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Herbert Nassour and his football team.

Apr 21, 2026

The Nassour Family Papers Collection

The Nassour Family Papers Collection (1937-2002) is now online! This collection tells the story of Herbert Nassour, a Texas-born Lebanese American scholar, veteran, and community doctor and surgeon. Herbert R. Nassour, Jr. was born in Lockhart, Texas, in 1917 to Mary Moses and Herbert Nassour, Sr. He attended the University of Texas in 1936. Even…
A young Alaa Jaza dressed in a military outfit.

Mar 19, 2026

The Alaa Jaza Photographs Collection

We are excited to announce the publication of a new archival collection: The Alaa Jaza Photographs Collection, 1994-2025. This collection contains 24 photos that document Jaza’s upbringing in Lebanon, his U.S. Army career, and his career as a police officer here in North Carolina. Alaa Jaza was born on July 2, 1991, in Beirut, Lebanon.…
A graphic reading "Alixa Naff Prize in Migration Studies 2025"

Mar 2, 2026

2025 Alixa Naff Prize in Migration Studies Winners

The Khayrallah Center is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Alixa Naff Prize in Migration Studies, which is awarded to individuals with outstanding scholarly work from any discipline focusing on Middle East migrations, refugees, and diasporas. This year, the selection committee, comprised of Jumana Bayeh, Lucia Carminatti, Akram Khater, Devi Mays, and Jacob Norris, awarded three prizes…

Feb 18, 2026

Reading the Unreadable: AI & Early Arab-American Stories

Arabic handwriting is notoriously hard to read. Now, a project called Fihris is using custom-trained AI to decipher the complex Ruq’ah script. We spoke with Arabic for Nerds to explain how and why Fihris came to be.
The homepage of Fihris.org, reading "Explore Arab American History" with a search bar.

Feb 9, 2026

Fihris.org

The Khayrallah Center is thrilled to announce that Fihris.org — your resource for searching and translating the archive’s Arabic manuscripts — is now available for public use. Fihris revolutionizes the Arabic archive as we know it. It renders previously inaccessible documents immediately accessible from anywhere in the world by not only hosting manuscript images but also…

Feb 5, 2026

Lebanese Americans: a socioeconomic profile

Using data from the 2024 American Community Survey, the Khayrallah Center has compiled socioeconomic statistics about the Lebanese American population to compare them with the general U.S. population. The survey reveals that Lebanese Americans exceed U.S. national averages across many socioeconomic metrics, exhibiting higher income levels, greater educational attainment, and a heavy concentration in professional…
Four old photos of buildings and landscapes pasted to a page.

Nov 24, 2025

Amin Ghorayeb Collection

The Amin Ghorayeb Collection is one of the largest and richest donations ever made to the Khayrallah Center. Spanning almost a century of history, the collection preserves the writings, photographs, letters, and personal papers of Amin Mansur Shahin Ghorayeb (1881–1971) — a Lebanese journalist, poet, and editor whose life and work connected Lebanon, Egypt, New…

Oct 16, 2025

Khayrallah Center Thinks Bigger With Research Facilitation Service

Since the Khayrallah Center first released its Arab American Newspaper Database in 2020, the collection has grown to nearly 500,000 pages of historical texts. The database helps fill a digital gap in Arab American archival material, which is challenging to digitize with common optical character recognition software. 
WE NEVER LEFT Film poster - a character pointing at a plane flying over the ocean from a beach.

Oct 16, 2025

WE NEVER LEFT

This October, the Khayrallah Center collaborated with the Triangle Lebanese-American Center to host a screening of WE NEVER LEFT, a documentary-style film born of the Lebanese diaspora’s complex feelings during a traumatic period in Lebanon. WE NEVER LEFT follows three Lebanese emigrants as they struggle with their distance from home during civil protests, the worldwide…
Withers Hall during autumn.

Sep 29, 2025

Graduate Studies: Middle East Public History

Whether your goal is a career in academia, cultural institutions, or the public humanities, this program will prepare you to shape how Middle East history is researched, taught, and shared with the world. We’re thrilled to be a part of NC State’s groundbreaking graduate program in Middle East Public History — the first of its…