Dorrah Alharbi, a history graduate of the University of Illinois Chicago, founded The Little Palestine Project to collect and archive stories from immigrants of Arab origin who settled in the Chicago metropolitan area, particularly in the southwest suburban communities collectively known as “Little Palestine.”

The project uses personal objects brought by immigrants during their journeys to the United States as entry points into broader conversations about migration, identity and community formation. Participants are invited to share items that hold personal or cultural significance, ranging from photographs and clothing to official documents and family heirlooms.

“The Little Palestine Project is an object-based oral history initiative,” Alharbi said. “I ask people who have immigrated from any Arab country what items they decided to bring with them on their journey here to Chicago.”

Although Alharbi is Iraqi American, she said the initiative was inspired by the multicultural Arab character of the neighborhood where she lives, which is home to Palestinians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Yemenis and other Arab communities.

The effort comes amid heightened national attention on immigration and identity issues in the United States. Alharbi said documenting personal histories has become increasingly important to improve public understanding of Arab American communities and preserve stories that are often absent from mainstream historical narratives.

Her own family immigrated from Iraq during the 1990s and initially settled on Chicago’s North Side before relocating to the southwest suburbs, where Arab and Palestinian populations have grown significantly over recent decades.

Communities including Bridgeview, Palos Hills and Orland Park have become important centers of Arab American life in the Chicago area. Bridgeview, in particular, was formally designated as “Little Palestine” earlier this year with decorative signage recognizing the area’s cultural heritage.

Alharbi said early efforts to recruit participants were challenging, with some local business owners declining to display promotional materials for the project. She continued outreach efforts across the community to encourage participation and build trust among families willing to share their experiences.

Drawing on her training in art history, Alharbi focuses on material culture as a way of uncovering personal and collective histories. She said physical objects often provide a more accessible and comfortable starting point for conversations about migration, identity and belonging.

The project has documented 15 stories to date. Collected items include family photographs, key chains, wedding memorabilia, immigration documents, traditional clothing, embroidery and a driver’s license issued in Palestine in 1921.

Images and stories from the collection are currently featured through the project’s social media platform, and Alharbi said she plans to launch a bilingual website to make the archive more accessible to a wider audience.

“We’re able to uncover more and more history that isn’t really narrativized,” Alharbi said.

For centuries, paan occupied a central place in social, cultural and ceremonial life across the Indian subcontinent, serving as a symbol of hospitality, refinement and elite status.

Yet by the early 20th century, the practice had been increasingly recast by colonial authorities as an unsanitary habit, reflecting broader changes in social norms under British rule.Historical paintings, travel accounts and literary sources suggest that paan was once deeply embedded in the etiquette of royal courts and elite households.

Its consumption was associated not merely with personal enjoyment but with rituals of hospitality, conversation and social interaction.Among the visual records illustrating this tradition is an 18th-century portrait attributed to artist Dip Chand depicting an East India Company official, believed to be William Fullerton.

Alongside symbols of elite leisure such as a hookah, attendants and richly decorated furnishings, the painting prominently features a paandaan, or betel box, a spittoon and containers likely holding ingredients used in preparing paan.The arrangement of these objects indicates that paan consumption formed part of accepted courtly etiquette.

The inclusion of a spittoon within the composition also reflects how the physical aspects of chewing paan were accommodated within established norms of decorum.Similar motifs appear in depictions of British official David Ochterlony at the Mughal court in Delhi. In these works, paan-related objects occupy the same visual space as performances, carpets and hookahs, emphasizing their place within a broader culture of leisure and refinement.

Other paintings from the Mughal and regional courts similarly portray paan as an integral component of social life. In scenes of aristocratic gatherings, paan paraphernalia appear alongside writing instruments, floral arrangements and ceremonial objects, suggesting that hospitality, intellectual exchange and sensory pleasure were closely intertwined.Historical evidence also links paan to romance and personal relationships.

A 16th-century Mughal illustration from the Tuti-nama manuscript tradition includes prepared paan within a scene depicting anticipation of a romantic encounter. Classical Indian texts such as the Kamasutra similarly identify the offering of paan as part of courtship rituals and intimate social interactions.

European visitors to India frequently encountered these customs and recorded their observations. In the early 17th century, English diplomat Thomas Roe described receiving paan directly from Mughal Emperor Jahangir’s personal betel box, interpreting the gesture as a mark of exceptional honor and favor.

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, however, European descriptions increasingly shifted from participation and curiosity toward documentation and classification.British writer and illustrator James Forbes, for example, recorded detailed observations of the betel plant and areca nut while also describing the social customs surrounding paan consumption.

He noted that many Indians carried paan much as Europeans carried tobacco and observed that it was routinely offered to guests as a sign of hospitality.Forbes also described the preparation of ceremonial paan, which combined sliced areca nut, cardamom and lime folded within a betel leaf and often secured with a clove.

According to his account, the offering of paan at the conclusion of a visit sometimes functioned as a subtle signal that social proceedings were drawing to a close.As colonial rule expanded, representations of paan increasingly reflected a desire to catalogue Indian customs through an ethnographic lens. Rather than appearing within scenes of social interaction and courtly exchange, paan began to be depicted as an isolated cultural practice.

Works such as Charles D’Oyly’s portrayal of a high-status Indian chewing paan focus attention on the individual and the associated objects rather than on the social environment in which the practice traditionally occurred. Images of paan vendors similarly emphasized occupation and commerce rather than hospitality or ceremonial exchange.

This shift reflected a broader colonial tendency to classify and document Indian society through categories that often detached customs from their historical and cultural contexts.The history of paan itself reveals extensive cultural connections across South and Southeast Asia.

The term “paan” is derived from the Sanskrit word parṇa, meaning leaf, while another Sanskrit term, tāmbūla, entered Persian and Arabic usage through centuries of cultural exchange.The areca nut, commonly known as supari, also carries linguistic traces of regional adaptation and trade.

Various forms of the word appeared across South Asia, while European colonial powers adopted local terminology as they encountered the practice.Paan was cultivated and consumed across a vast geographic region. Historical sources indicate that it carried distinct meanings in different societies, ranging from expressions of apology in the Malay world to digestive and medicinal uses in Sri Lanka.

Classical Indian texts recommended betel consumption after meals and associated it with various therapeutic benefits.Despite this rich cultural history, colonial attitudes increasingly focused on questions of sanitation and bodily discipline. As British administrative institutions expanded during the 19th century, new standards of hygiene and public conduct reshaped perceptions of practices that had long been socially accepted.

The decline of princely courts also weakened patronage networks that had supported the production of ornate paandaans and spittoons. Meanwhile, colonial offices and administrative spaces left little room for customs associated with public chewing and spitting.

As a result, the material culture surrounding paan gradually disappeared from many formal public settings. Although consumption continued in homes and informal environments, its visibility declined within spaces governed by colonial standards of propriety.English novelist and essayist E.M. Forster observed this transformation in a 1923 essay, contrasting the curiosity shown by early European visitors with the disdain later exhibited by many Anglo-Indians.

Forster described paan as a social ritual that facilitated interaction and hospitality, praising the skill involved in its preparation and presentation.By then, however, paan had largely ceased to function as a visible symbol of elite sociability in the way it had during the Mughal and early colonial periods.Paintings from the late 18th and early 19th centuries provide a record of that transition.

They show how an object once associated with honor, refinement and hospitality gradually became redefined through colonial frameworks that emphasized classification, regulation and hygiene. In the process, a practice deeply woven into the social fabric of South Asian life was increasingly reduced to a cultural curiosity rather than understood as part of a sophisticated tradition of etiquette and human interaction.