Access to valuable information and resources about Middle Eastern
	Americans is now available online via Middle Eastern American Resources 
	Online (MEARO), the first interactive resource database on Middle 
	Eastern Americans. MEARO, which can be found on the web at mearo.org, 
	is a joint project of the UCLA Middle Eastern American Program based 
	at the Center for Near Eastern Studies and the Middle East and Middle 
	Eastern American Center at the Graduate Center, City University of 
	New York (CUNY). 
	
	MEARO provides students, scholars, and the interested public with 
	easy access to numerous multimedia resources. At the outset, these 
	include books, articles, films and websites; in the near future the 
	database will incorporate media channels, almanacs and statistical 
	profiles, INS data, contact information for organizations and 
	associations, and archives on Americans who trace their ancestry 
	to the Middle East. 
	
	The migration and settlement of Middle Eastern populations in the US,
	extending back for more than a century, has resulted in a voluminous 
	output of published works on various Middle Eastern groups, from early 
	histories of the first contacts with America to the current outpouring 
	of prose and poetry by Middle Eastern American authors. Moreover, there 
	are thousands of academic studies available across the disciplines about
	this versatile, entrepreneurial and socially mobile population suddenly 
	thrust into the focus of public attention by global events.
	
	MEARO thus serves an immediate need as a gateway to resources for 
	teaching and research across the US. This initiative and the prospects 
	for Middle Eastern American Studies in academia, intersecting with ethnic, 
	international, transnational and globalization studies, will be the 
	subject of a multi-year Thematic Conversation entitled Crossing Borders:
	The Case for Middle Eastern American Studies, to be held at the annual 
	meetings of the Middle East Studies Association starting in 2001.
	
	The creators of MEARO envision a steady growth and diversification of the 
	database, providing users with critical information and current scholarship, 
	including the online publication of important findings emanating from UCLA 
	and CUNY-sponsored research projects. For additional information, consult 
	the MEARO website (mearo.org) or contact MEARO's co-directors, Jonathan 
	Friedlander at UCLA (310.206.8631) and Mehdi Bozorgmehr at 
	CUNY (212.817.7572).