Minority Group, Reading Reaction 4

Minority Group, Reading Reaction 4

Questions to Consider

Since 9/11, the media seem to have newly discovered the Arab-American population in the United States, even though this group has been a signifi- cant presence in this country for almost one hundred and fifty years. This article maps Arab migration to the United States and the process of ”Ameri- canization” that this group, like almost all immigrant groups to this coun- try, has experienced. In this article, Michael Suleiman suggests that an ambiguous racial status and racism were used to deny Arab immigrants of citizenship. How and why did this happen?

Introduction

In 1977, William E. Leuchtenburg, the prominent American historian, remarked, “From the perspective of the American historian, the most striking aspect of the relationship between Arab and American cultures is that, to Americans, the Arabs are

From “The Arab Immigrant Experience,” by Michael Suleiman as it appears in Arabs in Amer- ica: Building a New Future, edited by Michael Suleiman. Reprinted by permission of Temple University Press. Copyright © 1999 by Temple University. All rights reserved.

a people who have lived outside of history.”l Professor Leuchtenburg could have just as accurately made the same observation about Arabs in America.

Ignorance about Arab Americans among North Americans at large means that, before looking at more detailed accounts of the Arab-American experience, we may benefit from a quick overview of Arab immigration to North America and what the Arab- American communities here have been like.

There have been two major waves of Arab immigration to North America. The first lasted from the 1870s to World War II and the second from World War II to the

474 Michael W. Suleiman