Between Arab and White

Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora

Sarah Gualtieri

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780520255340
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520943469
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This multifaceted study of Syrian immigration to the United States places Syrians— and Arabs more generally—at the center of discussions about race and racial formation from which they have long been marginalized. Between Arab and White focuses on the first wave of Arab immigration and settlement in the United States in the years before World War II, but also continues the story up to the present. It presents an original analysis of the ways in which people mainly from current day Lebanon and Syria—the largest group of Arabic-speaking immigrants before World War II—came to view themselves in racial terms and position themselves within racial hierarchies as part of a broader process of ethnic identity formation.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. From Internal to International Migration
• 2. Claiming Whiteness: Syrians and Naturalization Law
• 3. Nation and Migration: Emergent Arabism and Diasporic Nationalism
• 4. The Lynching of Nola Romey: Syrian Racial Inbetweenness in the Jim Crow South
• 5. Marriage and Respectability in the Era of Immigration Restriction
• Conclusion
• Epilogue: Becoming Arab American
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index