A never-before-told story of Arab migration to North America, one that begins in a mountain village in Lebanon's Qadisha Valley and travels to the tomato fields of rural Ontario, will take shape in the archives of the Arab American National Museum. AANM has named Dr. Michael Ferguson, assistant professor of history at Concordia University in Montreal, the recipient of the 2026 Dr. Tareq A. Ramadan Research Grant.

The grant will bring Ferguson to Dearborn for a weeklong research residency, where he will draw on AANM's community cookbooks and archival collections to complete "Valley of Saints, Fields of Tomatoes: The Lebanese Community of Leamington, Ontario," a book project tracing how an entire Lebanese village rebuilt itself in one of Canada's most intensive agricultural regions. His selection reflects the grant's purpose: putting the nation's largest Arab American archival collections to work in scholarship that expands what we know about Arab life across the diaspora.

The $1,000 travel grant supports researchers who visit AANM to conduct research using the Museum Collection and the Russell J. Ebeid Library & Resource Center. It is made possible through the generosity of Dr. Tareq A. Ramadan, an anthropologist, historic preservationist, and interdisciplinary adjunct professor of anthropology and Near Eastern studies at Wayne State University and Henry Ford College. A committee of AANM staff and Dr. Ramadan selects recipients.

The Winning Project

Ferguson's project, "Valley of Saints, Fields of Tomatoes: The Lebanese Community of Leamington, Ontario," traces the story of a farming community with roots in a single Lebanese village.

Beginning in the 1950s, laborers from Tourza, a village in Lebanon's Qadisha valley, arrived in Leamington, Ontario, to pick and process crops in one of rural Canada's most intensive agricultural regions. As Lebanon fractured during its civil war two decades later, these now established migrants came together to build the Lebanese Club of Leamington, followed by a shrine and a church. Ferguson argues that by 1990, Tourza had effectively moved to Leamington, which became the center of a diasporic web reaching Detroit, Venezuela, Miami, and Australia.

Because food sits at the heart of Lebanese life and agricultural labor defines Leamington, Ferguson approaches this history through foodways, using interviews and archival records to tell the story as both microhistory and global history.

Research at AANM

During a weeklong residency at the museum, Ferguson will draw on two of AANM's research holdings.

In the Community Cookbook Collection, he will study mid-20th-century Lebanese recipes to better understand two Easter dishes that community members in Leamington describe as unique to their town: makhlouto and kibbet al-raheb.

In the Michael W. Suleiman Collection, he will examine documents on Lebanese and Arab community organizations, churches, and fundraising activities across North America. These materials will help place the Leamington community in a broader diasporic context.
Ferguson's research will result in an academic monograph, along with academic presentations and public lectures in the Detroit-Windsor area.

About the Grant and AANM's Research Collections

The Dr. Tareq A. Ramadan Research Grant is awarded annually to a graduate student, junior faculty member, or independent researcher with a clearly defined project that will prominently feature AANM materials.

AANM, the only institution of its kind in the United States, documents, preserves, and presents the history, culture, and contributions of Arab Americans, and holds one of the largest Arab American archival collections in the nation. The Russell J. Ebeid Library & Resource Center houses more than 4,000 books by and about Arab Americans, and the Museum Collection includes more than 8,000 objects and photographs and over 225 linear feet of archival materials.

To learn more about resources available at AANM’s library, visit arabamericanmuseum.org/learn/collections-research.