Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Spring 2004
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring 2004, pp. 139-41.
Abstract
This remarkable ethnographic study of the Syrian-Lebanese in North Dakota is unique. The data and information are original, never mind that the voices heard are nearly those of the early settlers, certainly those of their children. The authors use the records of the late 1930s (early 1940s) Federal Writers Projects and the Works Progress Administration to understand the reasons for Arab migration to North Dakota and the Great Plains, their employment practices, life styles (marriage patterns, culinary habits), and religious traditions, their distribution, settlements, institutions (or lack thereof), and finally their near total assimilation.
If it were homesteading that attracted many Syrians to the Midwest, it was peddling that made them successful Homesteading also explains why more Lebanese than Syrians settled there. Syrians from Mt. Lebanon came from smaller, rural communities and farmed. Those from Syria proper were often from Damascus and Aleppo, established cities.
An old Arab proverb states "Trade takes a man far" and if Syrians do anything well it is buying and selling. An entire economic chain developed among them wherein Syrian wholesalers in the Northeast supplied "peddlers" with goods that they brought to needy customers throughout the West. To facilitate economic success, the community published a Syrian Business Directory (1908), which included the names and addresses of every Syrian enterprise in the United States. Peddling Syrians is not a stereotype. It was their signature occupation.
Another distinguishing characteristic of this book is its inclusion and respect for the early, oft-ignored Arab Muslim settlers. If anything, emphasis has always been on the Christian emigrants (of all denominations and rites) who settled in large Northeastern cities. Today's Arab-American scholarship, of course, can't and doesn't overlook Muslims, but to see how the Syrian Muslims at the turn of the century accommodated rural American society (and vice versa) is an eye-opener. Many scholars claim that the first Mosque in the United States was in Ross, North Dakota.
Comments
Copyright 2004 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln