The several thousand items contained in the Middle Eastern Americana collection document the substantial and significant presence of the Middle East in the annals of American popular culture. Over the course of more than 150 years and well into the present public interest in the Middle East has engendered a consumer appetite for a material culture that ranges from popular fiction and cinema to tobacco and coffee. In all its parts and subsets this diverse and multifaceted collection is geared for academic research and scholarly exploration of issues related to the representation of the Middle East in various popular culture domains including literature, cinema, music, photography, graphics and visual art, the performing arts, and entertainment.

Jonathan Friedlander, former assistant director of the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, began collecting this wide array of print, audio visual, and electronic materials and ephemera in the early 1970s. His interest in the commercialization and wide dissemination and marketing of products and services bearing Middle Eastern iconography, images and brand names has yielded several publications, exhibitions, videographs, websites, and most importantly a sizable collection of primary sources including his own photography of parades and festivals, jazz musicians, belly dancers, Arabian horses and their trainers and caretakers, and architectural styles deemed Moorish, ancient Egyptian and Assyrian, Saharan, and otherwise inspired by the Arabian Nights and seen across America.

33 boxes (16.5 linear feet) 21 oversize boxes

Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.