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Humanities and Social Sciences
Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
The Cedars in the Pines exhibit

Projects

View our digital humanities projects, documentaries, and exhibits, where we transform archival materials into narratives to explore broader historical themes.

Digital Humanities Projects

Abdou’s Directory

This extensive project digitizes and analyzes Dr. Nagib Abdou’s directory, which records 7,337 names of “Syrian” businesses and their owners, and discusses Abdou’s travels across the world.
Antique map of eastern Mediterranean

Mapping the Mahjar in the Mashriq

The project, led by Dr. Graham Auman Pitts of Georgetown University with visualization by the Khayrallah Center, maps and analyzes remittances sent to relieve suffering in Lebanon during World War I.

Mapping Arab-American Businesses

In 1908, Salloum Mokarzel and Habib Otash published The Syrian Business Directory. Using information from the directory, this project tells the story of early Arab-American business owners in the United States through interactive maps.
landing page of the Syrians in New York digital project

Syrians in New York: Mapping Movement

This project traces New York City’s Syrian/Lebanese immigrants across three decades to examine important historical questions.

The Migration of Hanna Gaith

In 2023, the Khayrallah Center was gifted a diary written by Hanna Gaith who came from Yabroud in modern-day Syria and emigrated to Capilla del Monte, Argentina in 1908. In the diary, written in a common 19th century calligraphic style, Hanna narrates his own childhood, education, and political thoughts.
Large group photo in black and white

Index of Arab American Archives

The Index of Arab American Archives offers a gateway for researchers to access various collections of Arab American histories housed in US institutions.

Arab American Labor – اليد العاملة العربية الأمريكية

This project reclaims the hidden stories of the Arab American working class, inviting viewers to rethink the prevalent narrative of Arab immigration and include the richer diversity of immigrant experiences.

Charles and Gen Joseph Luncheonette

Voices of the Mahjar

Voices of the Mahjar is a podcast-style series of interviews that brings to life the histories of the Lebanese diaspora and discusses the issues diasporic communities face across the world today.
Three people sitting on bench on boat

Texas Bound

This project explores the stories and lives of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants in Texas beginning in the 1870s, including interviews, archival images, interactive maps, and a documentary.
Family photo on porch steps with handwritten letter superimposed on top

Angele Hobeich Kmeid-Ellis Collection

This digital project explores a unique collection of letters from Angele Hobeiche Kmeid-Ellis, who immigrated from Lebanon to Carthage, New York in 1926. Over time, Angele used these shared memories in her own writing as a way to transport herself back to the home she left behind.
Collage of photos

The Romey Lynchings

This multi-part project features a documentary film and webpage to tell the story of N’oula and Hasna Romey, Lebanese immigrants who encountered racial terror in 1920s Florida, leading to their deaths at the hands of police and a lynch mob.
Black and white group photo of men in uniform

Legacies of Labor

This project highlights the stories of Lebanese mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, from 1890 to 1950, uncovering the rich stories of industrial workers in a New England mill town.
Black and white family photo

An Arbeely Family Album

Written by Dr. Linda Jacobs with visualization by the Khayrallah Center, this project explores the lives of the Arbeely family, who are broadly recognized as the first Syrian family to emigrate to the US.
Screenshot of infographic and statistics

Migration and Health

Using death certificates of Lebanese-Americans from 19 states, we examine how migration impacted the health of immigrants.
Map of US census data

Counting Lebanese-Americans

Using decennial census records from 1900 to 1940, we compiled demographic portraits of Lebanese in the United States.

Ameen Rihani Preservation Project

In collaboration with the Rihani Museum in Freike, Lebanon, the center digitized and remastered a 1937 speech by Ameen Rihani. In addition, the center is digitizing a large portion of the museum’s archival holdings.

Documentaries

Documentary poster

Herbert Nassour: The People’s Doctor

Lebanese-American surgeon Herbert Nassour dedicated his career to providing quality healthcare to the racially and economically marginalized people of Texas. However, his heavily discounted procedures threatened the economic foundation of the American Medical Association, which tirelessly worked to shut him down.

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Collage of photos

The Romey Lynchings

On Friday, May 17th, 1929, N’oula and Hasna Romey were tragically killed within hours of each other, falling victim to 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.

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Cedars in the Pines

Cedars in the Pines narrates the lives of Lebanese immigrants in North Carolina, who labored to build new homes, raise families, and enrich the state with their culture and hard work. It tells of a legacy that is as much about great accomplishments as it is about the quiet and unassuming.

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Exhibits

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Turath

Turath displays early Arab American cultural life through a multimedia virtual exhibit, presenting the work of Arab American artists, writers, poets, performers, musicians, and journalists who built a remarkable legacy of creativity.

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The Lebanese in America Exhibit

The Lebanese in America

Composed of eight conveniently transportable panels, The Lebanese in America is a traveling exhibit that details the history of Lebanese immigration to the U.S. from 1880 through today.

Cedars in the Pines

Cedars in the Pines tells the story of Lebanese immigration to North Carolina. The exhibit premiered at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh in February of 2014 and traveled to New Bern and Charlotte, NC, before closing in August of 2015.

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Surveys

2025 Lebanese Diaspora Philanthropy

Our 2025 survey found that during economic collapse, political instability, and war in their home country, the people of the Lebanese Diaspora routinely step in to provide financial, emotional, and practical support. This report offers an accessible look at who the Lebanese diaspora are, why they give, and the many ways they strengthen their homeland.

2021 Lebanese American Public Opinion

The Lebanese American Public Opinion survey is meant to gauge the public opinions of nearly 1.3 million Americans of Lebanese descent, and how factors such as age, gender, education, and income shape their views. This survey reinforced the social and political findings from the previous year’s survey.

2020 Lebanese American Public Opinion

The survey is meant to gauge the public opinions of nearly 1.3 million Americans of Lebanese descent, and how factors such as age, gender, education, and income shape their views. In this inaugural survey, we have found the majority of the Lebanese American community falls well within the center to center-left range of the political spectrum.

2016 Lebanese Diaspora Philanthropy

In Fall 2016, the Khayrallah Center and NC State’s Institute for Nonprofits undertook a joint preliminary study of Lebanese-American philanthropy. This collaborative project was a first step toward understanding what motivates Lebanese-Americans to donate (or not) their time and resources to organizations and causes, both here and in Lebanon.