So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico

So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico PDF Author: Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292784317
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
Middle Eastern immigration to Mexico is one of the intriguing, untold stories in the history of both regions. In So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico, Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp presents the fascinating findings of her extensive fieldwork in Mexico as well as in Lebanon and Syria, which included comprehensive data collection from more than 8,000 original immigration cards as well as studies of decades of legal publications and the collection of historiographies from descendents of Middle Eastern immigrants living in Mexico today. Adding an important chapter to studies of the Arab diaspora, Alfaro-Velcamp's study shows that political instability in both Mexico and the Middle East kept many from fulfilling their dreams of returning to their countries of origin after realizing wealth in Mexico, in a few cases drawing on an imagined Phoenician past to create a class of economically powerful Lebanese Mexicans. She also explores the repercussions of xenophobia in Mexico, the effect of religious differences, and the impact of key events such as the Mexican Revolution. Challenging the post-revolutionary definitions of mexicanidad and exposing new aspects of the often contradictory attitudes of Mexicans toward foreigners, So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico should spark timely dialogues regarding race and ethnicity, and the essence of Mexican citizenship.

So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico

So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico PDF Author: Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292784317
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
Middle Eastern immigration to Mexico is one of the intriguing, untold stories in the history of both regions. In So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico, Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp presents the fascinating findings of her extensive fieldwork in Mexico as well as in Lebanon and Syria, which included comprehensive data collection from more than 8,000 original immigration cards as well as studies of decades of legal publications and the collection of historiographies from descendents of Middle Eastern immigrants living in Mexico today. Adding an important chapter to studies of the Arab diaspora, Alfaro-Velcamp's study shows that political instability in both Mexico and the Middle East kept many from fulfilling their dreams of returning to their countries of origin after realizing wealth in Mexico, in a few cases drawing on an imagined Phoenician past to create a class of economically powerful Lebanese Mexicans. She also explores the repercussions of xenophobia in Mexico, the effect of religious differences, and the impact of key events such as the Mexican Revolution. Challenging the post-revolutionary definitions of mexicanidad and exposing new aspects of the often contradictory attitudes of Mexicans toward foreigners, So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico should spark timely dialogues regarding race and ethnicity, and the essence of Mexican citizenship.

Forging Ties, Forging Passports

Forging Ties, Forging Passports PDF Author: Devi Mays
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503613224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441

Get Book Here

Book Description
Forging Ties, Forging Passports is a history of migration and nation-building from the vantage point of those who lived between states. Devi Mays traces the histories of Ottoman Sephardi Jews who emigrated to the Americas—and especially to Mexico—in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the complex relationships they maintained to legal documentation as they migrated and settled into new homes. Mays considers the shifting notions of belonging, nationality, and citizenship through the stories of individual women, men, and families who navigated these transitions in their everyday lives, as well as through the paperwork they carried. In the aftermath of World War I and the Mexican Revolution, migrants traversed new layers of bureaucracy and authority amid shifting political regimes as they crossed and were crossed by borders. Ottoman Sephardi migrants in Mexico resisted unequivocal classification as either Ottoman expatriates or Mexicans through their links to the Sephardi diaspora in formerly Ottoman lands, France, Cuba, and the United States. By making use of commercial and familial networks, these Sephardi migrants maintained a geographic and social mobility that challenged the physical borders of the state and the conceptual boundaries of the nation.

Los Arabes of New Mexico

Los Arabes of New Mexico PDF Author: Monika Ghattas
Publisher: Sunstone Press
ISBN: 1611394783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book Here

Book Description
At the outset, Los Arabes (Arabic-speaking individuals) were peddlers, carrying a variety of wares that often included exotic items from the Holy Land. These skilled cross-cultural traders expected to strike it rich in the United States and then return to

Between the Middle East and the Americas

Between the Middle East and the Americas PDF Author: Ella Habiba Shohat
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472028774
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

Book Description
Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora traces the production and circulation of discourses about "the Middle East" across various cultural sites, against the historical backdrop of cross-Atlantic Mahjar flows. The book highlights the fraught and ambivalent situation of Arabs/Muslims in the Americas, where they are at once celebrated and demonized, integrated and marginalized, simultaneously invisible and spectacularly visible. The essays cover such themes as Arab hip-hop's transnational imaginary; gender/sexuality and the Muslim digital diaspora; patriotic drama and the media's War on Terror; the global negotiation of the Prophet Mohammad cartoons controversy; the Latin American paradoxes of Turcophobia/Turcophilia; the ambiguities of the bellydancing fad; French and American commodification of Rumi spirituality; the reception of Iranian memoirs as cultural domestication; and the politics of translation of Turkish novels into English. Taken together, the essays analyze the hegemonic discourses that position "the Middle East" as a consumable exoticized object, while also developing complex understandings of self-representation in literature, cinema/TV, music, performance, visual culture, and digital spaces. Charting the shifting significations of differing and overlapping forms of Orientalism, the volume addresses Middle Eastern diasporic practices from a transnational perspective that brings postcolonial cultural studies methods to bear on Arab American studies, Middle Eastern studies, and Latin American studies. Between the Middle East and the Americas disentangles the conventional separation of regions, moving beyond the binarist notion of "here" and "there" to imaginatively reveal the thorough interconnectedness of cultural geographies.

Between the Ottomans and the Entente

Between the Ottomans and the Entente PDF Author: Stacy D. Fahrenthold
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190872152
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since 2011 over 5.6 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and beyond, and another 6.6 million are internally displaced. The contemporary flight of Syrian refugees comes one century after the region's formative experience with massive upheaval, displacement, and geopolitical intervention: the First World War. In this book, Stacy Fahrenthold examines the politics of Syrian and Lebanese migration around the period of the First World War. Some half million Arab migrants, nearly all still subjects of the Ottoman Empire, lived in a diaspora concentrated in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. They faced new demands for their political loyalty from Istanbul, which commanded them to resist European colonialism. From the Western hemisphere, Syrian migrants grappled with political suspicion, travel restriction, and outward displays of support for the war against the Ottomans. From these diasporic communities, Syrians used their ethnic associations, commercial networks, and global press to oppose Ottoman rule, collaborating with the Entente powers because they believed this war work would bolster the cause of Syria's liberation. Between the Ottomans and the Entente shows how these communities in North and South America became a geopolitical frontier between the Young Turk Revolution and the early French Mandate. It examines how empires at war-from the Ottomans to the French-embraced and claimed Syrian migrants as part of the state-building process in the Middle East. In doing so, they transformed this diaspora into an epicenter for Arab nationalist politics. Drawing on transnational sources from migrant activists, this wide-ranging work reveals the degree to which Ottoman migrants "became Syrians" while abroad and brought their politics home to the post-Ottoman Middle East.

Paisanos Chinos

Paisanos Chinos PDF Author: Fredy González
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520290194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Language and Usage -- Introduction -- 1. Mexico for the Mexicans, China for the Chinese: Political Upheaval and the Anti-Chinese Campaigns in Postrevolutionary Sonora and Sinaloa -- 2. Those Who Remained and Those Who Returned: Resistance, Migration, and Diplomacy during the Anti-Chinese Campaigns -- 3. We Won't Be Bullied Anymore: The Chinese Community in Mexico during the Second World War -- 4. The Golden Age of Chinese Mexicans: Anti-Communist Activism under Ambassador Feng-Shan Ho, 1958-1964 -- 5. The Cold War Comes to Chinatown: Chinese Mexicans Caught between Beijing and Taipei, 1955-1971 -- 6. A New China, a New Community -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z

Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West

Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West PDF Author: Roberto Tottoli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429556381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 556

Get Book Here

Book Description
With new topics and contributions, this updated second edition discusses the history and contemporary presence of Islam in Europe and America. The book debates the relevance and multi-faceted participation of Muslims in the dynamics of Western societies, challenging the changing perception on both sides. Collating over 30 chapters, written by experts from around the world, the volume presents a wide range of perspectives. Case studies from the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula between the Middle Ages and the modern age set off the Handbook, along with an outline of Muslims in America up to the twentieth century. The second part covers concepts around new conditions in terms of consolidating identities, the emergence of new Muslim actors, the appearance of institutions and institutional attitudes, the effects of Islamic presence on the arts and landscapes of the West, and the relational dynamics like ethics and gender. Exploring the influence of Islam, particularly its impact on society, culture and politics, this interdisciplinary volume is a key resource for policymakers, academics and students interested in the history of Islam, religion and the contemporary relationship between Islam and the West.

Turkish Jews and their Diasporas

Turkish Jews and their Diasporas PDF Author: Kerem Öktem
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030877981
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book introduces the reader to the past and present of Jewish life in Turkey and to Turkish Jewish diaspora communities in Israel, Europe, Latin America and the United States. It surveys the history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, examining the survival of Jewish communities during the dissolution of the empire and their emigration to America, Europe, and Israel. In the cases discussed, members of these communities often sought and seek close connections with Turkey, even if those ‘ties that bind’ are rarely reciprocated by Turkish governments. Contributors also explore Turkish Jewishness today, as it is lived in Israel and Turkey, and as found in ‘places of memory’ in many cities in Turkey, where Jews no longer exist today.

Journeys to the United Mexican States

Journeys to the United Mexican States PDF Author: Kalman Dubov
Publisher: Kalman Dubov
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mexico's history reaches back 4,000 years, beginning with the Olmecs who lived in the Yucatan Peninsula. That remarkable civilization created those huge stone heads with developments that spearheaded and vitalized every subsequent Mesoamerican civilization that followed. The Olmecs, and the Maya, who succeeded them, created the concept of zero, an incredible development in mathematical computation. This book begins with the Olmecs, tracing successor civilizations to the last Mesoamerican Empire, the Aztecs. I describe Aztec life, ritual, cuisine, and development until, in August 1521, this civilization was conquered by Spanish conquistadors. Much of the Aztecs, their people, and royalty are known today by way of Spanish ethnographers and historians who authored codices writing and describing what they saw even as that civilization was changed. That change was permanent. Aztec ritual and its polytheism were altered by Spanish missionaries and enforced by the Inquisition. From 1521 until 1821, Spanish Colonial authorities imposed forced labor in varying forms. Colonialism was overthrown in 1821, and Mexico now entered a new era. This book describes those changes as well as the challenges the government today faces in addressing many disparities in its policies. Healthcare challenges, with systemic poverty as well as the drug war preoccupies much energy in the government's efforts to address them. Mexico also has a large Jewish population whose history was marked by secrecy and Spanish efforts to eradicate this ancient religion. Today's Zocalo, in the heart of Centro Historico, was the place where Jews were burned to death in public admonition against Jewish practice. Another site for such death was the nearby ex-Convento of San Diego, opposite the Grand Palace de Belles Artes. Today's Jews are thriving, and Mexico-Israel relations are strong. This book would not be complete without describing my visits to the country. In My Visit, I describe the different ports I visited while aboard cruise ships. But many more months in the country were spent in San Miguel de Allende and in Mexico City. I describe these visits, their people, and the many nuances of Mexican life. The Mexican constitution recognizes 69 ethnic languages and speakers who are scattered but who primarily live in its southern states. Many ethnic languages are so diverse, that their dialects are unintelligible to the same language group. Language creates the core bonds of society and such multiplicity provides insight into the huge diversity of identity and of life in Mexico. This book is the 14th in the Journey series and is my first book on the American continent. I hope I have done justice to the vast complexity of this society.

A Camera in the Garden of Eden

A Camera in the Garden of Eden PDF Author: Kevin Coleman
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477308555
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the early twentieth century, the Boston-based United Fruit Company controlled the production, distribution, and marketing of bananas, the most widely consumed fresh fruit in North America. So great was the company’s power that it challenged the sovereignty of the Latin American and Caribbean countries in which it operated, giving rise to the notion of company-dominated “banana republics.” In A Camera in the Garden of Eden, Kevin Coleman argues that the “banana republic” was an imperial constellation of images and practices that was checked and contested by ordinary Central Americans. Drawing on a trove of images from four enormous visual archives and a wealth of internal company memos, literary works, immigration records, and declassified US government telegrams, Coleman explores how banana plantation workers, women, and peasants used photography to forge new ways of being while also visually asserting their rights as citizens. He tells a dramatic story of the founding of the Honduran town of El Progreso, where the United Fruit Company had one of its main divisional offices, the rise of the company now known as Chiquita, and a sixty-nine day strike in which banana workers declared their independence from neocolonial domination. In telling this story, Coleman develops a new set of conceptual tools and methods for using images to open up fresh understandings of the past, offering a model that is applicable far beyond this pathfinding study.