Arab museum’s founding director to receive Women’s Hall of Fame honor
Dr. Anan Ameri
Andrea Blum
Press and Guide
The Arab American National Museum’s founding director, Dr. Anan Ameri, has been selected for induction into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.
Ameri is one of nine women chosen, from among more than 110 nominees, to receive the honor as a member of the 33rd class of the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, part of the Michigan Women’s Historical Center in Lansing.
The Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame Awards Dinner & Induction Ceremony takes place Oct. 19 at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center in East Lansing.
A Palestinian born in Damascus, Syria, and raised in Jordan, Ameri is renowned for her work as a scholar, author, activist and community organizer. Since arriving in the United States in 1974, she has served as founding director at two national organizations: the Palestine Aid Society of America, focusing on empowering women in refugee camps in Lebanon and Palestine; and AANM, the only museum that documents, preserves and presents the history, culture and contributions of Arab Americans. She joined ACCESS, the museum’s parent organization, in 1997 to run its growing Cultural Arts program, the predecessor of AANM.
In her role as AANM director, Ameri and her team traveled across the United States seeking stories and artifacts from a wide range of Arab Americans. The Museum opened May 5, 2005, to international acclaim and quickly became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Under her guidance, AANM won the Coming Up Taller Award in 2008 from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities for exemplary youth after-school programs, and in 2013, following a multiple-year process, the museum earned accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, a widely respected industry seal of approval and excellence.
Ameri retired from the Museum in May 2013. A longtime Detroit resident, she currently lives in Ann Arbor.
During her directorial tenure, Ameri became influential outside the Museum walls. She is a founding member of the U.S. arm of the international Immigration Sites of Conscience coalition as well as a founding executive committee member of the Cultural Alliance of Southeast Michigan. She also serves as member of the American Association of Museums’ Global Track Advisory Council.
Ameri has long been a sought-after speaker on Arab and Muslim Americans, sharing her personal expertise and the Museum’s experiences with audiences in the U.S., the Arab World and in nations including Japan and Brazil.
As a researcher and curator, she created the oral-history project “Arab Americans and the Automobile: Voices from the Factory;” and the oral history project/exhibition “In Times of War: Her Untold Story,” which was one of the AANM’s earliest temporary shows.
As an author, Ameri has published titles including “Telling Our Story: The Arab American National Museum” (2007, AANM); “Arab Americans in Detroit: A Pictorial History” with co-author Yvonne Lockwood (2001, Arcadia); and “Etching Our Own Image: Voices from the Arab American Art Movement,” co-edited with Holly Arida (2007, Cambridge Scholars Press) as well as serving as a contributing author and co-editor of “The Arab American Encyclopedia” (2000, UXL) and the school textbook co-edited with Holly Arida, “Daily Life of Arab Americans in the 21st Century”(2011, Greenwood Press).