America's Little Syria and Lessons for Today
BY: Adrian Tafesh/Contributing Writer
Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration, Islam, and Syrian refugees has finally come to a boiling point. His fascistic policy proposals were hardly ever veiled, and yet he is managing to find bolder and bolder ways to flaunt them.
It is a story as old as this country, older even. It goes like this: wealthy, famous man rises to power and plays on middle and lower class white people’s irrational fears of immigrants and people of color in order to further an elitist agenda. Those people then vote for him and support his oppressive policies which exploit everyone in turn. Its so played-out its almost cliché.
Other than Trump we have seen nearly every candidate on the Republican side, and many high-profile Democrats, push some aspect of this narrative in order to improve their standing in the polls. There have been calls to ban Muslim Syrian refugees, to ID all Muslims, even to Intern them in camps as was suggested by the Democratic mayor of Roanoke, Virginia (not a pres. candidate but an elite Democrat all the same).
Many have taken the opportunity to point out the similarity of these proposals to the Nazi model of operation. While this certainly bears truth, a more apt comparison would be to the U.S of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was a place where anti-immigrant hysteria was the order of the day, as decreed by both the people and politicians on both sides of the aisle. It was a reactionary moment, as seemingly “undesirable” people flowed in from Catholic and Eastern European countries.
A Syrian Pastry Maker in Little Syria, Manhattan
Among the non-European immigrant groups who arrived in that environment were Syrians and other Levantine groups who settled in the industrial Northeast and Midwest. They developed the ethnic enclaves within large cities that were so characteristic of those halcyon days of immigration to the United States.
It was the time of Ellis Island and the supposed “melting-pot”, a time that, despite the troubles, has been deeply entrenched in our national imagination (see: The Godfather Part II, An American Tail, any elementary school text book). It’s a comfortable image, with all of it’s grainy Americana.
That so many Americans today discuss the prospect of Syrian immigration while unaware of the Syrian-American history is a testament to the extreme lengths to which those communities ultimately sought assimilation. Many, particularly Christians, Anglicized their names and easily adopted the language and customs. A significant portion of Levantines were light-skinned and thus, perceived as white.
Eventually many of the oldest families found wealth in the post-war years and the urban Syrian-immigrant population and identity was largely lost. Here we will take a look at one of the largest of those communities, Little Syria in Manhattan.
Serving Drinks in Little Syria
The neighborhood was located in lower Manhattan, near Little Italy and Chinatown, and was at first home primarily to immigrants from the the Mt. Lebanon region of present day Lebanon. In time, many would come to identify as Lebanese with the founding of the modern Lebanese state, but a large number were also from the Aleppo and Damascus governates, as well as some Palestinians and Syrian Jews.
A New York Times article from August 1899 seems to speak to popular American notions about these immigrants, “Turks, Armenians, Syrians, when they ship for America, do not leave all their quaint customs, garments, ways of thinking at home. Nor do they become ordinary American citizens directly after landing.” The reference to the Turks, who certainly did settle in large numbers in New York, may also be a reference to anyone who hailed from Ottoman territory.
The Armenians, who had long-since established communities in the Levant, very likely also lived in the so-called “Syrian Quarter”. The author continues, “Just enough of their traits, dress, ideas remain, no matter how long they have been here to give the colonies they form spice and a touch of novelty. But these colonies are by no means haunts of Asiatic mystery and seductions.”
That last bit is vital. He is speaking to the common fear of the western public at the time of the “Oriental” threat. Indeed he refers to the people of Little Syria as orientals repeatedly. The perception was that the East, in particular the Ottoman Empire, represented oppression, laziness, decadence, filthiness, mystery. It was presented in every way as the binary opposite to western ideals and values. But the Times author makes it very clear that the Little Syria he encountered was in truth a very human place, and one that was noticeably lacking in “Asiatic mystery and seductions.”
Syrian Peddlers
In fact, Little Syria was in a sense a microcosm of American society at large. The Paris Review notes that “The Syrian Quarter offered New Yorkers a chance to interact with (and take from) an immigrant culture they found “queer, but civilized”.
The Times author includes: “The lower class, men and women alike, have little that is attractive about them…But a block or so away are orientals of a very diverse social order. These are the families of the small merchants, the very prosperous peddlers.” In his words you can find the era-typical disgust with the poor and anything having to do with poverty.
For those Syrians who fell in that category, he maintains scorn. But he does note that many a social class existed harmoniously within the Syrian community and that this fomented the growth of cultural life. A strong literary scene emerged, and included Arabic–language periodicals such as Kawkab America and Al-Hoda.
Eventually with the success of assimilation efforts and the full-bodied embrace of American capitalism by the Levantine community of New York City, many would come to move out to the suburbs. The Paris Review: “By the beginning of 1947, the Syrian Quarter would be gone.Three Washington Street buildings remain—a tenement, a settlement house, and a church…and preservationists and stewards of Arab-American history are fighting to have the small collection of spaces designated as New York City Landmarks, offering the little…buildings some degree of protection from further indignities.”
Of course, there can be no greater indignity and disrespect paid to the memory of the neighborhood then to stand by as this next wave of Syrian immigrants arrive on our shores, only to be greeted with chaos and xenophobia. There will be those who make the argument that those Syrians were largely not today’s Syrians, that they came from different places and practiced a different religion.
We cannot allow these voices to erase the legitimate legacy that the Syrian-American has in this country. In time these most recent immigrants will undoubtedly come to enrich our culture in precisely the ways their ancestors have before. We’ll let the August 1899 issue of The Times tell sum it up: “Let it not be thought that this quarter is devoid of charm, that it is not worth a visit, and more than one.”