IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1022 
Expressing support for the recognition of April as Arab American Heritage 
Month and celebrating the heritage and culture of Arab Americans in 
the United States. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 1, 2022 
Ms. TLAIB (for herself and Mrs. DINGELL) submitted the following resolution; 
which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing support for the recognition of April as Arab 
American Heritage Month and celebrating the heritage 
and culture of Arab Americans in the United States. 
Whereas, every April, the United States celebrates Arab 
American Heritage Month; 
Whereas, since migrating to the United States, people of 
Arab descent have shared their rich culture and tradi-
tions with neighbors and friends, while also setting fine 
examples of model citizens and public servants; 
Whereas Arab Americans have brought with them to the 
United States their resilient family values, strong work 
ethic, dedication to education, and diversity in faith and 
creed that have added strength to our democracy; 
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•HRES 1022 IH 
Whereas, for over a century, Arab Americans have been mak-
ing valuable contributions to every aspect of American so-
ciety—in medicine, law, business, technology, civic en-
gagement, government, and culture; 
Whereas Arab Americans contribute to our country’s unique 
diversity through the process of attaining citizenship and 
integration, as modeled by the family of Dr. Joseph 
Arbeely, the first recorded Arab family to come to the 
United States with the intention of becoming citizens, 
and whose two sons, Najeeb and Ibrahim, went on to es-
tablish the first Arabic language newspaper in the United 
States (Kawkwab America); 
Whereas Americans of Arab descent helped grow this country 
through the development of industry and free enterprise, 
as in the case of world fairs, which attracted many immi-
grants from the Arab world; 
Whereas historical Arab-American communities boasted doz-
ens of restaurants and grocery stores, newspapers, in 
both Arabic and English, houses of worship, as well as 
numerous manufacturers, importers, and purveyors of 
women’s clothing, as in the case of the first major Arab- 
American community, ‘‘Little Syria’’, which was depicted 
in Ameen Rihani’s 1911 masterpiece, ‘‘The Book of 
Khalid’’; 
Whereas the growth and development of Arab-American com-
munities transforms and enriches all areas of American 
civic, social, and political life, including in the areas of 
religious pluralism, poetry and philosophy, and jour-
nalism, to name just a few; 
Whereas Joseph Howar, a Palestinian American born in 
1879 as Mohammad Issa Abu Al Hawa who worked in 
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•HRES 1022 IH 
the United States as a peddler before becoming a real es-
tate developer whose contributions include the Islamic 
Center of Washington, DC, the first mosque in the city, 
demonstrates the transformational quality of Arab-Amer-
ican contributions to American society; 
Whereas Arab-American poet Kahlil Gibran’s 1923 master-
piece, ‘‘The Prophet’’, was a transformative piece of lit-
erature which discusses topics of the human condition in 
the most eloquent of ways by highlighting inclusion and 
understanding of all peoples, and which was translated 
into over 100 languages, making it one of the most trans-
lated books in history; 
Whereas in 1959 Mohamed Atalla, an Egyptian-American en-
gineer who was an important pioneer and contributor to 
the early field of modern electronics, invented the metal- 
oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), 
which is the most frequently manufactured device in his-
tory, the basis of the contemporary 4th Industrial Revo-
lution, and hailed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Of-
fice as one of the most important inventions in elec-
tronics; 
Whereas the Lebanese-American woman Helen Thomas cov-
ered every United States President from John F. Ken-
nedy to Barack Obama, served as White House cor-
respondent for United Press International, later serving 
as the White House Bureau Chief and Dean of the White 
House Press Corps, and was recognized by the World Al-
manac as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in 
America; 
Whereas the Federal Government has overstepped its con-
stitutional boundaries in regard to surveillance and sus-
picion of the Arab-American community as far back as 
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•HRES 1022 IH 
the 1960s, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
(FBI) included Arabs as targets of its Counterintel-
ligence Program (COINTELPRO); 
Whereas, in 1972, the Cabinet Committee to Combat Ter-
rorism directed the State Department, FBI, and Immi-
gration and Nationality Service (INS) to enact ‘‘special 
measures’’ to monitor both non-citizen residents of Arab 
origin and Arab Americans who were United States citi-
zens, including unconstitutional interrogation of Arab 
students’ political views, often leading to deeper FBI in-
vestigation, and close scrutinization of visa status, often 
leading to enforced penalties such as deportation; 
Whereas media representations of Arab Americans in the 
post-9/11 era reinforce longstanding racial stereotypes 
about Arabs, which contribute to anti-Arab hate crimes 
and obscure the actual character and complexity of com-
munity members; 
Whereas Raza v. City of New York demonstrates the persist-
ence of anti-Arab bias in Federal, State, and local law 
enforcement programs as well as the contributions to 
community safety of Arab-American community organiza-
tions like the Arab American Association of New York; 
Whereas systemic and structural anti-Arab discrimination 
have impacted the health outcomes, socioeconomic condi-
tions, and life chances of Arab Americans in ways not 
captured by the Federal data on racial and ethnic minori-
ties, leading to the persistence of racist disparities; 
Whereas socioeconomic and health disparities between Arab 
Americans and the general population are obscured by 
Federal data collection and reporting standards, which do 
not disaggregate between Arab Americans and White 
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•HRES 1022 IH 
cluding the governments of Arizona, Arkansas, Cali-
fornia, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of 
Columbia, Georgia, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Ken-
tucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, 
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, 
Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Caro-
lina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, 
Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming; 
Whereas numerous cities, towns and counties across America 
have taken steps to recognize April as Arab American 
Heritage Month, including Los Angeles, CA; Orange 
County, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Diego, CA; Gaines-
ville, FL; Orlando, FL; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Cook 
County, IL; Baltimore, MD; Detroit, MI; Wayne County, 
MI; Dearborn, MI; Dearborn Heights, MI; Flint, MI; 
Yonkers, NY; Westchester County, NY; Raleigh, NC; 
Cuyahoga County, OH; Cleveland, OH; Toledo, OH; 
Portland, OR; Philadelphia, PA; Dallas, TX; Alexandria, 
VA; Richmond, VA; Milwaukee, WI; and Madison, WI; 
and 
Whereas the incredible contributions and heritage of Arab 
Americans have helped us build a better Nation: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) supports the designation of the month of 
April of each year as Arab American Heritage 
Month; 
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•HRES 1022 IH 
(2) esteems the integral role of Arab Americans 
in the economy, culture, and identity of the United 
States; and 
(3) urges the people of the United States to ob-
serve Arab American Heritage Month with appro-
priate programs and activities that recognize, ad-
dress, and celebrate the unique contributions of 
Arab Americans to the United States. 
Æ 
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