Remembering “the mother” of Arab American Studies and Social historian Alixa Naff
Alixa Naff, considered “the mother” of Arab American Studies, established the Faris and Yamna Naff Arab American Collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In the summer of 1962, she travelled the United States in a blue Volkswagon beetle, known as “the camel,” conducting oral interviews with the first generations of Arab American immigrants and collecting their photographs and artifacts.
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