Main Street USA -Gallup, New Mexico

Gallup, New Mexico is crossed by the old US Route 66, once known as the Main Street of America, that so many immigrants travelled on their way far West.

Gallup is the city where the arts and crafts of the Navajo people, and several other neighbouring Native American tribes, first reach the markets of the wider world.

What happens when a community of Palestinian traders, most of them from a single extended family, from a single village midway between Ramallah and Jericho, become major players in both the local and global market for Native American art and craftwork? And what happens when Palestinian and Navajo traditions intertwine in a single family? The answers: there are tensions and rivalries and an, in many ways typically, imperfect but functioning American unity.

We interview Nashat Khalaf, who with his brothers pioneered the Palestinians to Gallup pipeline, and Saleh Awad another successful Palestinian trader. They built their fortune by transforming the Native American arts trade into a bigger mass produced industry. This upset many people starting with Larry Anderson, a Navajo medicine man and legislator, a tribal leader and, frequently, a cultural ambassador. 

Main Street USA meets a special family. Mustafa and Annabelle are the only Palestinian-Navajo couple in the city. We investigate how Palestinians and Navajos are learning about living, loving, and working together.

This episode of Main Street USA will be aired from Monday 10 September at the following times GMT:

Monday 10 September (0530)
Tuesday 11 September (1430)
Wednesday 12 September (0130, 1130)
Thursday 13 September (0730, 1930)
Friday 14 September (1630)
Saturday 15 September (1330)
Sunday 16 September (0300, 2030)

Watch Part One here:

Watch Part Two here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNwC3OsL7GA

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