Originally from Belt Magazine: April 24, 2023 By Edward Curtis IV Around 1899, my great, great-grandfather, a man named Hanna Samaha, left his beautifully green three-thousand-foot-high village located in contemporary Lebanon where, on a clear day, you could see the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. He landed at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the town of Cairo [pronounced “Care-oh”], Illinois. He … Continue reading Moses of Cairo (Illinois)
While I was still writing Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest (NYU Press, 2022), I became determined to take the book back to the places where its stories unfolded from the 1890s to the 1940s. At first, I thought that perhaps I should do one big road trip and invite people to come along as I visited … Continue reading Heartland Muslim Book Tour
20 Community Orgs To Get $250 Each Indiana Humanities, a statewide nonprofit that encourages Hoosiers to think, read and talk, is offering stipends to nonprofit organizations across the state to host screenings and discussions of the film Arab Indianapolis: A Hidden History. Arab Indianapolis: A Hidden History, hosted by author and IUPUI Professor Edward E. Curtis IV, directed and produced by local filmmaker Becky Fisher … Continue reading Indiana Humanities offers funding to host “Arab Indianapolis”
I was thrilled when Rashika Jaipuriar’s beautifully-written article on the Arab Indianapolis History Project, its origins, and its impact on IUPUI student Sierra Martin’s family made the front page of the Indianapolis Star on July 23, 2022. The article was also published online here. Continue reading Arab Indianapolis Gets the Front Page
By Katiera Winfrey (@Katiera_Winfrey), WISH-TV, Jun 6, 2022: Lucas Oil Stadium sits near Capital and South Street now, but 120 years ago, it was home to one of Indy’s first Arabic-speaking communities. An IUPUI professor is leading efforts to bring that history to light with a new book and documentary. In the early 1900s, not too far from Peyton Manning’s statute, sat the entrance of … Continue reading WISH-TV Coverage of Arab Indianapolis
Arab Indianapolis: A Hidden History, directed and produced by local filmmaker Becky Fisher and shot by Vinnie Manganello, reveals a new chapter in the diverse history of central Indiana. It explores the first Arabic-speaking neighborhood in Indianapolis, the founding of St. George Church in the 1920s, the establishment of a prominent Arab American business on Monument circle, the service of Arab Americans in World War … Continue reading Arab Indianapolis Documentary Now Streaming
The American Midwest is often thought of as uniformly white, and shaped exclusively by Christian values. However, this view of the region as an unvarying landscape fails to consider a significant community at its very heart. Muslims of the Heartland uncovers the long history of Muslims in a part of the country where many readers would not expect to find them. Edward E. Curtis IV, … Continue reading Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest
It was so much fun to work with Vinnie Manganello, chromapros.com, on the trailer for ArabIndianapolis.Com, my community history project on the contributions of Arab Americans to Greater Indianapolis. IUPUI Honors student Mickey Yoder and Prof. Paul Mullins provided invaluable assistance on the historical content for the piece. We shot the stand-ups on a Sunday morning and then finished the voice-overs later. I found the … Continue reading First Mini-Documentary for Arab Indianapolis is Released
Edward E. Curtis IV 