Arab Migration To The Americas

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Arab Americans were at the center of the 2024 United States presidential election. Their vote, particularly in the swing state of Michigan, was prized by both Democrats and Republicans. But how did that come to be? This graduate seminar course answers this question—and many more. Arabic-speaking people began migrating out of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, escaping dire economic and political crises. They mostly came from what are now the states of Syria and Lebanon, hailing from Maronite, Orthodox, Muslim, Druze, and Jewish communities, among others. Their largest populations settled in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States, but we also find Arabs in countries like Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, and Chile. This course investigates this fascinating—and often overlooked—historical process. It starts with a discussion on the fields of migration and diaspora studies. From there, it moves to the Ottoman Empire, analyzing the world that Arab migrants left behind. The remaining weeks focus on some of the crucial features of this phenomenon, including race, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion. As a graduate-level course, we will pay particular attention to historiography and methodology. We will read about Arab communities in several different countries on the continent. One of them is Brazil, where around ten percent of Congress descends from Lebanese migrants. Chile is another important case. It is where the Palestinian community is the most expressive, not just in politics but also in sports—note that their main soccer team is called Club Palestino. In Colombia, the most famous Arab descendant is Shakira, who even sings in Arabic in “Ojos Así.” Migration is by nature a transnational and transregional phenomenon. This means that we must leave behind the rigid boundaries of the discipline of history to study it effectively. This is a course on the histories of the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States—all at the same time. It emphasizes the individuals who migrated and the communities that they formed abroad.