2024 Inaugural Celebration
This year, CSUSB joins the national celebration of Arab American Heritage Month, to celebrate and acknowledge the achievements of Arab Americans across the country. As an inclusive practice, CSUSB also celebrates Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month during April to account for the semester's end. In collaboration with the APIDA Heritage Month committee, this year’s theme centers around Uplifting Identities and Sharing Our History, exploring the intersectionality of identities and the Arab cultural influence throughout the world, including its influence on Latin/Hispanic culture and language, its contributions to astronomical discoveries, and a crowd favorite, the cuisine.
From the United States Agency for International Development
In 2021, after years of advocacy by the Arab American community, President Biden recognized April as National Arab American History Month – marking the first such acknowledgement by an American president. “The Arab American community is essential to the fabric of our Nation,” President Biden wrote at the time. “It exemplifies so much of what our country stands for: hard work, resilience, compassion, and generosity.”
An estimated 3.7 million Americans have Arab roots, with ancestries tracing from 22 countries across the Middle East and North Africa. The community is as old as America itself. Arab Americans are Nobel Prize winners, philosophers, poets, doctors, actors, entrepreneurs, elected representatives, and more. And of course, they are humanitarians – both across the country, where Arab Americans have distinguished themselves as champions for justice and defenders of human rights, and here at USAID and throughout the federal government, where 12 percent of public servants identify as Arab American.