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From the Holy Land to the New World and Back : Transnational Arab Feminism in the Early Twentieth Century

Year 2013, Issue: 38, 31 - 47, 01.10.2013

Abstract

In his most famous work, The Syrians in America 1924 , historian Philip Khuri Hitti, expert in Islamic Studies, and pioneer of the academic study of Semitic languages and Arab culture in the United States, wrote: “Syria has always been an inhospitable place to live in and a splendid place to leave” 49 . Through this humorous note, he expressed the dilemma faced by many his fellow citizens, who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, reluctantly made the decision to flee their homeland. A Maronite Syrian Christian, Hitti was in fact recounting the story of the Christian communities who lived under the yoke of Ottoman imperialism. Inhospitality, at the time, resulted partly from the inferior status that such Christians had been forced to endure by the Ottoman governors since the sixteenth century. However, in the first decades of the twentieth century, geopolitical frictions were also compelling many people in the Near East to venture abroad. The Syrian provinces of the empire were indeed chronically beleaguered by religious strife, much of which European nations instigated. Whereas the French vied for control of the Catholic congregations and the Maronites in particular, the British supported the Druze community.

References

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Year 2013, Issue: 38, 31 - 47, 01.10.2013

Abstract

References

  • Anthias, Floya and Nira Yuval-Davis. “Women and the Nation-State.” Nationalism. Eds. John Hutchison and Anthony D. Smith. 312–16. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994. Print.
  • Bourjaily, Vance. Confessions of a Spent Youth. New York: Dial, 1960. Print. Gibran, Khalil. Spirits Rebellious. 1908. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 2007. Print.
  • Gualtieri, Sarah. “Gendering the Chain Migration Thesis: Women and Syrian Transatlantic Migration, 1878–1924.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24.1 (2004): 69–81. Print.
  • Hanania, Ray. Arabs of Chicagoland. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. Print.
  • Hijab, Nadia. “Islam, Social Change, and the Reality of Arab Women’s Lives.” Islam, Gender And Social Change. Eds. Yvonne Yazbek Haddad and John L. Esposito. 40–54. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
  • Hitti, Philip Khuri. The Syrians in America. 1924. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005. Print.
  • Jacobs, Matthew F. Imagining the Middle East: The Building of an American Foreign Policy, 1918–1967. Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina P., 2011. Print.
  • Khater, Akram F. Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870-1920. Berkeley: U. of California P. E-Books Collection, 2001. Web. 14 Jun. 2013.
  • McIrvin Abu-Laban, Sharon. “The Coexistence of Cohorts: Identity and Adaptation among Arab American Muslims.” Arab Americans: Continuity and Change. Eds. Baha Abu-Laban and Michael W. Suleiman. 45–64. Belmont, MA: AAUG, 1989. Print.
  • Naff, Alixa. “Arabs.” Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Ed. Stephan Therstorm. 126-29. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1981. Print.
  • -----. “New York: The Mother Colony.” A Community of Many Worlds: ArabAmericans in New York City. Eds. Kathleen Benson and Philip M. Kayal. 3–10. Syracuse: Museum of the City of New York/Syracuse UP, 2002. Print.
  • Nasr, Najwa. “Early Lebanese Immigrant Women to the USA.” ArNetAmerican Resources on the Net. Liverpool: John Moores U. Web. 24 Jun. 2013.
  • Oren, Michael B. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2007. Print.
  • Prevost, Elizabeth. “Introduction: Missionary Feminism.” Oxford UP. Web. 24 Jun. 2013.
  • Qasim, Amin. The Liberation of Women. 1899. Cairo: American U. in Cairo Press, 2000. Print.
  • Shain, Yossi. Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the US and their Homelands. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.
  • Shakir, Evelyn. Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1997. Print.
  • Stookey, Robert W. “The Holy Land: the American Experience.” Middle East Journal 30 (1976): 351–68. Print.
  • Watson, Bruce. Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream. New York: Viking Publishers, 2005. Print.
  • Younis, Adele L. The Coming of the Arabic-Speaking People to the United States. New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1995. Print.
  • Zeidan, Joseph. Arab Women Novelists: The Formative Years and Beyond. Albany: State U. of New York P., 1995. Print.
  • Ziadat, Adel A. Western Science in the Arab World: The Impact of Darwinism 1860–1930. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Print.
There are 22 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Dominique Cadinot This is me

Publication Date October 1, 2013
Published in Issue Year 2013 Issue: 38

Cite

MLA Cadinot, Dominique. “From the Holy Land to the New World and Back : Transnational Arab Feminism in the Early Twentieth Century”. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, no. 38, 2013, pp. 31-47.

JAST - Journal of American Studies of Turkey