Jan. 21, 2025

Hello Everyone

Show Notes
Transcript

Today we will show this video and talk about it.
Randa A. Kayyali from the Elliott School for International Affairs at George Washington University spoke about the intersections of religion and race for immigrants in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2021689944/
Regards
Dr.Afshan Hashmi
www.afshanhashmi.com
www.drafshanhashmi.com

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This program is designed to provide general information with regards

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Books, PD, products, science, fashion and glam talk From Bollywood

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to Hollywood. It's Meet and greet with doctor Afshan Hashmi

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right here on K FORURHD radio and Talk for TV.

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And here's your host, international speaker, educator, award winning entrepreneur

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and best selling author, doctor Afshan Hashmi.

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Hello everyone, this is your loving host and best selling

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author and radio personality, Doctor Rakshan Hashmi life from her

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studio in Rockville, Maryland. And today, folks, I will be

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talking about a movie which I saw on Library of

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Congress website and that movie is very good and I

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will see we will see the movie together and then

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I will give my thoughts on that. But before I start,

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these are my two books. The first one is The

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Modern Movele Mentality New Strategies to succeed in India and

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the global marketplace. And this book is the best seller.

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And also this book was hot number one new release

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on Amazon. And this one is the Outbreak of a

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Monstrous Infection and this is Amazon bestseller. And I want

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a movie to be made. And also I want a

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movie to be made of these two books. A documentary

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for this one, and we or web series for this one.

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And also this show is syndicated worldwide two three hundred

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million listeners. So please give me a sponsorship because this

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brings food to the table. And also these sale of

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these books bring food to the table. And my husband

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is very sick. He's on ventilator, so please pray for

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him that he becomes Okay. So now folks, you know

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now I will be talking about that movie. So Rebel,

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my sound engineer will play the movie.

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From the Library of Congress in Washington, d C.

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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the African

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and Middle East Division of the Library of Congress and

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to our noontime lecture series. With today's program entitled Classified

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as White, Historical Insights into the racial classification of Americans

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of African and Middle East dissent I'm John Wicks, head

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of the Nearest Section and Turkish specialists on behalf of

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all my colleagues, in particular doctor Mary Jane Deep, Chief

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of the Division. I'd like to extend a very warm

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welcome to everyone, and before we get started, we always

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like to give you a little overview of the division

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and the resources and the hopes that you'll come back

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and use the collections for your research. The Division is

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comprised of three sections that build and serve the collections

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to researchers from around the world. We cover seventy five

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countries and more than two dozen languages. The Africa section

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includes the countries of all sup Sahara Africa. The hebrewk

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section is responsible for Judaica and Hebrewka worldwide, and the

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Near East section covers all of the Arab countries, including

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North Africa, Turkey, Turkic, Central Asian, Iran, Afghanistan, and the

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Muslims of Western China, Russia, the Balkans and the peoples

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of the Caucases, as well as Armenia. After the program,

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we'd like to invite you to fill in the evaluation

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forms we're placed in your seats and leave them at

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the invertation desk at the front of the reading room

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as your exit. Now, I'd like to invite doctor Mohamed Salai,

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our Arab World specialist, to the podium to introduce our

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speaker for today's program on it Good.

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Afternoon, everybody, Thank you all for joining us. Our speaker today.

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Randa Kayali is a Professorial lecturer in anthropology at George

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Washington University's Elliott School for International Affair. She received her

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doctorate from George Mason University and Cultural Studies in twenty

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thirteen and an MA from American University in Cairo in

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sociology Anthropology. Doctor Kayali has taught Air World Studies at

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American University in Washington, DC, and was a post doctoral

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research fellow at Ali rural Ak Center for Global Islamic

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Studies at Georgia Mason University. She published The Arab Americans

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Greenwood Press two thousand and six, which she received a

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Book Award for from the Arab American National Museum and

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was translated into Arabic as Amriqui Juan Lara. She is

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the author of a chapter on family in the edited

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volume Daily Life of Arab Americans in the twenty first

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Century and US Census Classifications of Arab Americans, Contestations and

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Definitions of Identity markers in the Journal of Ethic and

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Migration Studies, published in September of twenty thirteen. She currently

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serves on the board and as Treasurer of the Arab

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American Studies Association and as co chair of the Triannual Convention. So,

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without further ado, Doctor Ronda Quayet, I'd like.

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To thank Mohammad and the staff here at the Library

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of Congress the Africa Middle East Division for their kindness

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in inviting me and welcoming me to this lecture series.

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I'd also like to thank the Arab American National Museum

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and Helen sam Hand for the images that you will

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see in this PowerPoint. This piece is a work in progress,

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so I hope and I'm looking forward to the question

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and answer session. The classification of Middle Easterners and North

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Africans in the US as white by race stretches back

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over a century ago. In light of the possibility that

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there might be a new Middle Eastern and North African

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box Amina box, and I'll use that acronym throughout my

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presentation on the twenty twenty census form this historical research

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has contemporary significance. In today's presentation, we will learn that

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debates over the mina racial classifications are not novel, and

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that a deeper examination of history and critique of historical

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narratives offers the contemporary reader three noteworthy insights. Firstly, the

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naturalization rulings in US courts that determine the eligibility of

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early meanings to US citizenship show them that labels of

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the geographic region and the perceptions of people within them

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determined race. While they were ultimately classified as white and

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therefore grouped with Europeans, those with Middle Eastern origins were

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noted as from Asia in terms of continental assignments, but

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not ultimately Asiatic or Mongolian by race. Secondly, I will

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show that the judges in these cases drew a Christian

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Muslim binary and placed the premium on their origins in

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the Mohammedan world as it was called back then, occasionally

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noting the Eastern rites of their Christianity and generally grouping

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Syrian Christians with Islam by culture even if they were

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not even if they were recognized as Christian. Finally, the

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history of the US census classifications indicates that meanans have

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been identified by factors other than race and religion on

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official forms issued by the US government for over a century,

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specifically through questions relating to ancestry and language spoken at home.

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In other words, then is now there are additional ways

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to access ethnic identity within a broad white racial classification.

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So it's a bit of background. Since nineteen seventy seven,

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the US government and particularly the opposite Management Budget, has

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classified white as a person quotes a person having origins

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in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East,

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or North Africa end quote. Although geographic boundaries of the

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Mina region are undefined, I consider the main ethnic groups

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Amena to be Iranians, Persians, Turks, and Arabs, but that

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the region almost includes significant numbers of minority ethnic groups,

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namely the Amazi, the Kurds, and Armenians, as well as

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ethno religious groups including Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs, Maronites. The Hutan

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language is tied to each one of these collectivities. This

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presentation will focus on how people from all of these

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groups from the main region came to be classified by

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the US government.

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And although you word around the globe.

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Dious Doctor of John harton their.

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Life work for her radio show at pay four SHB

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and doc.

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For TV show.

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And I just wanted to request you that please give

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me the sponsorship if you want to.

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Want this show to fund thee.

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Having said that, since I will see you in another

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episode of K four ft radio plus doc for BV

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show and if you give me a sponsorship, I will

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give you very.

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Reasonable price and they'll also you will get a lot

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of formation as this show is syndlicate bit.

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World right to meet them through fast years and bye bye.

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So folks, they're talking about the region of Christians and

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Arabs and how they migrated to United Estates. So let's

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talk about let's go back to the movie.

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In official records before World War Two, racially, they were

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classified as white in two batches of legal cases, the

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first set by Syrian Christians between nineteen or nine and

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nineteen fifteen and the second set by Muslim Arabians. These

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are terms that were used in these cases in nineteen

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forty two and forty four. Through an examination of immigration categories,

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census questions, and racial prerequisite cases legal cases, I will

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strive to highlight how geography, race and religion were in

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fact intertwined and provide insights into how mainstream American society

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viewed Mena Americans as between white and non white. So

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I wanted to ask you, as the audience, if there's

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ever if there was ever a time you've been mistaken

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for a member of an ethnic, religious, or national group

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that you did not belong to, and how did that

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make you feel. If you felt that it was a

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compliment and positive mistaken identity, put up your hands, okay,

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nice three. And if you felt that it was something

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that hurts you or was negative, put up your hands. Okay.

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So about even We're going to talk a little bit

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about that today. Sorry, okay. So, in the first sort

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of phase of immigration you had the Philadelphia there were

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men from North Africa who traveled or were brought to

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the US as slaves. The Philadelphia World's Fair of eighteen

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seventy six brought people and delegations from the Ottoman Empire, Egypt,

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and Tunisia to showcase their countries. The Ottoman exhibit heavily

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featured Palestinian Christians from Bethlehem and Jerusalem, who were marketed

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as being from the Bible Land or the Holy Land,

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with shepherds herding the flocks and images that were called

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the Arabian Knights of Fables. They sold religious items such

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as olive wood crucifixes from Bethlehem, rosary beads, and mother

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of pearl decorative items. This was part of the Ottoman

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Empire's strategy to show the world that they treated their

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religious minorities with respect. And yet there are media reports,

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US media reports of surprise that there were Christians who

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were Ottoman Turkish subjects, because Arabs and Turks were perceived

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in the US to be followers of Muhammad. Some of

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these merchants stayed on, such as Joseph Abim Mader, who

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was recorded in the eighteen eighty census as living in Philadelphia.

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So usually I'm just going to cite five reasons that

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are cited for the onset of the first phase of immigration,

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which began in eighteen eighty or about there. It's not

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an exact cutoff data, of course, and that these immigrants

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came from Biladisham or Syria, an Ottoman province that encompassed

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present day Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and parts of Jordan,

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and they came to the US. The fair had prompted

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stories of wealth and success to be had from selling

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goods to Americans and offered the lure of an adventure.

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Combined with the economic downturn of the economy due to

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the collapse of silk factories or Seri culture on Mount Lebanon,

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the financial incentives of living and earning money in the

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US for a few years were strong. An argument I

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find compelling is the influence of the Christian missionaries from

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the US establishing and teaching schools in the region. Also cited,

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but in my opinion less likely due to the dates,

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is the sectarian violence, particularly the Druzemrinite clashes on Mount

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Lebanon and the riots in Damascus. However, the deterioration of

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the Ottoman Empire and the conscription of young Christian and

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Jewish men into the army required in nineteen oh nine

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by the Ottoman Empire were significant factors in the choice

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of young men to move continents. So I'm going to

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come back to the issue of millets. Okay, this is

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a picture of the Zena family from Damascus, and this

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is when they were still in Damascus. I believe that

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there are possibly Orthodox room or room Catholic Melkites. From

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their dress. They were definitely urban and probably elite. A

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little background, though, I want to give you on the

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Ottoman Empire. In fifteen sixteen, the Ottoman Empires invaded Biladisham

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and continue to rule it almost continuously until World War One.

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The Ottoman Empire gave Sunni Muslims a primary place, as

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socially and culturally superior to the other communities in the Empire.

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In the nineteenth century, the States solidified legal and socio

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political structures for non Muslims. In these millets, which I

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mentioned on the last slide, Christian and Jewish subjects were

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permitted to regulate their own communities and given some autonomy

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in terms of family laws, taxation, and collective representation. The

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largest Christian millet in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in

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the Syrian province was the Orthodox Christian or Rum millet.

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You'd write it in English as Rum. According to their

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own ecclesiastical structures, these Orthodox Christians fell under two patriarchates,

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the larger Greek dominated Patriarchate or Sea of Constantinople and

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the smaller Arabic speaking Patriarchate of Antioch that was headquartered

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in Damascus and had the areas now known as Lebanon

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and Syria under its jurisdiction. In eighteen forty eight, the

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Empire gave Greek Catholics called Rum Catholic in Arabic, who

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00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:47.919
were in union with the Roman Catholic Church a millet

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of their own. These Greek Catholics, which despite the name,

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were explicitly Arabic speaking in services as well as colloquially,

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were also known as Melkites or Kingsmen, so named for

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their loyalty to the Zantine empires. Emperors. Roman Catholics who

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were not part of the Melchite Church and Protestants were

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granted extraordinary status as protected foreigners, and Maronites and other

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Latin Rites were dealt with at the level of the

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local provincial administrations. This patchwork of treatment gave religious minorities

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in the Ottoman Empire a degree of religious freedom, but

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they were also required to submit to Ottoman demands and

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the Islamic character of the state or empire. This is

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the backdrop against which many of the immigrants arrived in

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the US and perceived identity the Ottoman militants and decentralized system.

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In grained identity is defined by religion, broadly Christian, Jewish,

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Muslim and noted the differences between religious sects for Christians,

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Roum Catholic, Roman, Catholic, Protestant, and Maronite, for example, and

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that underlined which areas and sex were answerable to which patriarchs,

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to which religious figures, to which rabbis, Whether or not

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the existence of millets created the violence and discrimination against

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Christians in Mount Lebanon or the riots in the city

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of Damascus in the late nineteenth century became less important

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for the immigrants upon their arrival in their new countries

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in South and North America than the fact that they

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had come from the Ottoman Empire. So, going back to

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00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:26.759
my question, the migrants from Biladisham were recorded as Ottoman

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or from Turkey in Asia, and sometimes from Palestine or

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Syria in official immigration records in the US until the

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end of the Ottoman Empire officially dissolved in nineteen twenty three.

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Religion was not recorded, and so estimates of religious breakdowns

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00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:48.680
of the Syrian migrants are problematic. But we can assume

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that many of the non Turkish Ottoman subjects might object

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to classification as Ottoman because Ottoman was seen as a

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00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:01.880
synonymous with Turkish, which was ethnically in linguistic differentiated from

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Arabic speakers back home. These immigrants had formally used the

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term Turk to refer to Muslims, and in the US,

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00:18:10.119 --> 00:18:15.279
Turk and even Syrian connoted an Islamic identification. This popular

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assumption in the US in the early nineteenth century was

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well founded. Was well illustrated by a pulp fiction story

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that appeared in The American Magazine in nineteen twelve that

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I found nestled in the Nath Archives at the Smithsonian.

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In the story, Emily, a curious young farm girl, asked

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to self described pedlar from Syria, aren't they Mohammedans your people?

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And when he explains that his mother belonged to the

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Greek Church, but that he was Presbyterian, Emily was incredulous.

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Emily was impressed with how exotic this pedler was different

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from her family in every way because of his far

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background in a far off land. Even if he was Christian,

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he seemed Mohammedan. Today, of course, we've not used the

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term Muhammadan because Muslims don't worship Muhammad, but back then

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it was sort of standard practice. The blurring of the

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00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:14.160
East with Islam follows a traditional orientalist binary that pauses

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the orient as defined in opposition to the occident in

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Western Christianity. In his critique of Orientalism, Edward Said pointed

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out that those Orientalist scholars such as Massignol saw Eastern

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Christians as subsumed within Islam and as part of a

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monolithic East which had Islam as a superstructure. At a

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time when the US was increasingly xenophobic, this association with

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the Islamic other was particularly problematic, especially for immigrants from

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the East who wanted to gain material and social status

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in the US. Alix Naff authored a seminal history book

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called Becoming American The Early Arab Experience, and it was

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published in nineteen eighty five, and it truly began a

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deeper interest in the history of the Syrians in particular,

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but Arabs in general. Though her book, in large collection

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00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:12.000
that is housed at the Smithsonian initiated, she initiated a

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00:20:12.039 --> 00:20:14.640
dominant narrative of the early experience that she called it

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meaning before World War Two. Within Arab American studies, there

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00:20:18.519 --> 00:20:22.039
is a dominant historical narrative of the poor, illiterate farmer

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from a village in Mount Lebanon or Syria who came

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to the US, first arriving in New York at Ellis

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Island and then staying or living for a few days

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or possibly longer in what was called the Mother Colony,

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which was the Syrian colony that existed at the tip

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of Manhattan. And then that traveler would possibly travel by

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train to meet family members or friends and start peddling

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with the goods that he bought. Because most of this

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discourse is for single men with the goods in New York,

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this photo of a pack peddler is somewhat iconic to

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that narrative. Naff estimated that as much as ninety five

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percent of the immigrants from Syria were Christian before World

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War II, while another historian calculated that nearly ninety percent

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of all Arabic speaking immigrants arriving in the US before

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00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:17.200
nineteen twenty four were Searing Christians from Mount Lebanon. According

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00:21:17.240 --> 00:21:20.319
to these historians, the Arabic speaking immigrants to the US

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would have been Christian with a minority of Druze and

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Sunni Muslims. This is a young fellow. That is an

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example that the dominant narrative does contain some truths. In

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my mind, Tofik here was all of those things. He

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was a single male who immigrated in nineteen fourteen. Was

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a Maronite Christian from the map from a village in

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00:21:42.039 --> 00:21:46.079
Mount Lebanon, Baktuta, east of Beirut. He was a farmer

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00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:50.359
in that village and was unschooled, probably illiterate. Became a

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00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:53.640
laborer and a peddler in the US, where he changed

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his name by adding Ellis after his father Elias. In

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00:21:57.319 --> 00:22:00.680
nineteen nineteen, he opened a cigar store with his uncle

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and later produced arak An, aniseed flavored spirit. During prohibition.

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In nineteen twenty five, Tofik returned to Lebanon to fetch

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a bride, returning to the US a year later, where

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00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:14.839
he and his wife had his family and lived out

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the rest of their days. This photo may represent the

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00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:22.119
marginalized narrative of early Arab American history. There's a dearth

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of information or even ongoing research regarding Egyptian, Iranian, Yemeni

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00:22:27.039 --> 00:22:31.279
and North African immigrants. This photo shows an allegiance to

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00:22:31.400 --> 00:22:35.920
the Ottoman Empire through the fezes, which are the hats

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00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:39.279
that are shaped like a cone and the star and

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00:22:39.400 --> 00:22:42.359
crescent on what looks like to me a water pipe

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or possibly a decorative silver or brass fat vase. It's

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at the top of the vase you can see the star.

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These were possibly Egyptians, possibly Muslim and the alternative discourse

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I believe needs to be further researched. Who were these immigrants,

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00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:01.799
how did they fit in or differ from the narratives

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00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:05.240
on the Syrians? Why did their race never come up

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00:23:05.319 --> 00:23:09.039
in legal cases until the end where you do hear

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00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:15.000
Yameny debates debates on the Yameny However, Syrian identity was

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recognized in the US census in nineteen hundred, nineteen ten,

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00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:24.440
and nineteen twenty censuses. Syrian were a recognized group within

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00:23:24.519 --> 00:23:29.559
the population statistics of foreign born whites. In the nineteen

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00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:32.920
ten and nineteen twenty censuses, Syria was listed as a

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separate birthplace, even though it was still officially part of

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the Ottoman Empire. During World War One nineteen fourteen to

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00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:43.039
nineteen eighteen, being associated with the Ottoman Empire became more

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of a political problem rather than just an identification issue,

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00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:50.680
because the US sided with the Allies against the Axis powers,

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including the Ottoman Empire. This solidified a move away from

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00:23:54.839 --> 00:23:58.079
associations with the Ottoman Empire for the Syrians, a shift

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00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:02.240
in identity support and recognized by the US Census Bureau.

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By nineteen thirty, the census, the Ottoman Empire had collapsed,

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00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:11.759
a new country of birth appellations became necessary. The Census

365
00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:15.400
Bureau asked its census takers or enumerators to record the

366
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:20.759
country of birth according to present geopolitical locations. In nineteen thirty,

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00:24:20.839 --> 00:24:24.839
this is specifically mentioning, as you can see the list

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00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:28.519
up there. This indicates to the researcher that there were

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00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:31.039
other types of Menans present in the US, and that

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00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:37.680
the Census Bureau was also recognizing. Another way that Syrians

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00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:40.480
were recognized was through language spoken at home, which was

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00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:45.079
recorded and then nineteen ten census asked can the person

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00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:49.440
speak English? If not, what language does the person speak?

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00:24:49.799 --> 00:24:53.079
And both Syrian and Turkish were listed as principal foreign

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languages spoken in the US, but not Arabic. I don't

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know the reason for that. That's something that's interesting. And

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00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:05.000
yet in nineteen twenty the options on the respond it's

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00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:09.599
mother tongue expanded to include Arabic, and then and again

379
00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:15.079
in nineteen thirty the options included Egyptians, so in nineteen

380
00:25:15.160 --> 00:25:21.759
thirty they had Syrian, Arabic and Egyptian. However, the Assyrian

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community was not monolithic, even if we just take it

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00:25:24.759 --> 00:25:32.920
as Syrian. An academic, Philip Corey kouri Hitti, published a

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study in nineteen twenty four on Syrians in America that

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00:25:36.119 --> 00:25:39.759
found that most were Christian. Most numerous among the Syrians

385
00:25:39.799 --> 00:25:44.839
were the Maronites, followed by the Orthodox and Greek Catholics, Melchites,

386
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:48.880
and then Protestants. While these churches indicated a healthy community,

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the divisions between sects and nations were becoming increasingly prevalent.

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New countries were being established under colonial powers by the

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nineteen twenties, divided between British and French colonial authorities. Coming

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back to the US in nineteen ten, the census enumerators

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were instructed to note down their nativity, and if the

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respondent said that their parents' nativity was in Turkey, they're

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asked to note the Asia part. Although the Syrian province

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00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:21.200
is located in Asia, they did not want to be

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considered Asian due to the prevalent Asian exclusion and restrictions,

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