“Half of what I say is meaningless,
but I say it so that the other half may reach you”
We are constantly moving. Whether it is from home to work, on a soccer pitch, or while sitting in front of a television switching channels. We can argue that everything in our lives is defined by movement: the simple motions that help us brush our teeth to the grand marches that bring about social change.
When movement stops in our lives, we feel as if our lives have ceased.
One of the most defining movements that a person can make that would alter their life in ways, anticipated and unanticipated, is the departure from home. Immigration has always been a part of the national conversation in the United States, a nation built by the constant intake of people, ideas, cultures, and skills. However, how frequently are the contributions of immigrants to the innovation economy highlighted?
Immigrant founders have started 52 percent of all new Silicon Valley companies between 1995 and 2005 (Inc.) and foreign-born residents of the United States are more likely to have a doctorate or professional degree than native-born Americans, 15 percent vs. 10 percent (AAC&U).
Stories of immigrants succeeding in achieving the dreams they had when planning to come to the United States uplift our spirit, but what happens when their legacy is forgotten? What happens if their stories of obstacles, setbacks, and rejections that led to their success are forgotten?
Let’s dive into a specific case together.
The Pen League
The legacies of Kahlil Gibran, Ameen Rihani, & Mikhail Naimy are best remembered by literary fans and audiences around the world. This group of Lebanese immigrants to the United States was the poets of the Pen League.
The Pen League was an Arab-American literary society initially founded in 1916 then reformed in 1920 in New York. Al-Mahjar is the Arabic word for the global Arab diaspora, a diaspora that is present across the countries of the Americas. These poets have been fondly remembered by Arabs who currently live in these countries as the “Poets of Al-Mahjar.” They founded and wrote in many newspapers and literary/artistic periodicals.
Najib and Ibrahim Arbeely of the Arbeely family established the first Arabic language newspaper in America which had its inaugural issue in 1892. It came to be known as Kawkab America.
Source: University of North Texas Digital Archives
N. W. Ayer & Son’s American Newspaper Annual: containing a Catalogue of American Newspapers, a List of All Newspapers of the United States and Canada, 1897, Volume 2 Page: 1,348
After six years of production, Kawkab America was promoted from a weekly to a daily paper in 1898 (this would last for around 300,000 copies, until 1908). It focused on the happenings of the Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Lebanon and Syria, where most of the readers in the United States came from) and placed into perspective the happenings of the Arab world and the United States for a diverse reader base. The Arbeely brothers’ explicit goal was to build bridges between the east and west.
While doing some light research to prepare to write this piece, I was pleasantly surprised to find the NC State University Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies. This academic center at NC State has led a tremendous preservation project in their online archive (years worth of publications from the poets and writers of Al-Mahjar); a true service to academics, young generations of Arab Americans, and all fans of history and journalism who can now inherit this literary treasure.
And clearly, as you have seen, I have cited them a couple of times …
Source: New York Times, April 1892
Another great journal founded was Al-Funun, an Arabic-language literary journal published in New York City by Nasib Arida (1887–1946).
Arida published the first issue of al-Funun in April of 1913 and it lasted until August 1918, with only a short interruption during World War I. The paper, unfortunately, however, ceasing production because of damages to their material and finances attributed to the war.
During the time of the journal, however, as the NC State center states the literary greats of Al-Mahjar like Amin Rihani, Elia Abu Madey, Kahlil Gibran, and Mikhail Naimy all wrote pieces, such as short stories, essays, and poems, for the journal.
According to NC State, the journal also published numerous translations from English from authors as diverse as Oscar Wilde, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ivan Turgenev, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Also, the NC State Khayrallah Center points out that throughout its years of publication, al-Funun brought together the era’s most prominent male Mahjar authors, furthering a common goal of crafting a distinct Arab American literary movement. The forging of a shared identity throughout the 1910s undoubtedly contributed to the (re)formation of the Pen League in 1920.
The goals of the league of writers were to bring Arabic literature into the modern era and promote a new generation of Arab writers. This outlook on Al-Mahjar literature shows the contribution to Al-Nahda (or Arabic Renaissance). That was taking place with the sciences and literature across the Arab world and diaspora.
The Maryland Factor
The Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values & Peace was a cherished part of the University of Maryland community until it’s recent end. The Gibran Chair was an endowed academic program within the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) at the University of Maryland until the retirement of director May Rihani. In many ways, the Gibran Chair aimed to strengthen understanding between Eastern and Western cultures in general, and the Arab ethos and American values in particular. I hope to see it be revived again, in the same way, Ms. Rihani brought it back to life in 2016 and led it until the end of 2019.
Khalil Gibran’s legacy is defined by the quote in the title. Perseverance, wisdom, impact — these were the goals of the poets of Al-Mahjar.
With that, I would like to introduce Editor’s Take, a new column on Scientific Terrapin that will be the bulletin board for my personal take on issues relating to undergraduate research, innovation, campus culture, scientific history, and SciTerp.
Today I discussed immigration and the intake of new ideas from around the world. This is what will keep the United States competitive in an ever-changing global innovation economy. Since we know, especially in our pandemic-lockdown world, that the only constant in life is the change we have to continue to be open and willing to adapt — for adaptation is the ultimate epitome of movement in the right direction.
