Zapotec

This is the thirtieth in Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our thirtieth pathbreaker is Laura Nader, a famed Lebanese American anthropologist, and not quite incidentally, sister of a famed Lebanese American public interest advocate, Ralph Nader. As Arab America contributing writer John Mason, describes, not only did their father emigrate to the U.S. for political reasons, giving all of his children a strong sense of “the other,” but it was her younger brother, Ralph, who first recommended that Laura study anthropology at university. She has since become a champion of justice for oppressed peoples around the world.