HR 530

                                                  PRINTER'S NO.   3420
             THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
      HOUSE RESOLUTION
         No. 530
                                            Session of
                                              2026
INTRODUCED BY RABB, KHAN, HOHENSTEIN, WAXMAN, RIVERA, MAYES,
   VENKAT, FRANKEL, McNEILL, SANCHEZ, PASHINSKI AND CEPEDA-
   FREYTIZ, MAY 14, 2026
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON TOURISM, RECREATION AND ECONOMIC
   DEVELOPMENT, MAY 20, 2026
                             A RESOLUTION
1 Recognizing the month of April 2026 as "National Arab American
2    Heritage Month" in Pennsylvania.
3    WHEREAS, Arab Americans have been present in this
4 Commonwealth for over 150 years, with a notable and growing
5 community established since the late 19th century; and
6    WHEREAS, This Commonwealth is home to one of the 12 largest
7 Arab-American populations in the United States; and
8    WHEREAS, The Arab American Institute estimates that more than
9 180,000 Arab Americans are living in Pennsylvania and that Arab
10 Americans in Pennsylvania reside in all 18 congressional
11 districts; and
12    WHEREAS, The population in Pennsylvania who identified as
13 Arab American on the United States Census grew nearly 73%
14 between 2000 and 2022; and
15    WHEREAS, The Arab American Development Corporation estimates
16 30,000 to 50,000 Arab Americans live in the greater Philadelphia
17 area; and
1WHEREAS, The Lehigh Valley, particularly Allentown and
2 Easton, has a high concentration of Arab Americans and
3 significant populations in Allegheny County; and
4WHEREAS, Several notable Arab Americans have ties to this
5 Commonwealth, including F. Murray Abraham, the first person of
6 Arab descent to have won an Academy Award for Best Actor; Samuel
7 Hazo, a poet, playwright and fiction novelist, named the State
8 Poet of Pennsylvania in 1993, who is Lebanese-American; and
9 Richard Kotite, who coached the Philadelphia Eagles from 1991 to
10 1994, and was one of the earliest Arab-American head coaches in
11 the National Football League; and
12WHEREAS, Arab Americans have been making valuable
13 contributions to virtually every aspect of our shared civic life
14 such as medicine, law, business, education, technology, public
15 service, culture and community organizing; and
16WHEREAS, Arab Americans have brought to this Commonwealth
17 their diverse family structures, commitment to collective
18 responsibility, rich cultural traditions and pluralistic
19 expressions of faith and philosophy that strengthen our
20 Commonwealth; and
21WHEREAS, The presence and participation of Arab Americans in
22 Pennsylvania embodies the possibility of a multiracial democracy
23 where people of different origins, faiths and traditions build
24 power together across lines of difference, refusing the false
25 hierarchies and divisions that ethnocentrism seeks to impose;
26 and
27WHEREAS, Arab Americans from Pennsylvania have served in the
28 United States Armed Forces and in countless other forms of civic
29 contribution and struggle, asserting their full belonging and
30 stake in the democratic project; and
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1      WHEREAS, Arab Americans have advanced the entrepreneurial and
2 cooperative traditions that create economic dignity and shared
3 prosperity; and
4      WHEREAS, The celebration of Arab-American heritage serves as
5 an explicit assertion that all people, regardless of origin or
6 creed, possess equal dignity and deserve full participation in
7 our political, economic and cultural life; and
8      WHEREAS, Arab Americans continue to face discrimination,
9 bias, harmful stereotyping and racialization that seeks to
10 render them foreign, threatening or less-than-American; and
11      WHEREAS, Confronting anti-Arab bias, Islamophobia and all
12 forms of ethnocentric ideology is essential to building a
13 Commonwealth where dignity is not contingent on assimilation,
14 where difference is not treated as disloyalty and where safety
15 and belonging are guaranteed to all; and
16      WHEREAS, A genuine multiracial democracy requires us to
17 actively dismantle the structures and narratives that rank human
18 beings by origin, religion or ethnicity, and to construct
19 instead a Commonwealth built on principles of radical equality
20 and mutual respect; and
21      WHEREAS, The contributions, resilience and self-determination
22 of Arab Americans help us envision and build a society where
23 every individual and community has the power to shape the
24 conditions of their own life; and
25      WHEREAS, In 2017, Arab America established "National Arab
26 American Heritage Month," and in 2021, the White House first
27 recognized the celebration of "National Arab American Heritage
28 Month" in a letter to the Arab America Foundation; therefore be
29 it
30      RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives recognize the
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1 month of April 2026 as "National Arab American Heritage Month"
2 in Pennsylvania; and be it further
3    RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives honor Arab-
4 American heritage not as an act of tolerance, but as recognition
5 of Arab Americans' integral role in building a multiracial
6 democracy that transcends ethnocentric division and asserts the
7 equal dignity and full citizenship of all people; and be it
8 further
9    RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives encourage all
10 residents to participate in celebrating this heritage and in the
11 ongoing work of creating a Commonwealth where no community is
12 diminished, where power is shared across all people and where
13 democracy becomes real.
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