Meet the Arab Americans, whose heritage is a roadmap to education

Have you ever visited the Arab American National Museum or checked out their book awards, film festivals and concerts? The museum “provides people with a more authentic and real representation of what it means to be Arab American.” 

“We communicate the American narrative in the voices of Arab Americans. They express their experiences in their own words,” says Diana Abouali, director of the Arab American National Museum, located in Dearborn, Michigan. 

Arab immigrant stories aren’t well-known among mainstream America. And what little Americans do know about Arabs is often informed by negative stereotypes. 

Arab Americans are a diverse community that come from 22 Arab countries stretching from northern Africa to western Asia. But once they settle in the U.S., the museum director says, they become as American as they are Arab.

  

Ralph Nader is known for his lifetime of activism and fearless critique. Yet in this fresh and inspiring book The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Nader takes a look backward - at a serene and enriching childhood spent in bucolic Winsted, Connecticut. 

In his most personal writing to date, Nader fondly describes his father’s restaurant and how it taught him about work, community, how to share in the spirit of others, along with the value of his mother’s Lebanese cooking and how it defined his relationship with his heritage.