#JabaraHeyerNOHATEAct
TAKE ACTION NOW! TELL CONGRESS TO SUPPORT THE KHALID JABARA AND HEATHER HEYER NO HATE ACT! The Arab American Institute (AAI) welcomes the introduction of the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act of 2019 (the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act),...
What New American Dreams are Made Of
Last week, over 1,100 people convened in Detroit to work towards realizing the “New American Dreams” of immigrants and refugees. Almost 200 speakers, including the Arab American Institute’s Suher Adi, spoke at the National Partnership for New Americans’ 12th National Immigrant Integration Conference (NIIC). This is the largest conference on...
Lebanon is Witnessing a Watershed Moment
“This is not the WhatsApp Revolution,” read a post that was circulated on social media after Lebanon’s protests started. For the hundreds of thousands of people on the street today, truer words have not been spoken. While a proposed tax on WhatsApp and other messaging services propelled mass demonstrations in...
Emel Mathlouthi Serenades Washington D.C.
The Arab American Institute Foundation was delighted to host Emel Mathlouthi in concert at the historic Lincoln Theatre on Thursday, October 17, 2019, in partnership with the Artistic Freedom Initiative, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the American Tunisia Association. The performance marked the last stop of her North America tour...
Tunisia's Youth Vote the Establishment Out
“A revolution within the constitutional legitimacy,” that’s how Kais Saied, the 61-year old newly elected president of Tunisia described his landslide victory, having secured more than 73 percent of the votes. "Thank you to those who opened a new page in history. For those who did not vote for me,...
Census (mis/dis)Information, to Reddit & Beyond!
MENA category and Arab ethnicity, Census rigging, HTC communities, and more! Thank you to everyone who tuned in to AAI’s Reddit AMA thread on the 2020 Census. Throughout the hour, AAI’s resident policy experts Suher Adi and Ryan Suto answered people’s questions on race and ethnicity, political implications of the...
In Syria, “America First” means “Allies Last”
In what has become commonplace over the last two years, the Trump Administration issued a surprise, late-night statement on Sunday which took his Republican allies in Washington by surprise. The statement announced that Turkey would begin military operations in northern Syria and that U.S. forces would withdraw from the immediate area (but not Syria...
#YallaVote Going Strong on National Voter Registration Day
Today, September 24, 2019, Arab Americans across the country are taking part in National Voter Registration Day, with the goal of getting as many voters registered as possible. Working with the official National Voter Registration Day effort, and partners like the League of Women Voters and Rock The Vote, AAI’s...
A Backdrop of Bigotry
On January 27, 2017, the Trump presidency had turned one week old. For many Americans, the controversies of the presidential campaign, which had ended months before, were replaced by arguments over crowd size. But for a candidate who sought "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,"...
Contextualizing the Constitution
The Constitution will only play a meaningful role in our future if we properly contextualize its past Earlier this year, DeKalb County, Georgia, sought to tear down a Confederate monument in a public square in the county seat of Decatur. The monument is an obelisk which was erected in 1908...
