Indianapolis’ Syrian Ark: Crossing and Dwelling in the Arab American Midwest, 1936-1954

Abstract

This article is the first to document the historical significance of the Indianapolis-based Syrian Ark, the official newspaper of the Midwest Federation of Syrian American Clubs from 1936 to 1954. Extant copies of the periodical provide a detailed record of Arab, Syrian, and Lebanese Midwestern life in the middle twentieth century. Using elements of Thomas Tweed’s spatial theory of “crossing and dwelling,” this article analyzes how the newspaper’s editor, correspondents, and other contributors moved across and inhabited local, regional, national, and diasporic spaces in their reporting. It argues that the Syrian Ark’s collective mapping of Arab American dwelling or “homemaking” in the shared public culture of the U.S. Midwest and U.S. nation-state was co-constituted through inhabiting the terrestrial space of diasporic Arab nationalist identity and the cosmological aspirations of religious ecumenism. The article illustrates this thesis by showing (1) how the coverage of multiple Midwestern locales in the Syrian Ark constructed a sense of Arab belonging to an ideal Midwestern “hometown” of economic prosperity and strong civic engagement; (2) how the newspaper’s deep U.S. patriotism was joined to grassroots Arab diasporic nationalism, including activism on behalf of Palestinian liberty; and (3) how the periodical created a cosmological home of religious ecumenism that sought to bring Muslims and Christians together across the Arab diaspora.