CHICAGO: Dorrah Alharbi believes Arab Americans need to “tell their stories” to help the public better understand who they are, but more importantly to preserve a rich history of settlement, going back two centuries, that has not been fully documented.
A history graduate from the University of Illinois Chicago, where many Arab Americans have graduated over the years, Alharabi decided to launch The Little Palestine Project to document, through family artifacts, the story of Palestinian and Arab settlement.
Although Alharbi is Iraqi American, she told Arab News she wants to pay homage to the Arab character in the neighborhood where she now lives, called “Little Palestine,” that includes suburban communities that have become warrens not only for Palestinian immigrants but also Iraqis, Lebanese, Yemenis and other Arabs.
“The Little Palestine Project is an object-based oral history initiative where I ask people who have immigrated from any Arab country, it doesn’t have to be specifically from Palestine, and ask them what items they decided to bring with them on their journey here to Chicago,” Alharbi told Arab News.
Iraqi American Dorrah Alharbi wants to pay homage to the Arab character in the neighborhood where she now lives. (Courtesy of Dorrah Alharbi)
“We all have something to benefit in terms of understanding one another; the same way that we can easily go to Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods like Chinatown, Greek Town, Little Italy or Little Village, a haven for Hispanics in Chicago. There are so many vibrant communities in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. I want to give them a voice to the people and to their stories.”
Alharbi said the critical focus in the country on immigration had made it “very important to see my own community and that there are so many stories out there that we don’t know and that haven’t been told.”
Alharbi’s parents immigrated from Iraq in the 1990s to settle on Chicago’s North Side, which at one time had a large Arab population.
They then moved with the community to Chicago’s southwest suburbs, which have seen a significant growth in the Arab and Palestinian population.
“My family decided to move to the southwest suburbs known as ‘Little Palestine,’ including Bridgeview, Palos and Orland Park. We've been here ever since, and I am one of the very few Iraqis in the southwest suburbs. A lot of my neighbors are Palestinian,” Alharbi explained.
“In the beginning, I was very ambitious and I was setting up posters across the neighborhood. I would ask business owners if it would be OK to hang up my poster to kind of get traction and people interested. A few said ‘No.’ They said they are not interested in this sort of thing. But I had to press on.”
Palos and Orland Park have a large Arab and Palestinian population, but many of their businesses, restaurants and coffee shops are concentrated in Bridgeview, which earlier this year was designated as “Little Palestine” with decorative street signs and banners.
The region is recognized as having the largest concentration of Palestinian Arabs in the country, which has become the focus of political activism in recent years.
To tell their stories, Alharbi asks families to share a personal object tied to their immigration or Arab identity. She ties the object and the stories together to portray the individual’s experience in depth.
“I focus specifically on an object, just because I feel they are most comfortable. I’m trained as an art historian, so I really understand the material culture behind some of the objects and the kind of stories and histories that go alongside the objects,” Alharbi said, explaining she has to build trust and overcome concerns about the importance of telling family stories.
“Through their storytelling, we’re able to uncover more and more history that isn’t really narrativized,” Alharbi said.
She has so far documented 15 stories and artifacts, including family photographs, key chains, wedding memorabilia, immigration documents, clothing representing the different Arab cultures of the people she has interviewed, a 1921 driver’s license from Palestine, and embroidery.
Alharbi said objects from the families she has interviewed have been featured on an online Instagram account she has created, @LittlePalestineProject.
She said she hopes to soon create a bilingual website to display the historic objects and make the stories more accessible.
