Arab American Heritage Month

April was first designated National Arab American Heritage Month in 2021, and was celebrated by President Biden on April 1, 2022. Arab Americans have been a part of the fabric of American culture since the founding of the US; US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has also issued a statement recognizing National Arab American History Month. According to the 2000 US Census, Massachusetts was one of ten states with an Arab American population over 40,000. Although many Americans often associate Arabs with Islam, historically most of the Arab immigrants to New England in the 19th century were Christians from what is now Syria and Lebanon (see this Global Boston article), and as recently as the early 2000s the majority of Arab Americans identified as Christian (see this archived page from the AAI). One of the most famous historic Arab Americans is Kahlil Gibran, a Maronite Christian who spent some of his childhood in Boston, before eventually settling in New York and publishing his most famous work, The Prophet (and there is even a Kahlil Gibran Memorial through the US National Parks in Washington, DC!).