14, 1982.
Bensen in the Arizona Republic.
©Washington Post Writers Group,
June 27, 1982.
""Brenda Starr " by Dale Messick.
©Tribune Company Syndicate, Inc.,
August 7, 1983.
p. 1.
Kahn, Lothar. "The Magic of Exodus,"
Congressional Biweekly, 3/ 30/ 59, 16.
Leon, Dan. "Exodus, Novel about Israel,"
Israel Horizons, March 1959, 28-30.
Munden, Karl W.(ed.l. The American Film
Institute Catalog of Feature Films 1921-1930.
New York: R.R. Bowker Co., 1971.
Munden, Karl W. (ed. l. The American Film
Institute Catalog of Feature Films 1961-1970.
New York: R.R. Bowker Co., 1971.
Rainer, Peter. "Rollover Cashes in on
Sex, Money and Arabs," (Los Angeles! Herald
Examiner, Weekend section, 12/11 / 81, Dfi.
22
··Annie " by Leonard Starr. ©Chicago
Tribune-New York News Syndicate, Inc. ,
March 1, 1980.
Our Armv At War, Vol. 23, No. 272,
September.1974. ©National Periodical
Publications.
Heavy Metal, Vol. V, No. 12, March 1982.
©HM Communications, Inc. p . 8.
'"Barbara Cortland's Romances " by
Morrow and Weaver. ©United Features
Syndicate, Inc., February 21, 1982.
About the author:
Laurence Michalak i8 a cultural
anthropologist who has )bred ior
8ix years in the Arab World,
primarily in North Africa. He has
a Ph.D. degree from the
University oi California and
currendy is the coordinator and
assistant director oi the Center
for Middle Easteni Studies at the
uoivenity oi Caliiornia/ Berkeley.
23
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Joseph Family Papers
Subject
The topic of the resource
Belly dance
Lebanese Americans
Marines
Photographs
World War II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1931-2015
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Inventoried by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2022 May. Processed by Allison Hall and Rachel Beth Acker, 2023 April-August. Collection Guide created by Allison Hall, 2023 September.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
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English
Arabic
French
Identifier
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KC 0062
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Digital material in this collection is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Physical material in this collection is also available to researchers. For questions or to access a collection, please contact us at kcldsarchive@ncsu.edu. Please give at least 48 hours for responses to any inquiries regarding the materials.
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve R. Joseph, also referred to in the collection as Genny, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on February 6th, 1963. Genevieve R. Joseph has three siblings, including an older sister Beatrice Ann Joseph (1947-2008) and two older brothers, one of which is Michael James Joseph (born October 16th, 1954). She earned an Associate’s degree in Liberal Arts Honors and Communications and Media Arts in 1983, a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from SUNY Albany in 1985, and a Master’s degree in Sociology with a concentration in Race and Ethnicity, also from SUNY Albany, in 1988. She then <span>worked as a social science researcher for the State of New York. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph took up Middle Eastern belly dancing as a hobby and was a member of the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yallah Dance Ensemble based in Albany, New York in the early 1990s. In 1996 she moved to North Carolina and became involved with the Triangle Lebanese Association; she coordinated the first Lebanese Festival at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in 1999. In North Carolina, she <span>worked as a nonprofit program manager for global education and cultural exchange, and fundraiser for visual arts and conservation of nature. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph married Philip White in 200</span><span style="font-weight:400;">6.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve Norman Joseph (1924-2011), Genevieve R. Joseph’s mother, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York to Sam Norman (1883-1972) and Rose Nader Norman (1889-1955). Rose Nader Norman ran a neighborhood grocery store and the couple managed their home as a boarding house. Genevieve Norman Joseph, also known as Gen, married Charles Michael Joseph (1918-2002) of Wendell, North Carolina on March 2, 1946. Genevieve Norman Joseph was a member of the Lebanese American Daughters, an organization closely related to the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Lebanon-American Club of Poughkeepsie. She also </span><span style="font-weight:400;">worked as a Nursing Aide. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Charles “Charlie” Michael Joseph, Genevieve R. Joseph’s father, was born in Connecticut to parents Namy </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yusef Becharra</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> and Julia Asmer in 1918 and was raised in Wendell, North Carolina from the age of eight months. He had nine siblings: Lucy, Eddie (Naim), Mamie (Thmam), Charlie (Khalil), George (A'Eid, Geryus), Evelyn (Jamila), Helen (Thatla), Abe (Ibrahim), Joe (Yusef), and Dolores (Julia).</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> His father, Namy Joseph, ran a store on Main Street and another one beside the family home. </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Charlie Joseph served in the US Marines during World War II and was honorably discharged in 1945 as a corporal. He was stationed in Recife, Brazil and Guam during the war. In Poughkeepsie, Charlie Joseph ran a luncheonette and was active in the Lebanon-American Club, serving as its president from 1962 to 1966. Upon their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph’s graduation from SUNY Albany in 1985, Genevieve and Charlie moved from Poughkeepsie to Wendell, North Carolina, Charlie’s hometown.</span></p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The Joseph Family papers contain materials related to three generations of the Joseph family as well as families related to them. The collection focuses on the lives of Genevieve Norman Joseph, her husband Charles Joseph, and their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph. The collection also includes materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s grandparents and their extended family, both in Lebanon and in the United States. </span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Much of the collection consists of photographs from the early twentieth century to the twenty-first century. The photographs primarily include family photographs and portraits, as well as photographs from Charles Joseph’s deployment during World War II in Brazil and Guam. Also included in the collection are materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s dance career, newspaper clippings, articles from the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, materials related to Charles Joseph’s time in the Marines, event pamphlets and flyers, prayer cards, obituaries, academic materials, correspondence, and some physical objects.</span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Article titled "Cruel and Unusual: Negative Images of Arabs in Popular American Culture"
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lebanese Americans
Description
An account of the resource
Article titled "Cruel and Unusual: Negative Images of Arabs in Popular American Culture" in ADC Issues No. 19 from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Split into sections about songs, jokes, television, cartoons, movies, and comics, the article provides an over an overview and analysis of anti-Arab themes in American media.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Laurence Michalak
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984 Jan
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Format
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Text/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0062_1_1_003
1980s
Articles
Cartoons
Discrimination
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/2c7eb3ce43009cbdc3875b94785927e8.pdf
7bc1da5381e1bcdf6438c109d790bd8c
PDF Text
Text
AMERICAN-ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE
ADC ISSUES NO. 2
The Influence of the
Arab Stereotype on
American Children
by Jack Shahee n
1611 CONNECTICUT AVE. N.W. □ WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009 □ Phone: (202) 797-7662
�INTRODUCTION
There is a persistant tension that exists in any multiethnic society between conformity and uniquenes.
Diverse cultural backgrounds are a pride to those who
possess and share them. At the same time they exist as a
potential source of division and alienation to those of
other backgrounds.
Children have the greatest difficulty adjusting to the
tensions of pluralism. Taught by their parents to feel
pfide and comfort in their unique heritage , they face the
pressures of their peers to conform to the mass culture.
Children of minority cultures are subjected to taunts and
teasing. The more distant the minority culture from the
mainstream, the more serious the problem.
As an American from a Lebanese Arabic-speaking
background, I remember vividly these tensions. As
children, we were regularly taunted--sometimes in jest.
"Camel jockey", "desert niggers", "greasy Lebs" and
other names were standard fare. But we survived and
after our bouts with adolescent alienation (one of the
childhood diseases for which there is, as of yet,no
vaccine), we matured and resolved the tension between
the pressures to conform and the desire to retain that
which was unique to us.
It is, I am afraid, not quite the same today. We are living
in a new era and the fare has changed. The taunting and
teasing to which Arab-American children are subjected
is no longer in jest, and the source of these anti-ethnic
slurs is no longer primarily their peer group.
American children are being fed a stead~, diet of notso-subtle anti-Arab racism . A casual viewing of the
Saturday morning ca~rtoons or scanning of the "comics"
make this abundantly clear. To be "Arab" is no longer to
b£ "different"--it is to be bad. ''G reedy oil sheikhs",
"crooked Lebanese merchants", or "Palestinian
terrorists ave littfe to offer as models for emulation.
As this is filtered down to child's play, the results are
disturbing, to say the least.
Each year at our children's school there is a Halloween
parade to display the children's costumes and award
prizes. This year eight were dressed as "Arabs"--with
accessories such as big noses, oil cans or m0neY bags to
complete the costume-:--My children were deeply upset. When, a short time
later, the school had an ethnic festival, it was no surprize
that our children were hesitant to wear ethnic costumes.
What additionally disturbed us was the presence of
Arabic food (humus, tabooli, etc.) at the festival
designated as belonging to the vague "Middle East" or
"Israel"--and then to see native Palestinian dresses also
termed Israeli.
Is the fate of Arab culture in America to be the same as
that of Native American Indians: a costume to be worn
by others on Halloween, with the rest of the culture to be
appropriated by others, its origins, in the end, forgotten?
This is a serious issue for Arab-Americans, and a
challenge which we can not fail to address.
*
*
*
In an effort to further examine this question of the
effect of anti-Arab stereotyping on children, ADC
ISSUES NO. 2 is pleased to present this paper by Jack
Shaheen, a professor at Southern Illinois University and
a member of ADC's National Advisory Committee. The
paper originally appeared in Arab Perspectives
(December 1980). He has kindly given us permission to
reprint.
James J. Zogby
�I
t happened on a lovely Saturday afternoon.
My daughter's bike had a flat. She was upset because
her friends wanted to go biking. The kids were stomping
to go , but Michele's bike wouldn't budge.
Dad came to the rescue . "Wait ten minutes ," I
shouted to her pals. "We'll be right back." Grabbing
Michele, I rushed to K-Mart for a repair kit. The store
was packed with early Christmas shoppers. The kids
would never wait, I thought. And how could I locate a
bike kit in this massive store?
Luck was with us- the repair kits were on a stand
near the check-out area. Just as I was about to exit
Michele drifted away. K-Mart's infamous Blue Light
Special beckoned her. When the blue light flickers you
can't resist. There 's always an unbeatable , super bargain.
This time it was children's books- three for one dollar!
"Look Dad ," said Michele as she rushed to the
counter, "I got Donald Duck , Woody Woodpecker and
Lassie." I was happy; they were some of my favorite
characters and the price was right.
We arrived home in the nick of time. The flat was
quickly repaired and Michele caught up with her friends
on the bike trail.
Suddenly, I experienced a helpless, nauseating
feeling. The Lassie book was titled: The Shabby Sheik. I
began rummaging through the pages. The setting was
Australia not Arabia, the villain a hardened Australian
criminal, not an Arab. It was confusing. I read on.
In the book, Lassie confronts an A ustralian
sandstorm and is threatened by a dange rous Australian
criminal. The Australian villain, states the a uth or, is
THE WIZARD OF ID
known as the shabby sheik because he " resembles a
phony Arab."
The book has numerous illustrations that reveal an
ugly Australian in Arab clothing, riding a camel and
tormenting others. The "sheik" even tries to kill Lassie. I
soon found myself accepting the shabby sheik for what he
wasn't- an Arab.
I
began reading the Woody Woodpecker book. The
helpless feeling intensified. Woody and his woodpecker pals are seen beating up hordes of Arab baddies in
the mythical kingdom of Torabia. Woody's pal, Prince
Abdul, is threatened by Zaki and his menacing
henchmen. It's the familiar Arab-against-Arab theme.
Only this time woodpeckers outwit cowardly Arabs.
Woody's rented camel, Hamel-the Gamel, also has a role.
Hamel captures an Arab culprit by the seat of his pants.
I took Woody and Lassie to my study. I didn't want
Michele to read them- not yet. I needed time . Ti~ 9
explain why prejudice exists. Time to explain propaganda.
Time to explain ignorance.
Michele is 11 ; her brother Michael is 12. Both of my
children, like their fellow . American-Arabs , know something about being "Arab" in today's America. \Y._hat they
know from texts is not pleasant.
Michele first encountered anti-Arab slurs in "a
scholarly text"- the Oxford Chi en's Reference
Li brary volume o n The Arab. World. "What is an Arab?"
asks Shirley Kay, the author. Several answers are given:
"A smooth sho kee er.. .who pops out of his booth to
pers uade a foreigner to pay twice the value for his carpet
�A NEW HIT 50N6 BY
!AONOURHI\N
1s FOR THE ~BIB">
.. . J
On televisi on the images youngsters receive are
sim ilar. Electric Company, public television's program
designed for kids learning to read, regula rly exploits the
Arab stereotype. • An a nimated orienta l Ara b, Spellbinder, is seen in nearly every episode. Middle East music
preludes Spellbinder's ap pearance and underscores his
unscrupulous deeds. Spellbinder is a rogue. He
co nstantly alters the spelling of words, causes mischief,
a nd crea tes a mess. C hildren d on't like Spellbinder. When
Letterman, an all-American ani mated character, a ppears,
kid s cheer. Letter ma n always beats the socks off of
Spellbinder.
BREND A ST AR R
lHAT t:IREAl 6ROOP
J'R0 Jol!JJ
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J&inisfers
or leather bag; the baggy-trousered workman asleep on
the__ corner of the pavement and oa t both ered at all
whether he finishes his work toda y, tomorrow. or never· a
peasant. .. who rides a d onkey whi le his wife, in a long
black robe, walks behind carrying the bundles." Notes
Ms. Kay: •~ 11 these people are Arabs."
As for teen-agers , she explains , "~
- ge.rs_a.rLJJ.Qt
expected to have fun , but to help th · r mat hers a nd
fathers with their work ... In fact ins me arts of the Arab
world if a girl is thou ht to have behaved bad! her
brother may kill her, and the nei hbors will admire him
_or om
is_clut ."Arab parents, note the author, "are
still delighted when a oy 1s 6
, an aisappointed if the
~by is a girl.
Some of the ignorance to which my children are
exposed takes place in the classroom. The situation in
Iran has caused many Americans to equate Persians with
Arabs. They are teased at school and called dirty
Iranians. They have tried to explain that they are not
Iranian, that they wanted the hostages to be released and
that they are 100 percent American. But some kids are
unintentionally cruel.
Mike received the results of a social stud ies test on
the Middle East: an A+. But he wasn 't pleased . He knew
that his textbook was incorrect in stating that 25 percent
(the actual figure is less than 9 percent) of the Arabs were
bedouins, "desert dwellers." He also knew better than to
contradict the book , at least on the test. The text also
stated that Arabs were backward and somewhat
~
e.
To be "Arab" at school is not the in thing.
The teasing kids aren't to blame. They receive their
Arab images from games, TV, motion pictures·,
textbooks, and from the comics. Kids love the funnies.
Brenda Starr and other comics have featured ugly Arabs
on a sustaining basis . Brenda Starr's Sheik Oily-o-le-um
had billions of dollars , lots of women and lots of
arrogance. Arabs are ridiculed in Broom Hilda , Berry's
World , Short Ribs , The Wizard of Id , Lolly and other
strips. Steve Canyon and Little Orphan Annie , for
example, show shifty Arabs rattling sabres and threatening American heroes. Last year, my favorite strip , Dennis
the Menace, was upset because some "Arab" and not his
friend was having turkey for Thanksgiving.
n commercial television the kids see two professi onal wrestlers , Akba r t he Great, and Abdullah the
Butcher, supposed ly two Ara b te rro rs fr om the Middle
East, who wrestle for the sheer pleasu re of inflicting pain
on their opponents. Akbar is billed as coming from the
Sudan , Abdullah from Saud i Arabia. What viewers don't
know is that the wrestlers a re not Arabs- they're
Americans.
We saw Akbar and Abdullah emote in St. Louis
several years ago. Recently friends called to tell us that
the heavies are up to thei r old tricks again----.this time
pe rfo rming on a Tulsa TV station.
Ea rlier this year ABC presented a Tenspeed and
Brown Shoe episode: " It's Easier to Pass an Elephant
Th ro ugh the Eye of a Needle Than a Bad Check in Bel
Ai r." T he episode reveals several cliche myths about
Arabs to children.
The story begi ns with an Arab sheik who comes to
California to buy land . (Myth # I- the Arabs are bu ying
u America). Ben Veree n, the se ries star, decides to "set
the scene for his own Arab scam." He poses as an Arab
and jabbers jibberish . (M yth #2- Arabic 1s not a
language- only gobbledy-gook) .
BRENDA STARR
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The hotel clerk tells Vereen that the Arab sheik
speaks nine languages. But he 's heard onl y onecomplaints. On learning a floor is ready, Vereen is
shocked and responds: "Only one floor?" (M yt_h #3- all
Arabs ar.e e trava a I wealth ). In the sheik's suite the
bodyguards, who can 't speak English, wear traditional
robes and carry sabres . (Myth #4- Arabs are primitive,
illiterate desert dwellers) .
ereen as pro !ems communicating with the bodyguards. He wants to leave the suite but can't escape the
Arab guards. He decides to outwit them. He tries hocuspocus and plays with the dimmer switch , the radio , and
sings " Hickory, Dickory, Dock." The Arabs are
entranced . They think Vereen is a mystical magician.
Vereen easily departs ; the bodyguards are in a semihypnotic trance . (Myth #5 - Arabs are a simple.
. superstitious peo~). The Arabs eventually catch up with
Vereen. They put · him in their car but don't go far.
"Wouldn 'tcha know," says Vereen, 'Tm in a car with a
bunch of Arabs and it's outa gas!" (M th #6- nl the
Arabs have ~asoline).
The episode concludes with bodyguards charging
across an open field on horseback, wielding sabres
against some thugs. Apparently, when a TV Arab is
daring, he appears out of the pages of "The Arabian
Night."
There is never an Arab hero for kids to cheer. Instead
they see treacherous Arabs beating up their heroes. On
the Saturday morning Superfriends episode "The Thief
of Zagdad," an Arab villain entices Superman, Batman
and Robin, into a genie's magic lamp. It seems an Arab
has doomed the Superfriends. But they eventually apply
some magical know-how of their own and restore order
to the Kingdom of Zagdad. Once again, a treacherous
Arab is foiled. Cheers for the Superfriends, not the Arab.
The cartoon programs often show Arabs capturing
and threatening to murder the kids' idols. In Johnny
�Quest an Arab tries to kill Johnny and his pals with
poisonous snakes. When TV's Tarzan prevents Arabs
from killing black men and enslaving women and
children, the kids cheer.
A few years ago Arab sheiks turned off spigots of
milk on a Saturday morning cartoon show. Recently, on
a "Scooby-Dooby-Doo and Mummy Too" show, an
Arab professor, Dr. Naseeb , appears . He seems to be a
good friend of Scooby and his pals. He gives them
sandwiches and promises to help them solve the mystery
of the mummy. But Naseeb is the culprit disguised in
mummy garb. He tries to frighten the children and steal
their valuable scarab coin.
The ugly image is planted at the most impress~
e
age and continues to be reinforced through the t'eens and
into adulthood. It is a systematic process.
·
L
ike adults , when children think of the word" Ara,b,"
some of these images come to mind: Oil, ~as , greedy
sheik, bedouin, cadillacs or c~ ls.
- A s~
magazine poke-s fun of an Arab ridi ng a
camel. The caption beneath the photograph: " I kno w
there's a gas shortage- but these school buses are
ridiculous."
Arab caricatures are made good use of in ord er to
sell a host of paraphernalia, such as games and T-shi rts .
My son Michael has a blue sweat shirt. The
inscription: Arab U 49.9 for Regu lar Gas.
Daughter Michele needed a red T-shirt for soccer;
her school was the Red team. Off we went to Wal-Mart, a
national chain store with bargains. They had gobs of T-
ANNIE
shirts at discount prices. As we rummaged through the
clothing rack one blazing red shirt caught my attention.
In the center is a gas pump . The smug faces of four
bearded , chubby-cheeked Arabs are displayed next to the
price, $2.00 a gallon. Beneath the pump , there is a
protruding, glossy, orange tongue and the inscription:
ONE-ARM BANDIT.
The Arab as a leering, lecl"!erous oil baron is also
seen in a new game for you·ngsters- Tf.ze .Oil-:Sheik Game.
It's available in the current issue of Cracked Magazine's
Giant Fun-Kit. The game is similar to Monopoly. But
with Monopoly, play money comes in $5's, $IO's, $20's,
$50's , and $ IO0's. In Oil-Sheik the money is distributed in
$10, $50 and $100 billion dollar bills. The faces on the
bills are those of scowling Arabs . Like Monopoly, the
players try to acquire real estate.
The object of the Oil-Sheik Game is not to buy hotels
but to gain "control of the oil producing nations and the
Persian Gulf and force your opponents to lose all
property and moolah (Arabic word for big bucks)."
Suggestions are offered to novice players: "To make the
ga me more life-like, wrap a pillow case around your
head. If you are ugly, put your head in the pillow case."
Also, each time a member passes Mecca , he receives $50
billion .
Fina l instructions include: "Get ready, get greedy
AN D F IND OU T WHICH ONE OF YOU HAS WHAT
IT TAKES TO BECOME AN OIL SHEIK." On the
back of each playing card (each card features a scimitar
or oil well) is a set of instructions such as: "Arabs ready to
go to war if we cut off supply of cadillacs" and "Impress
by Leonard Starr
'
~
'
'
i
'
~
'(
lt , . ,.
�Arabs with your patriotism by dating a camel."
The ne
· ·
children. T
1 norance
of a land and its eo le is er etuated. When the word
"Arab" appears children seldom think of beauty, love ,
brotherhood or heroism.
One of the most heartwarming motion pictures eve r
produced, The Black Stallion , had as its hero, an Arabian
horse. The horse is loved by all- except Arabs .
As the film begins a group of bedouins are seen
cursing the horse; they are trying to place the stallion in a
special stable on board a ship that is en ro ute to America .
A well-dressed Ar~b appears on the scene. He wears
European dress and a white turban. He whips the horse
until it is contained.
Later an American boy visits the sta llio n . Tender
moments of affection occur. The boy places 5 cu bes of
sugar near the horse. But the white-turbaned man catches
him, pins his ears back and mutters threats in Arabic. The
boy retreats. On seeing there is one cube of sugar left, the
Arab pops it into his mouth.
Later that evening there is an explosion; the ship is
sinking. The boy's father places a life jacket on his son.
The boy goes to the deck , stumbles and falls. It appears he
will be trampled to death until the Arab appears. The
white-turbaned man helps the boy to his feet. He then
takes out a knife and begins to cut the straps off the boy's
life vest. Eventually, the Arab is washed overboard with
the stallion and the boy. The Arab drowns. The boy and
the horse survive.
When the credits rolled at the film's conclusion,
"Arab" appeared next to the actor's name who played the
white-turbaned man. It reminded me of credits from
another film when "Ugly Arab" was placed opposite the
actor's name.
The Black Stallion is based on Walter Farley's book
of the same title. Farley has written numerous works
about the heroic Arabian stallion . In one book the reader
discovers that the boy and the owner of the horse- an
Arab sheik are friends. There is love and brotherhood
between the Arab and the boy.
The motion picture fails to convey such warmth. In
his book , Farley does not write about an Arab taking a
cube of sugar from a horse's mouth. Nor does he say that
the stallion's tormentor and the boy's nemesis is an Arab.
Instead , Farley describes his villain as, "A dark-skinned
man, wearing European dress and a high white turban."
After viewing The Black Stallion 'I wondered
whether my children would ever see a heroic Arab- an
Ara b they could cheer, who works with the Superfriends,
who, alo ng with Tarzan, Woody and Lassie, helps to
prevent dastard ly deeds of destruction.
I
a m, afte r all , an old fashioned optimist. I believe in
the spirit of Christmas- peace, love and faith.
I believe in my neighborhood church's annual
C hristmas message, a message I first encountered as a
child . "Things worthwhile require time, patience and
work ."
My child ren may never. cheer an Arab hero. But their
children will. Time patience and work will remove the
ugly scars of pre judice Ibe iPAQG@nce_of childhood wi ll
triumph over the ignorance of man.
�American-Arab Anti-Discri mi nation Committee
1611 Connecticut Avenue, N.W .
Washington, D.C. 20009
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Joseph Family Papers
Subject
The topic of the resource
Belly dance
Lebanese Americans
Marines
Photographs
World War II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1931-2015
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Inventoried by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2022 May. Processed by Allison Hall and Rachel Beth Acker, 2023 April-August. Collection Guide created by Allison Hall, 2023 September.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
French
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0062
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Digital material in this collection is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Physical material in this collection is also available to researchers. For questions or to access a collection, please contact us at kcldsarchive@ncsu.edu. Please give at least 48 hours for responses to any inquiries regarding the materials.
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve R. Joseph, also referred to in the collection as Genny, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on February 6th, 1963. Genevieve R. Joseph has three siblings, including an older sister Beatrice Ann Joseph (1947-2008) and two older brothers, one of which is Michael James Joseph (born October 16th, 1954). She earned an Associate’s degree in Liberal Arts Honors and Communications and Media Arts in 1983, a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from SUNY Albany in 1985, and a Master’s degree in Sociology with a concentration in Race and Ethnicity, also from SUNY Albany, in 1988. She then <span>worked as a social science researcher for the State of New York. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph took up Middle Eastern belly dancing as a hobby and was a member of the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yallah Dance Ensemble based in Albany, New York in the early 1990s. In 1996 she moved to North Carolina and became involved with the Triangle Lebanese Association; she coordinated the first Lebanese Festival at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in 1999. In North Carolina, she <span>worked as a nonprofit program manager for global education and cultural exchange, and fundraiser for visual arts and conservation of nature. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph married Philip White in 200</span><span style="font-weight:400;">6.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve Norman Joseph (1924-2011), Genevieve R. Joseph’s mother, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York to Sam Norman (1883-1972) and Rose Nader Norman (1889-1955). Rose Nader Norman ran a neighborhood grocery store and the couple managed their home as a boarding house. Genevieve Norman Joseph, also known as Gen, married Charles Michael Joseph (1918-2002) of Wendell, North Carolina on March 2, 1946. Genevieve Norman Joseph was a member of the Lebanese American Daughters, an organization closely related to the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Lebanon-American Club of Poughkeepsie. She also </span><span style="font-weight:400;">worked as a Nursing Aide. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Charles “Charlie” Michael Joseph, Genevieve R. Joseph’s father, was born in Connecticut to parents Namy </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yusef Becharra</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> and Julia Asmer in 1918 and was raised in Wendell, North Carolina from the age of eight months. He had nine siblings: Lucy, Eddie (Naim), Mamie (Thmam), Charlie (Khalil), George (A'Eid, Geryus), Evelyn (Jamila), Helen (Thatla), Abe (Ibrahim), Joe (Yusef), and Dolores (Julia).</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> His father, Namy Joseph, ran a store on Main Street and another one beside the family home. </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Charlie Joseph served in the US Marines during World War II and was honorably discharged in 1945 as a corporal. He was stationed in Recife, Brazil and Guam during the war. In Poughkeepsie, Charlie Joseph ran a luncheonette and was active in the Lebanon-American Club, serving as its president from 1962 to 1966. Upon their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph’s graduation from SUNY Albany in 1985, Genevieve and Charlie moved from Poughkeepsie to Wendell, North Carolina, Charlie’s hometown.</span></p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The Joseph Family papers contain materials related to three generations of the Joseph family as well as families related to them. The collection focuses on the lives of Genevieve Norman Joseph, her husband Charles Joseph, and their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph. The collection also includes materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s grandparents and their extended family, both in Lebanon and in the United States. </span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Much of the collection consists of photographs from the early twentieth century to the twenty-first century. The photographs primarily include family photographs and portraits, as well as photographs from Charles Joseph’s deployment during World War II in Brazil and Guam. Also included in the collection are materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s dance career, newspaper clippings, articles from the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, materials related to Charles Joseph’s time in the Marines, event pamphlets and flyers, prayer cards, obituaries, academic materials, correspondence, and some physical objects.</span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Article titled "The Influence of the Arab Stereotype on American Children"
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lebanese Americans
Description
An account of the resource
Article titled "The Influence of the Arab Stereotype on American Children" in ADC Issues No. 2 from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The article discusses multiculturalism in the United States and the difficulties faced by American-Arab children between cultural conformation and uniqueness in the context of increasingly virulent anti-Arab racism. The author, Jack Shaheen, shares a personal experience of his kids encountering anti-Arab sentiment in popular children's media.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Jack Shaheen
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
circa 1980s
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0062_1_1_002
1980s
Articles
Discrimination
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/82d7f1988b8c91d44a1c837b354d6d3f.pdf
ce3ecb8d15d7a90c19585c223f2cd947
PDF Text
Text
AMERICAN-ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE
ADC ISSUES No. 3
The Other Anti-Semitism:
The Arab as Scapegoat
B y James J. Z ogby
... e1:Jery war,
euer_v
outburst o f genocide , is pre pared
by
pronQganda which paints the victim ,. he Other, as less
than human. . . This is the ultimate lesson of
A uschwitz-he who treats his brother as less than
human prepares the path to the furnace . ..
-I.F.Stone
In the West , the Arab is frequently presented as a
m enace , a terrorist, a shadow·v figure who o perates
outside of the acce ted value s
nd ·
re
to be eared and mistrusted. This racist image of the
Arab is nothing more than the result of the tr_a nsJerence of the p opular an fl -S em1t1c animus from a
Jewish to an Arab target.
-Edward W. Said
1611 CONNECTICUT AVE . N.W. □ WASHINGTON , D.C. 20009 □ Phone : (202) 797-7662
�hen Germany lost World War I, defeat , among other
factors , was attributed to a foreign conspiracy. Rather
than accept any deficiency in their own performance , the
Germans were eager to ventilate their grievances and frustrations against an easily identifiable object. The Treaty of
Versailles consummated German defeat and humiliated
Germany's martial pride . There was a leadership vacuUID
compounded by massive economic ailments engendered by
the bitter strife of World War I. The period cried out forcertainty. It beckoned for someone who could say : "yes , Germany could be strong again , ready to confront the world
with regained military might. "
Into this void stepped Hitler . He made Germans feel good
in time of doubt. He assured them of their preordained
dominance of mankind . In short , he appealed to the primeval impulses of his nation. Hitler knew of the powerful fuse
connecting hatred with unity. He, therefore , sought a scapegoat on which to pin the blame for German defeat and decline. The hatred of this scapegoat would simultaneo usly
serve as an agent of national renewal and unity .
W
The Jew was an obvious target for such a campaign , since
it was unnecessary to create hatred for the Jew . One only
had to enforce it and intensify it. For centuries the Jew had
been seen as the Christ-killer ; the dark-complected , hooknosed lecher; the money hoarder and international financier
who controlled the European economy . At the same time
the Jew was also perceived of as the anarchist , the leftist ,
and the subversive.
In the beginning the "scapegoat" was both the Communist , subversive Jew (the "Bolsheviks") who had
betrayed Germany , and the international Jewish capitalist
who were accused of strangling post-war Germany. Only
later did this hideous campaign focus on the Jew in the German 's midst-whose very presence sullied the gleaming
Aryan landscape with racial impurity .
The Jew was a central part of the problem and , therefore ,
had to figure prominently in the final solution .
The above cartoons are examples from German sources (circa 1920) depicting the Jews as flaunting their wealth and control
over European society .
2
�e n Indian Movement. ~
I 1 S.... all apposition to or
breakin _ ran½ from the official Israeli government policies ,
whether emanating from ra - mencan organizations or
Jewish peace groups or from such institutions as the AFSC ,
PUSH , or the Institute for Policy Studies , is · ed with t e
"terrorist PLO" or "~ ab petr.9-:..dollar" brush.
Then in 1979-80, these efforts at "sea e oating" received
official
rnment sanction . Presidential Advisor Stu
Eisenstat , in a memo to Jimmy Carter , counselled the
floundering President to 2 l a ~ j c
policy on "O.P.E.C." (which , by this time had come to
read: ARAB) . Meanwhile , the FBI , in a sting o eration designed to
snare corrupt politicians , use
ill a en - an dressed as
an. Arab shei~-naming the operation AB_S CAM (for Arab~
Thus in less than a decade the propaganda emanati12__g
fro m these various sources have coalesced t
e
"Arab"-scapegoat or America. This in turn has become
excellent grist for the "pop culture mill ." Today, depictions
.and portrayals of the Arab as terrorist , corrupter of our
moral order , as lecher and mani ulat
economy can
oe oun everyw ere-billboards , cartoons , television sit
corns, " children's television , best-selling novels , etc .
Anti-Jewish caricature , also from German Pre-World War II
sources.
merica in the eighties is by no means Germany in the
A_ twenties
and thirties . But the wine is the same . A trifle
more aged , more mellow, perhaps. Only the bottle is new.
The lloited States defeat in Vietnam , occurring in the
midst of a general U.S. alienation from the Third World ,
shattered America's self-concept as the "most powerful and
respected nation on earth. " The trauma of Watergate , the
ailing U.S. economy , and the simultaneous loss of the U.S.
position vis a vis our Eurp ean allies , all combined to produce
a troubled America limping through the seventies.
The decade which began with Vietnam and the rise of an
independent E.E.C . and O.P .E.C. , ended with "America
held hostage" in Iran . Th,ese various crises created a frnstration and an an _er VJ.. :_ be
utlet. Througho ut
the decade , America , like Germany in the 1920's...sQJJil_ht
easy answers for its demise .
An answer came from a broad array of interest groups.
The U.S . oil companies_used the Arab oil embar90 of 1973
as justification-for the rapid rise in the price of domestically
produc-ed oil. Following that , they continued to warn of
"foreign " oil , counselling that by deregulation and decontrol
of their American product , the U.S. would be free of
"foreign " control.
The extreme parts of the Israel lob.by , (in particular the
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee which tends to
rubber stamp all Israeli government _01· · s), ·oined wit ..,s.rm ht organizations , to inveigh against "Arab terrorism" and
"petro-doll~r" influence at home and abroad . As communism had been held responsible for all subversion in the
1950's and 1960's-the P.L. O . Libya and Arab
"oil
~
one " are toda accused of encoura in and supplying
such diverse movements as the IRA_, the Iranian revolution ,
t e anainistas , the Salvadorian revolution and the Amer)
The Jew as "terrorist and subversive " appeared on a Russian magazine cover, 1907.
3
�affluence , tied to the accompaniments of lechery , avarice ,
and deceit
,._. .
-~-t'fiiO
U, -., -
O Copley News Service
Since erstwhile political observers can no longer vent thei!
_bigotry against blacks and Jews without pubic censure ,
_Arabs are increasingly proving to be irresistible targets as
"desert ni ers ." I
t from a bi oted view oint they
combine the "worst" of both the blacks and the Jei.ys. The
Arabs are no n -whit~; they are Semites , an d a!tba ugh they
atheists , they are perceived as heathens. Most importantly , it is c
red politicall
rofitab
them , just as it was considere chic to molest the Jews in
Nazi Germany .
The foundations for the Holocaust were laid by German
caricaturists who depicted the Jews as serpents , defilers of
Aryan maidens , wealthy through the exploitation of the
Gentiles , and traitorous to German interests. In short , they
were see n as different , and that made all the difference in
treating them as less than human .
Arabs pictured as flaunting their control over the West
ike the Jews in German y, hatred a ainst Arab S emites
d oes not ave to be built a new. Historically in the West ,
there is a n already existing reservoir of ill will upon wh ich to
draw. The traditional reasons behind this "other antiSe mitism " in the United States can be traced back to the
historical animosity between the Christian West and the
World of Islam, dating back to an Arab culture bas ·n Corctoba , Spain : whic was a ray o en ightenment whe n the
West was steepea. m ignorance an d superstition . The West
has difficulty in reconciling itself to the fact that the Ara s
es or centuries with a superior civilization .
On the contrary, consistent efforts bave been on -going to
belittle the massive Arab contrib ution to Western thought. -
, Racism is , and has been , at the core of anti~Semitism .
Now, as before , the po itical cartoon is being used as a propaga nda arm for disseminating anti-Semitic attitudes . Time
and time again , subtle and not so subtle messages are being
sent fro m the m edia , conveying the image of an Arab as retrogressive t ra · ,,,
-aLgu;Led
·rrational ,
"an the architect a£ io1ernatiaoa l terrorism_. This systematic
pattern behind such slurs is some indication that all of this
ma y not be purely fortuitous .
In Germ any, Jews were associated internally with capital-
In a real sense , a nti-Semitism , directed at both Arabs and
Jews , is o ne phenomenon. When , in earlier times , European leaders sought a sea e oat , they oftentimes encouraged a nd / or made pogroms against the Jews in their midst .
On other occasions under similar circumstances, they
I nched ogrom -like campaigns against the "i fide! Arab ."
,Th~se were eu hemisticall c I ed "Crusades ."
Ibe imperialist intervention into the Middle East in the
19th and 20th c n
d o roms of another sort .
The French in Alqeria , the Italians in Libya , an t e British
aod French in t~ertiJe _Crescent , de~astated th~
!
economies and decimated the native o ulations . Arab
resistance was e-rme - terrorist ," while Arabs who cola orated were treated and depicted contemptuously . The
toll of these "interventions ," in Arab lives lost and suffering
produced , is incalcu lable. The effects continue to be felt .
oday , the Arabs are the on! ethnic rou whom cartoonists a nd commentators insult with impunity . Caric~turists take a cruel delight m exaggerating the physical
fe atures of th e Arabs in order to make them look ugly . They
are shown surrounded with all the paraphernalia of indecent
An Arab with grotesque features flaunting control over the
W est appeared in the Boston Globe , 1980.
4
�A fre qu e ntly used them e in anti -Arab ca rtoon s and ad vertising cam paigns is "striking out against th e Arab ."
ist greed and externally with promoting international anarchism and Communism . In the United States , the Arab is
held resp onsible for the runaway inflation a nd
ernally he
is made to a02,ear as the mastermind behind internation al
terrorism.
e vitably leads to the spread of misery and death . The only
cure is to excise it from the body politic of the nation .
Jam es J . Zogby is the Organ izing Director of the American A rab A nti-Discrimination Comm ittee in Washington , D .C .
In the United States , the targets most visibly associated
with the Arab world are Americans of Arab descent . It is
they who will face the full brunt of ignora nt bigotry wh ich
has characterized race -oriented violence in the United
State~ Arab-American merchants have had the ir prnperties
vandalized ; an Arab Cfinsban church in Denv
s d e~
---5.£..C..@!e , an incident that went unreported ; American -Arab
children are fre q uently made the butt of ethnic taunting ; an.cl
in at least three important instances , Arab-Americans with
prom1smg po 1
were virtual! "Arab-baited~~t
of public life . In addition , Arab-Americans have been singled out for special FBI harrassment .
SAVE OIL
0 real concern is the fact that these abuses go virtually
unre orted in t e press and are i nored b civil libertarians .
The latter are frequently quite candid about their lack of
response-they fear being tainted . It is "unpopular" to de fend Arabs a nd Arah-AroericaAs .
All of this points to more foreboding conseg uenc_~ s .
Given the climate created and the public m_o od , it would not
be farfetched to state that a groundwork is being laid for the
possible military takeover of Arab crnmtri~. the oil of which
isJ reated as a proprietary right by the { Jn ited_States. In the
event , American-Arabs may be sin led out for ; ;re malicious -victimization . In fact , the incarceration of apaneseAmericans d uring World War II and more recent outrages
against Iranian -Americans provide sufficient historical
precedents .
"It can 't happen here ," goes the popular refrain.
However , left untreated , the cancerous disease of racism in-
5
�A ROrHSCHILn, LE
no,
DES Cnl NCHES
.r~f:<:f
} j .\ .·>
I
I
,
'<~,', :-.·
~- -: ~ · . ,
.-··;;~:: ,:
..
"; · ~-,.,,
'
:.
i-/1..:/~
Adding insult to injury , anti -Semitic cartoonists (both anti-Arab and anti -Jew)
delight in depicting their victim as a pig .
Two examples : left , a recent anti-OPEC
cartoon , and above , a 60 -year old anti Rothschild cartoon.
American -Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
1611 Connecticut Avenue , N .W .
Washington , D.C. 20009
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Joseph Family Papers
Subject
The topic of the resource
Belly dance
Lebanese Americans
Marines
Photographs
World War II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1931-2015
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Inventoried by Amanda Forbes and Celine Shay, 2022 May. Processed by Allison Hall and Rachel Beth Acker, 2023 April-August. Collection Guide created by Allison Hall, 2023 September.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Arabic
French
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0062
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Digital material in this collection is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Physical material in this collection is also available to researchers. For questions or to access a collection, please contact us at kcldsarchive@ncsu.edu. Please give at least 48 hours for responses to any inquiries regarding the materials.
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve R. Joseph, also referred to in the collection as Genny, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on February 6th, 1963. Genevieve R. Joseph has three siblings, including an older sister Beatrice Ann Joseph (1947-2008) and two older brothers, one of which is Michael James Joseph (born October 16th, 1954). She earned an Associate’s degree in Liberal Arts Honors and Communications and Media Arts in 1983, a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from SUNY Albany in 1985, and a Master’s degree in Sociology with a concentration in Race and Ethnicity, also from SUNY Albany, in 1988. She then <span>worked as a social science researcher for the State of New York. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph took up Middle Eastern belly dancing as a hobby and was a member of the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yallah Dance Ensemble based in Albany, New York in the early 1990s. In 1996 she moved to North Carolina and became involved with the Triangle Lebanese Association; she coordinated the first Lebanese Festival at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in 1999. In North Carolina, she <span>worked as a nonprofit program manager for global education and cultural exchange, and fundraiser for visual arts and conservation of nature. </span>Genevieve R. Joseph married Philip White in 200</span><span style="font-weight:400;">6.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Genevieve Norman Joseph (1924-2011), Genevieve R. Joseph’s mother, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York to Sam Norman (1883-1972) and Rose Nader Norman (1889-1955). Rose Nader Norman ran a neighborhood grocery store and the couple managed their home as a boarding house. Genevieve Norman Joseph, also known as Gen, married Charles Michael Joseph (1918-2002) of Wendell, North Carolina on March 2, 1946. Genevieve Norman Joseph was a member of the Lebanese American Daughters, an organization closely related to the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Lebanon-American Club of Poughkeepsie. She also </span><span style="font-weight:400;">worked as a Nursing Aide. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Charles “Charlie” Michael Joseph, Genevieve R. Joseph’s father, was born in Connecticut to parents Namy </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Yusef Becharra</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> and Julia Asmer in 1918 and was raised in Wendell, North Carolina from the age of eight months. He had nine siblings: Lucy, Eddie (Naim), Mamie (Thmam), Charlie (Khalil), George (A'Eid, Geryus), Evelyn (Jamila), Helen (Thatla), Abe (Ibrahim), Joe (Yusef), and Dolores (Julia).</span><span style="font-weight:400;"> His father, Namy Joseph, ran a store on Main Street and another one beside the family home. </span><span style="font-weight:400;">Charlie Joseph served in the US Marines during World War II and was honorably discharged in 1945 as a corporal. He was stationed in Recife, Brazil and Guam during the war. In Poughkeepsie, Charlie Joseph ran a luncheonette and was active in the Lebanon-American Club, serving as its president from 1962 to 1966. Upon their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph’s graduation from SUNY Albany in 1985, Genevieve and Charlie moved from Poughkeepsie to Wendell, North Carolina, Charlie’s hometown.</span></p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">The Joseph Family papers contain materials related to three generations of the Joseph family as well as families related to them. The collection focuses on the lives of Genevieve Norman Joseph, her husband Charles Joseph, and their daughter Genevieve R. Joseph. The collection also includes materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s grandparents and their extended family, both in Lebanon and in the United States. </span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Much of the collection consists of photographs from the early twentieth century to the twenty-first century. The photographs primarily include family photographs and portraits, as well as photographs from Charles Joseph’s deployment during World War II in Brazil and Guam. Also included in the collection are materials related to Genevieve R. Joseph’s dance career, newspaper clippings, articles from the </span><span style="font-weight:400;">American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, materials related to Charles Joseph’s time in the Marines, event pamphlets and flyers, prayer cards, obituaries, academic materials, correspondence, and some physical objects.</span><span style="font-weight:400;"></span></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Article titled "The Other Anti-Semitism: The Arab as Scapegoat"
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lebanese Americans
Description
An account of the resource
Article titled "The Other Anti-Semitism: The Arab as Scapegoat" in ADC Issues No. 3 from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The article discusses the development of anti-Semitism in Germany and compares it to the rise of anti-Arab sentiment and policy in the United States at the end of the twentieth century. Throughout the article are political cartoons of Jews from the early twentieth century contrasted with similar depictions of Arabs from the late twentieth century.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
James J. Zogby
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Genevieve Rose Joseph
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
circa 1980s
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
kc0062_1_1_001
1980s
Articles
Cartoons
Discrimination
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/862f31cd76c94aefc4dec29c217c77c4.jpg
b8e9c5caf24da742d16bd750348b1609
Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
3
Height
2196
Width
732
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
North Carolina Newspapers
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is comprised of newspaper clippings from Wilmington papers that refer to Syrians that ranges from 1877 to 1942.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clippings
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1877-1942
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
English
Newspaper
A historic or contemporary newspaper, either in full issue or clipping.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Card From Mr. Yeager." Yeager defends the Syrian character against stereotypes, 1912
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Special Collections Department, North Carolina Room, New Hanover County Public Library, Wilmington, North Carolina
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
May 24, 1912
Language
A language of the resource
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Morning Star
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).
1910's
Alex Yeager
Anti-Immigrantion Rhetoric
Discrimination
Farrah
Goldsboro, North Carolina
Newspapers
Newspapers-Wilmington
North Carolina
Wilmington, North Carolina
Yeager
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/5350271d67d04652f6bd0ccc115ee986.jpg
7310f77999a6a2b911b65057a55af664
Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
3
Height
1909
Width
724
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
North Carolina Newspapers
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is comprised of newspaper clippings from Wilmington papers that refer to Syrians that ranges from 1877 to 1942.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clippings
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1877-1942
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
English
Newspaper
A historic or contemporary newspaper, either in full issue or clipping.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hikel Gideon writes the editor who wrongly referred to Gideon as a troublesome immigrant peddling without license, 1897
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Special Collections Department, North Carolina Room, New Hanover County Public Library, Wilmington, North Carolina
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
"The News Dispatch"
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
June 24, 1897
Language
A language of the resource
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The News Dispatch
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).
1890's
Anti-Immigrantion Rhetoric
Assyrian
Discrimination
Gideon
Heikel Gideon
Immigrants
Naturalization
Newspapers
Newspapers-Wilmington
North Carolina
Wilmington, North Carolina
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/e6b7152450a7afcc274ba1b1f66ff4fd.jpg
7cef62a4ffb9eef278db44fde52d6e9d
Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
3
Height
817
Width
732
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
North Carolina Newspapers
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is comprised of newspaper clippings from Wilmington papers that refer to Syrians that ranges from 1877 to 1942.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clippings
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1877-1942
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
English
Newspaper
A historic or contemporary newspaper, either in full issue or clipping.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Star calls "attention...to the rough and unkind treatment" of Syrian peddlers, 1897
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Special Collections Department, North Carolina Room, New Hanover County Public Library, Wilmington, North Carolina
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
"The Morning Star"
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
July 8, 1897
Language
A language of the resource
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Morning Star
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Donor retains full ownership of any and all copyright currently controlled in agreement with Khayrallah Center. Nonexclusive right to authorize all uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).
1890's
Arabic
Discrimination
Language
Newspapers
Newspapers-Wilmington
North Carolina
Syrian
Wilmington, North Carolina