Indianapolis, IN
Dr. Edward Curtis On Amplifying Indy’s Arab Voices
Dr. Edward CurtisImages courtesy Dr. Edward Curtis
DR. EDWARD E. CURTIS IV joined us on the heels of the discharge of his guide Arab Indianapolis and documentary Arab Indianapolis: A Hidden Historical past, which lately aired on WFYI, to debate the movie. Dr. Curtis takes a scholarly take a look at the often-neglected historical past of Arab Individuals in Indianapolis, who’ve made important impacts on the area because the late 1800s. He’s the William M. and Gail M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts at IUPUI, the founding father of the Arab Indianapolis group undertaking, and writer and editor of over a dozen books protecting Muslim, Black, and Arab-American historical past and life. Right here, Dr. Curtis opens up about his Arab heritage, what he found whereas producing the guide and documentary, and what initiatives he’s engaged on subsequent.
What introduced you to Indianapolis, and the place are you initially from?
I got here to Indianapolis in 2005 from College of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to take a tenured, endowed professorship within the College of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. It was as shut as I may get in my enterprise to a homecoming. Academia is just a little just like the priesthood. You usually settle for the place you might be posted. I grew up in Southern Illinois, the place my Arab ancestors settled earlier than World Warfare I. Greater than a century in the past, one out of each 5 Syrian-Lebanese individuals left their homeland—pushed out by a nasty economic system and pulled to the Americas by the attract of alternative. Like so most of the early settlers in Indianapolis, my household acquired their begin as peddlers. The primary was Samaha Moses, who hawked this and that to the bargemen, rail passengers, and residents of Cairo, Illinois. When his accomplice and son, George Moses, had earned sufficient cash, he bought a farm the place he used to sleep exterior throughout a few of his peddling runs. These Syrians, as they known as themselves, married others from their ethnic group till my mom’s era. My mom met Edward E. Curtis III at Southern Illinois College, and I used to be born a number of years later.
What piqued your curiosity about exploring your private household heritage?
As I used to be rising up in Mt. Vernon, I felt like an outsider due to my brown pores and skin. Different children at all times requested me, “What are you?” They couldn’t inform if I used to be white or Black. Cassie Moses Saffa, my grandmother, had a solution to that query. She stated, “You might be an Arab, a Syrian, a Lebanese.” She instructed me the tales of our individuals and nurtured me together with her Levantine cooking—rolled grape leaves, kibbi (floor lamb with bulgur wheat and onion), and tabbouleh. My Arab heritage, in different phrases, grew to become a humanizing, reassuring reply to questions on my id and my place in society.
Did that affect your alternative of profession?
In a manner. Most of my analysis has been in regards to the historical past of Black Muslims in the US and all over the world. Looking back, I believe I used to be attracted to those tales as a result of so most of the individuals whom I studied proudly, unapologetically embraced their identities as a manner to withstand the dehumanizing results of anti-Black racism. Solely within the final couple years have I turned to researching the historical past of Arab Individuals, each Christian and Muslim. I take advantage of most of the similar instruments—for instance, understanding how minoritized individuals reply to racism—in my work now on Arab America.
How so within the case of Arab Indianapolis?
One of many themes that runs all through each the movie and the guide is the influence of xenophobia and colorism on Arab Individuals. Among the movie’s most touching moments for me are when one Arab American describes how a grandmother tried to clean away the brown colour on her mom’s pores and skin or the poignant prayer of 1 Arab mom that her children wouldn’t be ostracized like some Arab Individuals have been. The movie and the guide have a good time our group’s success, sacrifice, perseverance, and traditions, however additionally they inform the reality in regards to the ongoing discrimination that we face.
At what level did you turn into occupied with telling the story of Arab Indianapolis?
I used to be partly motivated by Gov. Mike Pence’s try and ban the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana in 2015. I stated to myself, “Wait a minute! We’ve been coming right here because the Eighteen Eighties. Why are we nonetheless being handled as threatening foreigners?” However there was one other important step. After I was writing a earlier guide about Midwestern Syrian-Lebanese pioneers and settlers, I realized some new analysis methods, and I virtually stumbled onto the native historical past of Arab Individuals in Central Indiana.
What was your most shocking discovery whereas telling the hidden historical past of Arab Indianapolis?
For sure, that there was an Arabic-speaking neighborhood in Indianapolis within the Nineties, and that this neighborhood was positioned on the very same floor as Lucas Oil Stadium.
You’re uncovering truths and tales for an neglected Midwest inhabitants. Why do you assume these are necessary historical past classes for Hoosiers, each younger and previous, to be taught?
Our historical past has at all times been ethnically, religiously, and racially numerous. There has by no means been a time within the historical past of Indiana once we have been all white and Christian. This isn’t some “liberal” conspiracy. It’s the reality. If we inform the reality about our previous, we’ll establish some proud moments and a few shameful ones. If we select to look away from our actual historical past, we’ll make it unattainable for individuals of numerous backgrounds to stay collectively in peace and equality now and sooner or later. Our concepts about who we have been previously form who we will turn into sooner or later.
What has been your favourite second in regards to the launch of the guide and documentary?
I’ve now heard a variety of occasions from second-, third-, and fourth-generation Arab Individuals how the undertaking has woke up their satisfaction, introduced again candy reminiscences of oldsters and grandparents, or in lots of instances, made them hungry, since we function Arab meals in each the guide and the film.
What’s your favourite Arab meals spot within the metropolis? Within the guide you point out Sahara Cafe, Saffron Cafe, Rayyan Restaurant & Bakery, Canal Bistro, and Al Basha.
You’re attempting to get me in bother. I’ve to stay impartial on this one. The guide paperwork the breadth of Arab eating places within the area. I’m grateful that there are actually greater than a dozen of them from which to decide on.
You’re a formidable particular person—really a renaissance man: a classically skilled opera singer and a Fulbright scholar. Inform me extra!
Thanks. Perhaps I simply have a tough time deciding what to do with my life. All through my 20s, as I used to be coaching to be an expert historian and non secular research scholar, I continued to carry out as a tenor in classical concert events and opera scenes. What I liked about making the movie was that it allowed me to make use of no matter ability I’ve as a performer to attach viewers with a group about which I deeply care. I believe it’s truthful to say that almost all professors don’t do tv and movie work, but it surely’s a lot simpler when you have been on stage since childhood.
You discuss so fondly of your Arab grandmother. What’s your favourite reminiscence of her?
My granny, as I known as her, would put me within the again seat of her purple Ford LTD and take me foraging alongside gravel roads in Southern Illinois for wild grape leaves. Solely probably the most tender leaves have been acceptable. I hated all of the chiggers and ticks I acquired, however I felt abundantly liked throughout these adventures. Not simply by her but additionally by the land, which gifted us the uncooked supplies we wanted to maintain our culinary traditions alive. After returning house, I might sit together with her for hours within the kitchen as she stuffed these grape leaves with meat and rice or made numerous salads, at all times with a number of parsley. She insisted on tossing the salad by hand, and the copious quantities of olive oil she utilized in her dressing made the gold bracelets put round her wrists in Damascus sparkle.
What’s your subsequent huge undertaking?
So many individuals and totally different items of IU and IUPUI helped to make the guide and the movie potential, and I need to guarantee that they’ve as huge influence as they’ll have. I hope to have statewide screenings and group conversations on the movie, and to contain my college students in that work. I may also cut up up the documentary into quick clips and use these clips to write down lesson plans and actions for Ok–12 Indiana school rooms. Then, I’ll supply academics the possibility to review tips on how to use these assets of their school rooms. As well as, I’m going to proceed to analysis the historical past of Arab America, realizing there’s a lot left to find.
