and "White": Race, Religion Becoming the Foundations of Syrian/Lebanese

Ethnicity

in the United States

SARAH GUALTIERI

It took generations, No one was white before he/she came to America. and a vast amount of coercion, before this became a white country.
?James Baldwin

"On Being White and Other Lies," Essence, April (1984). ON 14 SEPTEMBER Carolina 1915, George Dow, appeared before a circuit a Syrian1 immigrant living to court judge and waited

in South

Twice already, it had been hear the fate of his petition for naturalization. for in a lower court because he was deemed denied racially ineligible citizenship. grounds law, which and George Dow had been refused naturalization Specifically, of the United the racial requirement that he did not meet limited naturalization nativity to "aliens being free white of African and on the States

to aliens Dow

could not, therefore, estimates num The Syrian community?which by conservative citizenry. bered around 150,000 persons nationwide?was outraged by the refusal to naturalize Dow.3 His was not the first case to ignite a community

persons, to persons of African descent."2 into the fold of American be accepted

to a degree that but around it Syrian response, immigrants mobilized for was unprecedented. Their efforts would prove effective, ultimately "were to final appeal, the judge ruled that Syrians in this, George Dow's be classed though as white it was Al for naturalization.4 and were eligible persons," the courts before the last time a Syrian appeared to litigate his (the cases involved men only) racial status, the not a weighty legal precedent in favor of Syrian white

attempting Dow case established

ness.

United

on Syrian and Lebanese in the immigrants case. Declar the final ruling in George Dow's level) is (at the Court of Appeals ing the Syrians to be "white persons" as a righting of a historic wrong inflicted upon a hard-work interpreted Much of the literature States celebrates

30

Journal of American

Ethnic History

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community, ing and highly assimilable In some instances, tion and prejudice.5 tion as "white persons" is described pride.6 The underlying that the Syrians were nized as such premise?that means obvious heard groups, became

and a victory over discrimina the Syrian struggle for recogni as an early assertion of ethnic

by the racial

logic in each of these interpretations, though, is to be recog "in fact" white and simply needed starts from the opposite the courts. My analysis classification of Syrians by no or to the officials who as "white" was

their cases.

to the applicants for citizenship, This essay argues that Syrians, like other immigrant white after they had successfully claimed white only

law and custom confirmed it.7 This did not happen ness, and when debate. the ruling in without considerable If, as the literature argues, a victory for Syrians, Dow v. United States represented it itwas because so much uncertainty as to their racial classifica had been preceded by I suggest in the conclusion that, while Syrians had cause to cel ebrate the legal recognition of their whiteness, there were (and still are) reasons to be profoundly ambivalent their about the process by which were made. claims to whiteness tion. To begin, this essay focuses on the following ians, and not other immigrant groups appearing side of the same time, emerge on the white question: why did Syr in the courts at roughly the "color line"? What

the Syrian claim of white scientific, legal and religious rationales made ness possible? The first section answers this question through an analy cases heard between sis of the judicial rulings in Syrian naturalization Ian F. Haney L?pez, 1915. Following the cases will be re as "racial prerequisite cases" since they revolved around the ferred to or not the applicant met the racial requirement of whether of question the naturalization statute.8 1909 and Racial classification Legal decisions were course on race, but they alone in this discourse about themselves and produced knowledge participated as racial beings. The second part of this essay, therefore, the explores to its racial to the naturalization reaction of Syrians issue, specifically as white be to be recognized dimensions. Simply put, Syrians wanted it afforded itmade and the privileges them eligible for citizenship as the right to vote and travel more freely); but being white was (such to gain naturalization. It was also possible, not the only way since the amendment of the naturalization of African statute tion on the basis nativity in 1875, to argue for naturaliza or descent. Yet, not a single appli cause not, influential was of course, an affair of the courts only. a dis in producing and disseminating cannot fully explain how and why Syrians

Gualtieri

31

cant make

or otherwise?attempted in the racial prerequisite cases?Syrian have been this argument.9 One could argue that it would

to inher

on the basis of to argue for naturalization for Syrians ently illogical as was not in Africa. However, or descent since Syria African nativity to show, arguments in favor of Syrian whiteness this essay attempts were in ideology than logic, for there was nothing more rooted more ridiculous fanciful, to a single linked
Caucasus.10

and

could be than the idea that whiteness illogical woman in the found skull; that of a Georgian

The main the basis thing

on Syrians chose to stake their claim to citizenship in the "white race" was that there was some of membership reason

even alluring, about whiteness the that went beyond compelling, on W.E.B. and the practical. Historian David Roediger, drawing strategic has called this the "wages of whiteness"?the DuBois, psychological in a racist, exploitative of being "not black" society.11 compensation claimed white This theory helps explain why working-class immigrants and ness, but there is also the question of how they did so. As Roediger in and work on the Irish shows, immigrants participated Noel Ignatiev's transformed "white" reminds institutions "was and cultural traditions that marked them as as "others."12 "To enter the white race," Ignatiev a strategy to secure an advantage in a competitive us, the "result of choices made."13 was, ultimately, society," and whiteness a chapter in the history of how Syrians "entered the This essay examines and blacks white race" in America as actors participated articles, published all to support the claim concerned with how they and it is especially in this history. For example, letters, Syrians wrote and raised money hired lawyers, formed associations of whiteness. sense as will be argued be Moreover, racial categories of American by using of difference. They did not simply "buy into" these ideas into preex

low, they their own understandings notions of race, but tried to incorporate American isting patterns of thinking or interpretive grids. cases are therefore The Syrian naturalization the development standing like the press, institutions of Syrian

initially made

ethnicity associations voluntary of Syrians before the law had broader tions, but the racialization impli were dis of a small immigrant community, cations. Members Syrians represented proportionately in United site cases heard 1923. More also (just under one States federal

for under important the use of key through and religious organiza

the first Syrian importantly, an applicant the first case in which

third) in the racial prerequi courts between 1909 and case was racial prerequisite for citizenship prevailed by

32

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

successfully geration, the legal which

litigating his status as a "white person."14 It is not an exag role in then, to say that the Syrian cases played a significant in these cases, construction of the "white race." The rulings on the scientific legal precedent, of "common knowledge," category literature are relevant of the day and not only to study

drew

the nebulous

the study of Syrians as immigrants and ethnics, as a whole. of the taxonomy of whiteness

but to the broader

THE LEGAL GROUND OF WHITENESS: FROM "SCIENCE" TO "COMMON KNOWLEDGE"

or not Syrians met the racial requirement The question of whether of a controversial one until the first the naturalization law did not become decade before of the twentieth 1909 had been century. Syrians who had applied for citizenship it without much deliberation.15 The new

granted over America's decade, however, was very different. Anxieties "foreign element" and nativists their rhetoric with demands intensified, sharpened on immigration, for restriction and greater surveillance of the foreign born. This

nativism elaborate theories of the reinvigorated produced effect of what was called the "new immigration" from contaminating Southern and Eastern Europe. Members of the northern intelligentsia, churned out literature the proponents concerned with trast, principally to white southerners threatening on Anglo-Saxon "race suicide" and in con Southern whites were, of eugenics. cracks was in the color the "inbetweeness" line. Particularly of the new

for example, flirted with

that is, their status as neither white nor black in the south immigrants, ern racial scheme of things.16 The ambiguous racial status of Italians, East European that they Jews, and Syrians stemmed from the perception at odds with the cultures and habits that were possessed fundamentally southern way of life, and that they would not abide by the "white man's lashed out at this alleged in code."17 Nativists "immigrant menace" and behind-the-scenes in schemes that involved public denunciations, timidation and violence. exclaimed
curse."18

North

Carolina

Senator were [sic]

example, the degenerate

Phoenician

that the new

progeny

immigrants of the Asiatic hoards

for Simmons, more than "nothing .... the spawn of the F.M.

Senator

Simmons'

and completely the day, which ment health immigrant

use of a biological metaphor "spawn" was telling, in keeping with the most vitriolic nativist language of to contagion linked immigration and disease. Govern helped this prejudice to control ostensibly fuel entire by quarantining a disease that they be

officials

neighborhoods,

Gualtieri

33

were

and Russian Jews immigrant habits.19 Chinese in this regard, and it was possible that especially pathologized could suffer the same fate. Already, Syrian immigrants Syrians were rate as carri States at an increasing refused entry into the United being spread by

lieved was

ers of trachoma, a "loathsome and dangerous disease."20 The contagious to attempt entering fear of being excluded the prompted many Syrians For others, trachoma United States via Mexico.21 them from separated members their family and sent them sailing out of United States to South America, As and as far away as Australia.23 ports-of-entry Alan Kraut has argued, the "disease-status" of a particular immigrant of group, whether into the country The real or imagined, served and into the polity. as a gauge of desirability both

found institutional support controlling immigration in 1906, with the creation of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturaliza tion in the Department of Commerce and Labor. Chief the among Bureau's ization example, election hoped, law aimed was the administration of a new naturalization responsibilities at curtailing many of the abuses that had plagued the natural in the nineteenth process century. The law of 1906 banned, for naturalization in a court's held within hearings thirty days of a general area of jurisdiction. it was Such a measure would, from rounding up immigrants and bosses political

concern with

discourage papers, and thereaf herding them to court to secure their naturalization ter their votes. The naturalization to be newly and law was codified an extensive administered which included three hun by bureaucracy, dred naturalization in this context ian racial The examiners stationed of heightened nativism was first challenged identity case of Costa Najour, a Syrian Georgia in a lower in December court on the country.23 It was throughout reform that Syr and bureaucratic in a federal from Mount court. Lebanon, was heard had been denied natu

1909.24 Najour that he did not meet the the grounds statute. Najour and of the revised naturalization appealed, requirements T. Newman his case went to the Fifth Circuit Court where Judge William on the grounds that Syrians were members of him naturalization granted for Judge Newman's fell over holding on the side of what was considered evidence." "scientific whelmingly to skin color and was the idea that the statute referred He rejected to control adamant that "fair or dark complexion should not be allowed the "white race." The rationale This construction [the decision]."25 given the rather ponderous wording by "ocular inspection alone." would be used in other rulings and race was not to be determined that

in Atlanta, ralization

34

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer

2001

on racial classifi decision helped alter the discourse Judge Newman's cation by distinguishing between skin color and race.26 It is important to his statement on color with this caveat: that he followed note, however, comes within the person seeking naturalization the classifi "providing cation of the white or Caucasian color did not race."27 In other words, matter if it could be determined necessarily by some other rationale that the applicant was white and possessed the personal qualifications deemed were In cases where personal qualifications for naturalization. necessary in doubt, continued of citizenship, and the applicant was deemed unworthy color to serve as an additional marker of ineligibility. When, for

in a Syrian applicant Faras Shahid was denied naturalization example, South Carolina district court in 1913, the judge emphasized that he was "somewhat darker than is the usual mulatto of one-half mixed blood between and the negro races."28 Even Judge Newman, whose case seemed to move away from color as the defin ruling in the Najour as marker of race, began his decision with a description of Najour ing "not particularly dark." He may have distinguished between skin color the white

cases: the and race, but a basic pattern persisted in the racial prerequisite of darkness increased the chances of ineligibility, while that ascription of lightness decreased them. The lawyer for the government in the Najour that by Costa Najour testimony to naturalize, the exasperated only eligibility to prove that Najour was not white, asked him to take lawyer, desperate off his shirt and show his body to the court. Najour began to comply, seemed to confirm his but was wanted stopped in the early stages of undress no such theatrics in his courtroom.29 by Judge Newman who case knew as much. After a four-hour

What was perhaps more far important in Judge Newman's ruling?as as altering the legal discourse on racial classification his use goes?was or not Najour was part In deciding whether of the category Caucasian. of the "white race," Judge Newman, like many other judges across the country, looked to the literature of ethnology. He drew on A.H. Keane 's, to reach the conclusion The World's People, that Syrians were "part of or white the Caucasian race."30 The use of "or" was significant, for it indicated that being Caucasian and being white were held to be one and of ethnology, thing. This equation was not new in the world in previous and it had been used in combination with other rationales case was in the Najour racial prerequisite cases.31 What was different the same called to use membership in something it possible that Judge Newman made or the "Caucasian race" as the sole criterion for judging whether was white for the purposes of naturalization.

not someone

Gualtieri

35

lead, but an equal number judges followed Judge Newman's this formulation and dismissed the relevance of "sci rejected altogether entific evidence." Judge Henry Smith, for example, ruling in the Shahid case cited above, ridiculed the idea that being Caucasian automatically Several meant was white. The very idea of a the result, he would later write, "of suspect hocus pocus."32 The ultimate test of whiteness, in or and the deciding factor was whether geography, to him, from or a descendant of a European someone Caucasian race was a strange intellectual his view, was one of

not the applicant was There was, Europe immigrant. no need to "examine his [the applicant's] with a therefore, complexion nor measure his skull or his limbs and features."33 Since the microscope in his estimation, Syrians were, clearly not European but "Asiatic," they were not entitled to the privileges of citizenship.34 To arrive at this was linked to European descent, ruling that whiteness Judge Smith re lied on two other rationales that would in become increasingly popular the racial prerequisite cases: common knowledge and congressional intent. The term "congressional intent" referred to the meaning of the Natu ralization Act as it was first formulated in 1790. In Judge by Congress Smith's whom words: did real question to is: What does the statute mean, 'free white persons' refer in 1790, in the under of the makers of the law."35 He answered the question through the terms "The

standings an imaginary journey into the mind of a member at the end of Congress of the eighteenth Such a man, he argued, would have known century. or linguistic mo theories that undergirded nothing of the ethnological dem racial classification. He would for example,

or dark South certainly have repudiated the idea that a black Ceylonese Persian was in the language of the enthusiastic supporters of the theory
that all speakers of Aryan languages are of one race, an "Aryan brother."36

Judge which

Smith was "an average

so sure of citizen"

his original position of the law to one that emphasized of the "common the understanding was not the first time that common knowledge was tacked man." This on to congressional a judge's of the intent to strengthen interpretation statute. Aware of the ambiguity of his own ruling, Judge Smith con cluded with the suggestion that an appeal be taken to the Supreme Court where a settlement to "this most vexed and difficult question could be
reached."37

to it was all something this, he claimed in 1790 could agree. He thus shifted from that what mattered was the intention of the framers

36

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer

2001

The

issue was

vexed

because

the naturalization

statute could be inter

some judges relied on scientific preted in so many different ways. While or some others used congressional intent, common knowledge evidence, of all three to determine the race of an applicant for natu combination matters was the category of personal qualifica Complicating to figure prominently in the like color, was not supposed tions which, invoked to assist in the deci determination of race, but was repeatedly and moral pro sion. Syrian applicant Tom Ellis' religious, professional ralization. on his racial eligibility the decision file, for example, clearly influenced in an Oregon district court in July 1910. Indeed, so intertwined were the to discern where one ends criteria in the judge's ruling that it is difficult a Syrian, a native of the subject... of Palestine, and aMaronite,"38 had come up against the argu province ment that he was ineligible because he was not of Euro for citizenship for the district attorney made no attempt to argue pean descent. Lawyers that Ellis was not "of the white officers not considered race." immigration was that he was from white was In fact, they openly admitted that to be white. Their argument Syrians and the other begins. as "a Turkish Ellis, described

that is, he did not descend the right kind of white, descent The importance of being of European Europeans. soon made clear in the district attorney's of the stat interpretation of the words "free white persons"

ute. The meaning

comprehended such only of the white races who, from tradition, teaching, and environment, would be predisposed toward our form of government, and thus readily assimilate with the people of the United States.39 Whereas immi for European Judge Smith had couched his preference in the language of congressional intent, lawyers for the govern grants in their use of race as a ment in the Ellis case were much more explicit a particular In the logic of cultural and political marker of disposition. was in linked to geography their argument, whiteness (Europe) which, traits essential for partici and intellectual moral their minds, produced to the point, it was assumed that in the American polity. More pation white towards, republi Europeans were familiar with, and predisposed to in contrast, deemed can forms of government. were, Non-Europeans of despotic be dubious products unsophisticated, regimes, politically and likely ment ness to taint the cherished insistence lawyer's for self-government citizenry. The govern pool of American on the connection and fit between whiteness was a well-worn itwas firmly strategy. Indeed,

Gualtieri

37

in the discourse of American The district attor citizenship.40 in the Najour case had also used this argument, claiming that Najour, ney as a subject of the Muslim was Ottoman of under sultan, incapable a ruling institutions and government. in standing American Despite embedded Najour's as fitness for self-government favor,41 whiteness in the legal debates on racial eligibility figure prominently ship until the 1950s. for Ellis, Fortunately Judge Wolverton intended the statute to mean Europeans such. He possible while accepting tions" were an indication tion. What Wolverton's which ultimately conviction granted to reject Ellis ruled that it would continued for citizen to

only, but his ruling reveals how it was citizenship, the specific formulation of the government argument its underlying assumptions?that "personal qualifica tilted

if Congress had have specified

of a person's racial eligibility for naturaliza the decision in Ellis' favor was Judge

of the highest qualities "possessed . . well . citizen toward the prin go to make an excellent disposed and policies of this government."42 that ciples Having already decided a markedly Ellis was of "Semitic white of the race," the stock, type judge went on to extol Ellis' personal qualifications, noting that he was a "good and highly citizen of the community." Tom Ellis respected was a practicing Christian and of "good morals, sober spoke English, and industrious." him to entitle In short, he possessed "all the essential qualifications to naturalization." He was, in Judge Wolverton's view,

that he was

the type of person Congress a citizen. had intended to become exactly to the debates?scientific, oblivious and congres Remarkably judicial, sional?that believed that the otherwise, suggested Judge Wolverton words "free white persons" were devoid of ambiguity and were of "plain and simple signification."43 He "personal qualifications" struction of his whiteness. Taken courts rationales as a whole, between of the applicant did not pause to consider how far the had influenced the legal con cases heard beneath in federal

the Syrian racial prerequisite 1909 and 1915 show that buried

the reasoned and discrep deciding who

ancies. Quite was a "white confusion. gressional determine had

of the legal ruling lay contradictions, the courts were having simply,

ambiguities

difficulty a basic pattern amidst the person." There was, however, Judges were turning more and more to the rationales of con intent and common to knowledge (and away from science) for example, eth While, in his bid for citizenship, it move Shahid. This away from

nology was completely

racial eligibility for naturalization. so neatly assisted Costa Najour discarded in Ex Parte

38

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

scientific would

Supreme applicant, Bhagat Singh Thind. Since the Thind case would a brief redefine racial eligibility for citizenship, significantly outline of the case (and its relevance for Syrians) is in order. to the United Thind was born in India, immigrated States in 1913 and the case of South Asian

of race was evident explanations in the 1923 United culminate States

in other

cases Court

as well, and in decision

in 1920. He was for naturalization at the district successful petitioned court level, but lawyers for the federal government and the appealed case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court in January 1923 where the decision of the lower court was reversed. The Court science considered Indians to be "Caucasian," that, although a "free white person" not in the "understanding of the com mon man."44 He was therefore to citizenship. ineligible Ironically, only a few months earlier in the Takao Ozawa case, the Supreme Court had affirmed the power of what it called "scientific authorities" it when Thind was argued that Japanese therefore not white.45 persons were In the Ozawa not Caucasian case, "white" (but Mongolian) and "Caucasian" and were claimed

but in the Thind case clearly they were not. These two synonymous, Court rulings suggest when science failed to reinforce that, Supreme about racial difference, it was disgarded, but when it popular beliefs confirmed subtlety often disastrous them, it was conveniently in an arcane legal tradition, embraced. This was not a mere real and but a decision that had

in the lives of immigrants. At consequences five Indian immigrants, for example, were stripped of their 1923 and 1927, prompting between one, Vaisho Das Bagai, suicide.46 must also be made of a secondary Mention ruling given in States v. Thind certificate

least sixty citizenship to commit the United

case. When the Circuit Court of Appeals submitted its to the Supreme Court, it requested instruction on two ques or not a "high-caste tions. The first was whether of full Indian Hindu, blood" was a white person within the meaning of section 2169, Revised Statutes. The second concerned the applicability of the Act of 1917, had designated certain geographic areas, the inhabitants of which be barred from entering the United States as immigrants.47 Spe to know whether the lower court wanted the Act disqualified cifically, from naturalization

which

would

"Hindus" who had entered the country legally, that to the passage It was, in fact, the Supreme of the said Act. is, prior to the first question Court's that generated the lengthier and response response, but the second question was not ignored. In the final weightier paragraph of the ruling, the Court made an explicit connection between

Gualtieri

39

eligibility for immigration into the United States, and suitability for
naturalization. "It is not without significance," Justice Sutherland wrote, that Congress, by the Act of February 5, 1917 . . .has now excluded from admission into this country all natives of Asia within designated limits of latitude and longitude, including the whole of India. This not only consti tutes conclusive evidence of the congressional attitude of opposition to Asiatic immigration generally, but is persuasive of a similar attitude to ward Asiatic naturalization as well, since it is not likely that Congress would be willing to accept as citizens class of persons whom it rejects as
immigrants.48

The Justice

inclusion

of India

in the Asiatic

"barred zone" had thus informed

for naturalization. thinking on racial eligibility Sig the zone, a decision that furnished had fallen outside nificantly, Syria In 1923, for example, additional proof for the Syrian claim of whiteness. a poorly the informed Judge Smith tried once again to prevent when Sutherland's naturalization the same he was confronted with of a Syrian applicant, in reverse: Justice Sutherland argument only by Syrians were so they were to immigrate therefore into the United States, eligible to naturalize. F.W. Basha, was naturalized and The applicant, eligible made

the Syrian eligibility question never again reached the courts.49 It is beyond the scope of this essay to trace in detail the racial under 1917 and 1924.50 of immigration legislation passed between pinnings that show the intricate cited above are among the many examples law and, specifi and naturalization between connections immigration cally, their shared racial logic. Both the Act of 1917 and the Supreme a racial construc for naturalization Court rulings on eligibility deployed The tion of Asians that was narrow and rigid, while simultaneously allowing in determining the racial status of European for flexibility immigrant of the 1924 Immigration groups. As Mae Ngai argues in her discussion race and of racial categories whereby this led to a reconstruction Act, were conflated but disaggregated for Asians nationality (and Mexicans), as non-white of Asians The legal construction for "white" Europeans.51 would continually mark them as "outsiders," thus rendering them targets of discriminatory legislation.52 of race in favor of those rooted The demise of scientific explanations for did not bode well intent and common in congressional knowledge The same cannot be said for and Japanese South Asian immigrants. encounter with naturalization Syrians whose same period eventually led to a legal consensus the law during roughly were white. It that they

40

Journal of American

Ethnic History

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2001

is especially South Asians for example), Syrians were mately

curious

The logic the Supreme Court in the Thind case continued to be rejected by to the Syrians. Parallels between the Syrian and South Asian applied cases had been apparent not only at the level of legal argumentation.

since, judges had relied overwhelmingly Caucasian and therefore white.

that the Syrians did not meet the same fate as the was affirmed (Najour in cases where their whiteness on science to argue that that was ulti

in New York had actually assisted the naturalization in 1910 in the hope that his case would applicant influence future rulings in Syrian cases.53 They were right. The case of as a "Parsee," was cited as a precedent Bhicaji Franyi Balsara, described cases affirming in at least two federal the whiteness of Syrians and, their eligibility for naturalization.54 It was, however, hence, completely Influential Syrians of a South Asian as a legal precedent a in the most important case involving South Asian, that of Bhagat Singh Thind. The twisted labyrinth of legal had led to a position that, were it reasoning on the question of whiteness as patently absurd: not for its underlying be dismissed prejudice, might overlooked ness remained white, and their white (notably non-Hindus) the form of a legal precedent) could help prove the whiteness of (in other immigrant groups like the Syrians, but not?as the Thind case some South Asians

of fellow South Asians! whiteness clearly demonstrated?the What this apparent discrepancy? Why did the courts begin to explains in the category to be of those "commonly understood" place Syrians white as "high caste Hin Indians (labeled, often erroneously, An important part of the explanation for this Syrian "victory" lies dus")? cases. Armed in the record of their involvement in the racial prerequisite and not expert lawyers, amid curiae, and a belief in their special status as the mediators of the Christian in tradition, Syrians actively participated in the "white race."55 The following for inclusion section arguments this participation ian immigrants positioned States racial categories. and, more themselves generally, within, the ways in which Syr sense of, United and made

with

discusses

SYRIAN UNDERSTANDINGS OF "WHITENESS:" FUSING RELIGIOUS AND RACIAL DIFFERENCE

of Syrian community leaders in George Dow's involvement case, from a legal stand helped settle the question of Syrian whiteness point, was part of an effort that began earlier under less litigious circum stances. One of the first arguments in the "white race" for inclusion The

which

Gualtieri

41

a Syrian doctor in Birmingham, in 1907. In a Alabama, worded letter to the editor in the Birmingham H. carefully Age-Herald, A. Elkourie the views of the popular Alabama congressman, challenged John L. Burnett, staunch backer of the proposed literacy test which from would restrict entry into the United States to literate persons only. Elkourie of a person's argued that the test was an inadequate measure qualifica tions and he added in good humor that, "my experience has shown me that scoundrels amongst in greater proportion exist among the educated than the uneducated."56 The more issue for the doctor, important was Congressman Burnett's claim that Syrians (along with

came

race other than the to a distinct and Russians) "belonged white race." Elkourie responded Syrian compatibility by emphasizing with "western" and by invoking a religious that civilization, argument would become key in Syrian understandings of whiteness. step was to argue that the Syrians were Semites. Then, citing to Webster, a "authorities" from Gibbon he placed the Semites within went beyond branch of the "white race." But, Elkourie's the argument for at the core of his defense of the Semitic peoples purely ethnological, The first was a description of their to Jesus Christ, Phoenicians contribution to civilization. From the he wrote, the "Semitic was the original and intermediator of culture and learning."57 The civilizer, developer power of this argument derived not from a claim to any special pheno on the of a Semitic type, but on a reclaiming origin and an emphasis to the Holy connection Land and to Christianity. However, Syrian an attempt was not merely to emphasize Elkourie's argument Syrian it was an attempt to understand religious affinity with southern whites: difference?in this case racial difference?the way Syrians had tradi tionally Syrian tion was done terms. so, that is, in religious had come from a society where social classifica immigrants not racial difference. rooted in religious, to This owed much

however, Jews, Poles

in the wake of the Ottoman the Ottoman millet system, devised conquest as a uniquely Muslim over a vast of Constantinople form of governance commu each religious multi-ethnic, multi-religious empire. Officially, was granted autonomy in the regulation of matters pertain nity (millet) In prac and inheritance. divorce, ing to civil status, such as marriage, a much broader adminis controlled tice, leaders of the different millets trative base, overseeing, for example, education, charity and even the collection of taxes. Individuals, to owed ultimate therefore, allegiance the millet, and not to the Ottoman state per se. While the origins of the an administrative term "millet," and even its usefulness in describing

42

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

the fundamental salience of reli system, have been greatly disputed,58 as a marker of identity in the late-Ottoman Arab provinces remains gion a There were indeed other ways of marking difference: uncontested. a village of origin, just as a in the voice could disclose certain inflection well-maintained scious in the growing indicated membership and self-con but religion, and more particularly class; (westernized) efendiyya between sect, remained the most important tool for drawing boundaries us and them. fez terms was not aban in religious This impulse to identify difference in but was deployed doned when Syrians set foot on American shores, new ways. in the "white race," for Elkourie's for inclusion argument on the basis of membership in the Christian fold. example, was made this argument would not hold up in a court of law as constituting While it became a pillar of Syrian legal argumen decisive proof of whiteness, The sense of Christian entitle tation and community self-construction. ment which for all, to share became in whiteness a cause to settle in the Dow evident case, markedly elite in 1914. for the Syrian immigrant once and the question of eligibility for citizenship c?l?bre was

Determined

Associations lawyers for George Dow and the Syrian American an elaborate defense of Syrian (which was backing his case) formulated whiteness. Their argument for why Dow should be included in the term "white persons" had five points, which are worth listing in full, 1) 2) 3) 4) "That the term 'white persons'
'Caucasian race,' and persons white

in the statute means

in color.

persons

of the

That he is a Semite or amember of one of the Semitic nations. That the Semitic nations are all members of the 'Caucasian' or white
race.

5)

That the matter has been settled in their favor as the European Jews have been admitted without question since the passage of the statute and that the Jews are one of the Semitic peoples. That the history and position of the Syrians, their connection through all time with the peoples to whom the Jewish and Christian peoples owe their religion, make it inconceivable that the statute could have
intended to exclude them."59

This previous

complex

equation This had worked ogy, but it was useless

argument attempts to prove that Syrians were

incorporated nearly all the rationales used in There was first the three-part Syrian whiteness. and therefore white. Semites, hence Caucasian in cases where the judge had relied heavily on ethnol in front of judges like Smith who relied on the

Gualtieri

43

rationale

one, them eligible for the privilege of citizenship. that The third part of the argument turned on legal precedent, namely, Jews (who were also Semites) and that had been naturalized, European the same should hold for Syrians. This argument, however, into played the hands first of Judge Smith whose descent. the question of European and foremost logically argument already definition of white always turned on a European In his opinion, Jew was a European, and psycho "racially, physiologically, a part of the peoples he lives among."60 A far more interesting Jews had would have been that Arabic-speaking Levantine

of congressional the Syrian argument was tory and position" made

intent. The the cultural

second

important the insistence

of component that their "his

the been naturalized, but for reasons that are unclear, neither nor their lawyers chose this strategy. Syrians in this rehearing petition for naturalization Judge Smith denied Dow's so vigorously Associations had which the Syrian American supported. of the "deep actually began his ruling with an acknowledgement on the part of Syrian immigrants," manifested but went on to feeling the decision of the court. The Syrians argue that they had misinterpreted Smith wake in the that they had suffered "humiliation" and "mortification" to the "white race." Judge that they did not belong of the decision Smith countered that this had not been the wording of the decision, but claimed rather that "a modem in the term Revised with a telling 'white Statutes and was Syrian was an Asiatic, as contained in section persons' in 1875."61 He followed of the Syrian position, thus not 2169 of included the U.S.

as amended

this clarification

interpretation

The true ground of this supposed humiliation is that the applicant and his associates conceive the refusal of this privilege to mean that they do not belong to a white race but to a colored and what they consider an inferior
race.62

were not without merit. judge's musings Syrians did perceive to mean unwel exclusion from naturalization that they were deficient, come and uncultured. in for inclusion That is why their early arguments The the "white race" revolved around the issue of the contribution western of Semitic The claim Christendom. world, especially peoples that the Syrians the defeat in the courts to mean that they interpreted were "colored" an inferior race was entirely and therefore members of different. This was a construction that was familiar to southern whites, but Syrian immigrants had to learn it. In Elkourie's defense of Syrian to the western

44

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

there was no mention of color, nor did he resort to the strat whiteness, as the absence of defining whiteness of blackness. The "others" egy he attempted to distance Syrians were not blacks and Asians, but prostitutes and anarchists. As refusals to naturalize Syrians increased, was defined both within in which the ways however, Syrian whiteness from which the community shifted. No longer did Syrians simply claim and without whiteness their Christian credentials; by asserting they began to do so in terms that explicitly excluded blacks and Asians. was this more Nowhere evident than in the letter-writing campaign initiated by the Syrian Society for National Defense in the wake (SSND) of George Dow's first defeat. The society was organized inMarch 1914 in Charleston, to "defend our [Syrian] historic, civil and South Carolina, social rights."63 The immediate goal of the SSND was to reverse Judge case and support an appeal inWashing Smith's decision in the Dow ton.64 SSND secretary, Najib al-Sarghani, kept readers of the popular Arabic-language and he made up to date on the case (The Guidance) to support the legal defense. for money repeated appeals in the South were especially and their names, along generous, paper, al-Hoda, were acknowledged in the pages of

Syrians with the size of their contributions, the paper.

al-Sarghani's appeals for support were first and foremost ' defend the Syrian sense of honor (al-difa (an al-sharaf) an attack on the Syrian at the center of found ourselves wrote,65 decision and a concerted effort was needed to reverse excluding bers of the SSND

to appeals "We have

honor," he the shame of the

and other mem Syrians from citizenship. al-Sarghani were especially worried about the ramifications of a at the Supreme Court yet another ruling (possibly level) that Syrians were nonwhite. re In their view, this would affect Syrian commerce, strict their ability to travel, encourage slander, and bring embarrassment to Syrian children.66 More worrisome, that however, was the possibility a ruling would such render the Syrian "no better than blacks (al-zunuj) and Mongolians Rather, blacks will have rights that the (al-mughuli). Syrian does not have."67 the change in Syrian thinking on race, framed explicitly against other and Asians. He argued that there could was rights that Syrians did not the Syrian claim to citizen into question the appropriateness of status as "white persons" was no to have statements reveal al-Sarghani's the claim to whiteness whereby

racialized groups, namely, blacks than for blacks be no worse dishonor fully possess, it simultaneously ship while black and Asian citizenship. yet an argument called

that boosted

Securing

Gualtieri

45

itwas about distancing longer just about securing the right to naturalize; on race. Hence, the in the discourse from blacks and Asians Syrians in the Arabic-language in favor of Syrian whiteness press argument became more Caucasian," stood (both scientific This the Syrian's defending from two other groups racially distinct in the understanding of the common man, about and more status as "a pure of people under and according to

to be emphatically "not white."68 rationales) to a more rather than a purely shift racial, was of Syrian whiteness in the midst of the Dow

Pub controversy. case it aimed to clarify (before Dow's in both English and Arabic, to the Circuit Court of Appeals) the racial classification of the went at the urging of Kahlil A. Bishara The book was written by Syrians. and president of the Naoum Mokarzel, editor and owner of al-Hoda, in the English The goal of the book Associations. Syrian American lished introduction evidence modern was to "set forth with conducive a fairly high degree of precision, the to the determination of the racial identity of the with the niceties introduction The Arabic dispensed

civilizational, understanding in a book, which appeared

or religious further evidenced

Syria."69 The book was a "reply to those and stated the purpose more forcefully. and have made is Caucasian, who have denied that the Syrian emigrant have made him ineli him out to be of Mongolian they origin, whereby

citizenship."70 gible for American version differed from the English This was not the only place where as evincing the In an impressive list of figures described the Arabic. cited combined with iron fixity of purpose," Bishara Semitic "pliability ver Paul, Peter and John. The Arabic Amos, Moses, Elijah, Hannibal, name of the Muslim identical except that it also included the sion was an interesting was and strategic The omission Muhammad. prophet, creden move. Having the Christian made gains by promoting already to did not want it is likely that Bishara of Syrian immigrants, not them with Muslims, their standing by aligning especially jeopardize at a time when the Anglo-American (and the American public's) judiciary Like in ignorance and superstition.71 of Islam was steeped perception tials stressed the Syrian connection him, then, Bishara But the to Christianity and to "western" civilization. Holy Land, evinced the Arabic in his book version) (especially argument in the debate on Syrian racial identity. The early development others before for inclusion in the white to the larger a new

Syrian race had emphasized industry, reli arguments that had to do with what their proponents and sobriety?qualities giosity to of a group's ability to contribute effectively believed was the measure

46

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer

2001

the American

nation,

Increasingly, though, that they were Asian or black, derelicts and drunks. Syrians

not of membership in the "white race" saw the denial of their whiteness Syrians

as such. to mean

and not, as Elkourie had seen it, heathens, a different thus generated definition of "not white." final appeal that he was

one that hinged on the question of who was their whiteness; It was this argument that carried the day in George Dow's in 1915 where it was affirmed, at the federal court level, indeed a "white person."

CONCLUSIONS
to the United For most scholars of Syrian and Lebanese immigration States, the "race crisis" was simply an unfortunate chapter in the other assimilation in the United wise successful history of first-wave immigrant events of those few critical years," writes Alixa Naff, "con States. "The of stituted an aberration," which "hardly dented the spirit of self-esteem an annoying ob the Syrians."72 They had, in other words, surmounted into the American mainstream. stacle in the path of full-fledged integration cases were that the racial prerequisite of much This essay argues mine two reasons. First, they helped deter for principally significance of whiteness the legal definition during a period of heightened as to view themselves and second, nativism, they encouraged Syrians use in relation to other groups. The crisis may have "vanished" white (to wider s words), but the saliency of race for Syrians did not. In Georgia, threats and violence for example, targets of Ku Klux Klan they were in in court in 1915.73 And, secured his victory after George Dow long as a served Florida, the lynching of Syrian immigrant, Nicholas Romey, terrible reminder that the whiteness still steeped in a South

Naff

of Syrians was inconclusive, par in the politics of Jim Crow.74 Indeed, ticularly the seemingly despite Dow v. provisional quality of Syrian whiteness, the elite among United States, prompted Syrian immigrants (especially to reaffirm their coveted racial status as whites. They did not them) was a legitimate prerequisite for that whiteness the premise challenge it afforded, and the privileges "that their rightful remarked, pointedly denied them."75 citizenship Jacobson has only, as Mathew was being share in whiteness

to "share in white in favor of Syrian suitability arguments Advancing on Naoum Mokarzel's in 1920, he mind when, ness" was certainly in New York City, beseeching his wrote a letter to the French Consul on the part of Syrians in Panama. The Panamanian intervention govern

Gualtieri

47

ment

had passed a restrictive law on immigration, which barred Syrians and "other Asians" from entering the country. Mokarzel asked for Con sul Li?bert's intervention: "will you take charge of the matter yourself and see that the Lebanese and Syrians are treated as they ought to be?

"but from the race," he continued, They are not only from the white on the sub cream of that race, and I am sending you a book written same one Naoum The book was no doubt Kalil Bishara's?the ject."76 Mokarzel had commissioned to serve as evidence in the United States in to cases. By this time, Syrian arguments racial prerequisite for inclusion credentials had given way the "white race" based on their Christian

rooted in the language of racial hierarchies. Moreover, arguments Syr not only to safeguard their right to ians claimed that they were white, as Americans, but because whiteness had become more cen naturalize as Syrians. It is thus not alto thought of themselves the most that in the aftermath of the Romey lynching, gether surprising not so much in the Syrian-American extensive coverage press conveyed at the barbarity of the crime (which had taken the life of Nicho outrage tral to how they las, as well the victim understood sense that he had been as his wife), but bewilderment?the had not and that his murderers of racial misidentification,

In the words of one commentator, that he was really white. in the newspaper ash-Shaab: "The Syrian is not a negro whom writing in lynching when he is suspected of feel they are justified Southerners on a white woman. a civilized white man who an attack The Syrian is traditions and a glorious be treated as among the best elements in Dow In sum, the legal decision has excellent and was even made and should historical background of the American nation."77 v. United States on

to, corresponded the part of individual possible by, a decision sense of the as white in the "popular" to think of themselves Syrians or?as the understanding the legal phrasing of the day put it?"in term, of the common and make sense man." Ultimately, of their whiteness this demanded in relation that Syrians construct to others who were non

white, and, as the statement unless it stood little meaning

had made clear, whiteness to a racialized Other. Perhaps in opposition and deemed that is why, forty years after he was granted naturalization the verdict as one to be a "free white person," Costa Najour described and many other that refuted the idea that he was "yellow."78 For Najour,

in ash-Shaab

in the that they inevitably participated Syrians, being "white" meant "not white." While this may have of those who remained racialization it unfortunately helped perpetu helped Syrians assimilate more quickly, ate a discourse of exclusion in which other immigrant groups were

48

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

marked American quences

as "others," ineligible nation. Thus, one

of

of the Syrian struggle that repeatedly called legal to "become American." non-Europeans arguments Syrian encounter with naturalization case; analyzing heard in Detroit, Michigan, three decades after Syrian in favor one final

in the for citizenship and full membership conse if unintended, the paradoxical, was that it helped refine the for whiteness into question the suitability of The paradoxes inherent in the become more apparent by Hassan, immigrant, Ahmed case revealed that, close to

law will

that of Yemeni in 1942. This Christians

had scored a crucial legal victory of their whiteness, other Arabic-speaking groups, particularly in the courts, or in the understand Muslim ones, would not fare so well ing of the "common man." from rendered him at a disadvantage Hassan's appearance physical Tuttle that the petitioner was "an Arab," the start. After noting Judge declared once more, that he was that while dark brown in color,"79 confirming, "undisputedly to determine racial skin color was not supposed

to naturalize, it figured prominently in cases where petitions eligibility In the Hassan for citizenship were denied. of skin defi case, darkness so much so that the judge argued that "a strong burden nitely did matter, to establish that he is a white of proof devolves upon him [Hassan] person within There was Hassan's the meaning one of the [Naturalization] act."80 that could have helped establish important argument to naturalize, the position of the southwest namely,

eligibility ern part of the Arabian Peninsula outside the Asiatic barred zone. Place ment in relation to the barred zone had already been used as a rationale in other racial prerequisite affirmed cases, such as the Basha case, which a Syrian more to naturalize the eligibility of and, immigrant signifi cantly, because ment more to citizenship deemed Indians ineligible case, which India fell within the zone. In the Hassan case, however, place outside the zone was declared irrelevant, and the judge resorted to the Thind familiar

of congressional intent and common knowl interpretations in particular, the decision stood out as controlling edge. Two factors, and the distance of Yemen Hassan: the fact that he was Muslim, against from a European

border. "Apart from the dark skin of the Arabs," Judge "it is well known that they are a part of the Mohammedan opined, world and that a wide gulf separates their culture from that of the pre of Europe."81 In addition, and revealing Christian dominately peoples over sex to anxieties that discussions of race were very often connected Tuttle and marriage, Judge Tuttle to intermarry with expected could not be argued that (Muslim) Arabs into our "our population and be assimilated

Gualtieri

49

civilization."82 make among Muslim and there was more

It is not Arab even

such an assertion.

if any, the judge used to evidence, of out-marriage in fact, quite high were, even higher among their children) (and immigrants a perception men that they were among Muslim clear what Rates "American" women because or send for them, as was more they did not immi often the case with

likely grate with their wives, Syrian Christians.83 Rather

to marry

than base his argument in the realities of the Arab immigrant to rely on suppositions, Tuttle preferred and the old experience, Judge to Europe meant closeness to "civi conviction that closeness imperialist lization" and membership in the "white race." In making this argument, he did of course have the weight of other legal rulings behind him, and as an he cited the case of an Armenian immigrant, Tatos O. Cartozian, in an Oregon Heard district court in 1925, United important precedent. States v. Cartozian had affirmed the whiteness of Armenians thanks of noted Columbia largely to the testimony University anthropologist, Franz Boas. Carefully and common knowledge ethnological combining were white Boas of their because rationales, argued that Armenians stock." The judge placed origin," and "Alpine "European on Boas' as well as on the historic "aloofness" testimony, to Europe, Christian nians from the Turks, their proximity great weight of the Arme

background, It is worth and tendency to "intermarry with white people everywhere."84 case was the one who over the Cartozian noting that the judge presiding cited in United had ruled in favor of Syrian applicant, Tom Ellis. Also the Halladjian had been used to case, which a Syrian petitioner in 1910.85 While affirm the eligibility of the cases of Armenians and Syrians were frequently used to support each other, they were never mentioned in In re Ahmad Hassan, there were although States to do so. Why, in this instance, were the Syrian racial grounds cases not relevant in the case of aMuslim Arab? The reason prerequisite clearly of the 1940s, the term appears deceptively simple: in the legal discourse "Arab" did not mean, as it does today in its most general sense, speakers of Arabic, but persons born in the Arabian Peninsula and, increasingly, from Palestine. Muslims The different categorization Arabic-speaking as subse of Muslim and Christian Arabs was also more complicated, show. Establishing the whiteness of both groups, at quent debates would a new argument?a task taken on, not by the same time, would require and Naturalization Arab-American but by the Immigration associations,
Service.

v. Cartozian

was

Less

than one year

after Hassan's

case was

heard

in Michigan,

the

50

Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

INS published ize. Strikingly

began by take the view that a person of the Ara the Board of Immigration Appeals to link eligibility It then proceeded bian race is eligible to naturalization."*6 ones

a lengthy statement on the eligibility to natural of Arabs at odds with the ruling in In re Ahmed Hassan, the article Service and and Naturalization stating that the "Immigration

to the provisions of the Thind case, and shift the terms of the debate to of anti-Fascism. discourse With derived from an emerging regard

to Thind, the INS considered Arabia's from the barred zone to exclusion now famous opin and cited Justice Sutherland's be "highly significant,"

ion that had linked eligibility for immigration into theUnited States to
to naturalize. But, the INS knew that placement in relation to eligibility as Judge the zone was not enough, and proceeded (ironically much to a particular cultural pedigree which, in Tuttle had) to link geography of certain immigrant groups to citizen the eligibility its view, boosted was at with European civilization compatibility ship. Not surprisingly, as the top of the list. Here, the article did cite the Syrians and Armenians to naturalization of their because of peoples "chiefly examples eligible contacts" European . .. would seem ians and added the most for citizenship.87 racial prerequi It is important to stress that the Syrian and Armenian the INS, nor were the site cases were not directly cited as precedents by as another "Arab" group that had successfully claimed Syrians viewed support the claims of through the courts and could, therefore, to the INS, the it was, and Yemenis. Rather, according and "Arabi of "European contact" that the Syrians, Armenians that rendered them white. The INS thus returned to the that, by the likely candidates" same logic, "the Arab

whiteness

Palestinians

history ans" all shared argument

in cultural terms, and used a that whiteness could be measured to west in increments of "contribution divided, metaphorically, yardstick ern civilization." situated at the begin races" were Since the "Semitic civilization that is, in the early history of western ning of this yardstick, in (but clearly not in its present), they could be classed as white. Finally, an appeal to out-dated but still popular the INS theories of ethnology, had affirmed the which of the Board of Appeals cited a 1941 decision of a certain Majid Ramsay Sharif to the United States, admissibility . related to the Jews . . whose "Arabians because eligibility [are] closely All of the components of to citizenship has never been questioned."88 this INS argument were applied a year later in a Massachusetts court, of another Muslim the petition for naturalization Arab, Mohamed was granted.89 Mohriez, in the category of Arabs To be sure, the desire to include Muslim where

Gualtieri

51

so evident in the INS's article and Mohriez those eligible to naturalization, was also linked to wartime concern over the devastating effects of case, racism. The Monthly for example, concluded its state Review, European ment on Arab Hasan, noting discrimination Wyzanski, have learned profession as a world way The was with eligibility that "it comes unease palpable at a time when with the evil the ruling results against of race

are disastrously apparent." in favor of Mohriez, writing that policies of democratic of rigid liberalism

vein, Judge argued that "we as a country are not only false to our exclusion to our vital interests but repugnant

In a more

reflexive

was a for citizenship petition power."90 Granting Mohriez' we shall treat all men as created equal."91 to "fulfill the promise that

over the eligibility to naturalize of Muslim Arabs controversy in the way it both did, and did not, revisit the arguments interesting cases. The INS position in favor made in the Syrian racial prerequisite for example, was remarkably of Arab whiteness, similar to the argument made for Syrians in the Dow case. The main difference was that the INS was willing to incorporate Muslim into this definition, Arabs provided that they were cast as players in the march of Christian, western civiliza In other words, religious identity was tion. Muslim effaced. Arabs were deemed white when their

to use Joseph In this way, they became, into the body politic, Massad's those accepted term, "honorary whites," the but under suspicion that they did not quite deserve it.92Whereas Christian had been cases in the racial prerequisite identity of Syrian applicants and had indeed helped central to their argument for whiteness, at their whitest them secure it, Muslim Arabs were when stripped of western their religious affiliation and rendered part of the fantasy of an

original "Semitic" race. those The new emphasis on "racial equality" (that is equality between to the "white race") could not change the more provisional admitted status of this status of Muslim Arab whiteness. The "not-quite-white" group would become increasingly era, with the rise in discrimination apparent in the post-World War Two in the work and ethnic stereotyping that lay at the of Muslim/Arab/Other

The conflation place and media. set of factors, including heart of this stereotype was linked to a complex of pan American support of Zionist suspicion aspirations, widespread towards the oil-rich Arab Gulf states. This Arab ideals and resentment history as has

has been aptly chronicled of discrimination by other scholars,93 on the part of the impressive record of resistance and activism and their children.94 second-wave immigrants Less attention has been paid to the implications of first-wave Arab

52 Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

immigrant

racialization to do

as whites

in the United of

States.

It seems

espe

by leading cially appropriate as to change the classification of Arabs Arab-American organizations on the United to either a separate "Middle States Census "Caucasian" Eastern" This had obvious strategic category.95 status would render Arabs for federally eligible minority implications: funded programs, under anti-discrimina and provide greater protection ate from for many Arab Americans, the desire to disassoci tion laws. Moreover, the category "white" is rooted in a basic disconnect between their own American," disavowal as a people marked as outsiders and self-perception and the official racial status accorded them.96 While of whiteness is a provocative and, not be done without in many "un the or "Arab-American"

so in the wake

intensive

efforts

it should serious development, in the first place. Arab of how and why Arabs became white history whiteness is, after all, a legacy of the Syrian encounter with naturaliza in which members tion law, an encounter of an immigrant group strate gically selves chose as distinct

circles, welcome on the reflection

still much

to pursue the privileges of citizenship them by defining from nonwhites, blacks and Asians. There is notably to be learned about how the racialization of Arabs as white with other groups in

(and "not-quite-white") shaped their relationships the United States, and with each other.

NOTES
The author wishes
Suleiman, the Journal Leora

to thank Rashid Khalidi, Kathleen Neils

and and two commenting

Conzen, Michael
readers on this essay. at

Mar?a Elena Mart?nez, Auslander, for reading Ethnic History of American

anonymous

1998 panel, "Arab Mahjars/ Participants in the American Historical Association's Diasporas in the Americas" (Jeff Lesser, Theresa Alfaro Velcamp, Gladys Jozami and Nadim Shehadi) gave good advice in the early stages of this study. Thanks also to the staffs at the National Museum of American History, Archives Center (Wash ington), and the Center forMigration Studies (Staten Island) for their assistance.
1. "Syrian" refers to persons originating from the late-Ottoman provinces of

bilad al-Sham, or geographical Syria. This area included the present states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Jordan. While the majority of emigrants from bilad
al-Sham they used for to this all the United themselves essay. Arabic Journal chose in States were from what became referred described as "Syrian," and were are transliterated words the Republic to as such of Lebanon, in the sources system from found in and as

the International hamza, family law was free white members

diacritical

to the according East aside Studies, although, of Middle are names marks have been omitted. Arabic to do so.

'ayn transliterated

2. This was section 2169 of the Revised Statutes (1878). The first naturalization
passed person." 1790, After and provided the adoption of an alien must be "a that, to be naturalized, the act of 1870 the fourteenth amendment,

Gualtieri

53

extended

naturalization

"to

aliens

of African

nativity

and

to persons

of African

descent." See Luella Gettys, The Law of Citizenship in the United States (Chicago, 1934), p. 70; U.S. House, Citizenship of the United States, Expatriation, and Pro
tection 99. Abroad, 59 Cong. 2 Sess. H. Doc. 326 (Washington, D.C., 1906), pp. 98

3. The question of how many Syrian immigrants entered the United States in the
pre-World War One period is answered with widely diverging numbers. The U.S.

Immigration Commission claimed that 56,909 Syrians had entered the country be tween 1899 and 1910, while the Thirteenth Census of 1910, under the category of
"foreign gration States, stock" of Syrian origin, Commission, 1907-1910, a See United of 46,727. States gave figure 1 (Washington, vol. Abstract of Reports, Immi D.C.,

1911), p. 95; United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United
1 (Washington, 1910: Population, vol. were Rev. consistently higher. nity estimates on figures from associations voluntary Syrian commu D.C., 1913), p. 963. Syrian for example, Basil Kherbawi, relying and churches, the Syrian estimated

population in the United States to be 200,000 in 1913. In Tarikh al-wilayat al muttahida [History of the United States], (New York, 1913). Part of the reason for
the inaccuracy of U.S. government statistics lies in the fact that Syrians were not

distinguished from other Ottoman subjects until 1899. 4. Down. United States, 226 Fed. 148(1915). 5. This began with Philip Hitti's classic study The Syrians in America (New York, 1924), p. 89; and Joseph Ferris' series entitled "The Syrian Naturalization Question in the United States" published in the journal The Syrian World v.2, nos.8 and 9 (1928): 3-11, 18-24. See also Adele Younis' notes in Appendix 4 in The Coming of the Arabic-Speaking Peoples to the United States, ed. Philip Kayal 1995), pp. 297-301. (Staten Island, NY.,
6. Alixa 7. and Naff, of of Becoming American: the early Arab that social immigrant traces ideas experience about of race

(Carbondale, 111., 1985), p. 259.

In terms practices influenced race, I have been by work to the specific cultural and racism formation a given

society. See David Theo Goldberg, ed. Anatomy of Racism (Minneapolis, 1990); M. Omi and H. Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (New York, 1994); and the critique of the aforementioned in Thomas C.
Writing History," "Marking: "Race, Race-making, torical Review, 100, 1 (1995): 1-20. 8. Ian F. Haney L?pez, White by Law: The Legal Construction York, 1996), 3. Holt, 9. Much African descent and the of American His

of Race

(New

a petitioner on the basis to naturalize in 1938, of did attempt later, court that persons African ruled but was refused. The one-quarter on the basis were not eligible of for citizenship Native American and three-quarters In re Cruz, White By Law, cited in Haney "African descent." 240, fn. 2. L?pez,

10. This theory was first advanced by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach,

of medicine which at the University of Gottingen, to variations attributed racial difference Not or "craniology") until the had 1880s was in the late

professor

Theories century. eighteenth in the size and shape of human skulls long life in both a method and the Europe of classifying that often The

("craniometry" States. United races?seriously to way

an unusually

craniometry?as

attempts gave History

challenged race "measure" study not of in America, Class

by anthropologists. were completely skulls, new but ed. (New p.

to the of an Idea Working

this did not mean However, and craniometry abandoned, F. G?sset. Race: of brains. See Thomas York, 13. 1968 [1963]), pp. 69-11.

11. David R. Roediger,

American

The Wages of Whiteness: Race and theMaking

(London, 1991),

of the

54 Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

12. Both authors emphasize the role of the Catholic church and the Democratic party in helping the Irish learn to value theirwhiteness. See Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness, pp. 140-144. Roediger, in a section indebted to psychoanalytic theory, also argues that the Irish "projected" their desire for a preindustrial past onto blacks?
a desire minstrely The Wages he sees at work the "white" in the simultaneous class, among working 6. chapter development and notions of of white popular blackface See supremacy.

of Whiteness,

13. Noel

Ignatiev, How

the Irish Became White (New York,

p. 68. by Law, The petitioners There were: were thirteen 3 Chinese,

1995), p. 2.
racial prerequisite 1 Bur 3 Japanese,

14. Haney White Lopez, cases heard before Najour's.

mese,

1Hawaiian,
largest

1 Mexican,
concentration Commission

2 mixed Native American

of on naturalized Syrians Reports,

and white,
was in XV.

1mixed Asian
the North. New 1 Sess.

and white. 15. The

York City, for example, had approximately

House, Industrial Immigration,

300 naturalized Syrians by 1901. U.S.

vol. 57 Cong.

Doc.

184 (Washington, D.C., 1901), p. 445. 16. John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism (New York, 1993), p. 165. 17. Italians, for example, often worked beside and competed with blacks for jobs. Their commercial dealings with blacks could lead to violent reprisals from
as was lynched. the case Higham, p. 165. M. Strangers Kraut, in Tallulah, Louisiana, in the Land, p. Silent Travelers: where 169. Genes as and the five Sicilian storekeepers

whites, were 18. 19.

Ibid., See Alan

Menace
20. parasitic

"

Germs, as well considered

'Immigrant

(New York,
Trachoma infections,

1994), chapter 4.
fa vus, venereal diseases, that "Class A" conditions,

eye disease) (an infectious were all and tuberculosis

is, conditions warranting exclusion, by the United States Public Health Service. See Amy Fairchild "Science at the Borders: Immigrant medical inspection and defense of the nation, 1891-1930," (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1997).
21. Interview with Farah S., 1March 1997, Damascus, Syria; Sarah E. John,

"Arabic-Speaking Immigration to El Paso Area, 1900-1935," in Crossing the Wa ters, ed. Eric J. Hooglund (Washington, 1987), pp. 106-107; Alice Abraham. Tran script of interview by Alixa Naff, Los Angeles, CA, 1962, Naff Arab-American Collection, Series 4/C, Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian 22. Of According 1,578 Institution, Washington, to records from were debarred D.C. the Department on account of of Commerce trachoma. See and Labor 4,648

(almost one in ten) Syrians were turned back in the period between
these, persons

1899 and 1907.

Louise Seymour

Houghton "Syrians in theUnited States," The Survey, v.26, no. 14 (1911), p. 490. 23. Reed Ueda, "Naturalization and Citizenship," inHarvard Encyclopedia of
American 740. 24. The case case local On of Syrian immigrant one, essay case George especially will focus see Joseph Shishim, because on cases R. Haiek, a police officer in Venice, Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephen Thernstrom (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), p.

California was heard before Najour's

the Shishim debate circuit in the courts. is an important this press, the Shishim

in the Supreme Court of Los Angeles. While

a good it generated deal of in U.S. and heard district Arab-American Almanac,

4th ed. (Glendale, Calif, 1992), pp. 21-23. 25. In reNajour, 174 Fed. 735 (1909).
26. 27. On this point, In re Najour, see Haney p. 735. L?pez, White By Law, p. 68.

Gualtieri

55

28. Ex parte Shahid, 205 Fed. 813 (1913). 29. Costa Najour to Adele Younis (in Arabic), January 1961, Syrian-American Archival Collection (SAAC), Gr. II, Series C, folder 203, Center for Migration Studies (CMS), Staten Island, NY.
30. In re Najour, p. 735.

31. In Re Ah Yup, cited inHaney L?pez, White By Law, p. 210. 32. He was quoting from Huxley's Methods and Results of Ethnology. Dow, 213 Fed. 358(1914).
33. U.S. Ibid., p. 366.

See In re

34. The classification

of Syrians as "Asiatic" could be deduced from the 1910

in Asia." part of "Turkey of population statistics, However, Syrians were it is clear consid

which considered Census, Syria from the census that for the purpose

ered white,

since immigrants from "Turkey in Asia" were

listed in the category

white." "foreign-born 35. In re Dow, p. 365.

36. Ibid.
37. 39. 40. Souad the Grain Ibid., 367.

38. In re Ellis,
Ibid., p. Matthew

179 Fed. 1002 (1910).

Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of how of a Different representations in America: Color: European as a New "not Immi

1003.

grants and the Alchemy of Race

Joseph's of fascinating the Nation?The study Arab,"

(Cambridge, Mass.,

1998), pp. 68-74.

of Arabs

See also
quite

free" has impeded their integration into the category of American

in Arabs Building

citizen. "Against
Future,

ed.Michael W. Suleiman (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 257-271. 41. Judge Newman dismissed the argument, claiming that if being a Turkish subject disqualified one from naturalization, "the extension of the Turkish Empire over people unquestionably of thewhite race would deprive them of the privilege of
naturalization." 42. 43. 45. In re Ellis, Ibid. Takao In re Najour, p. 1004. p. 736.

44. United States v. Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923).

Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 (1922).

46. Haney L?pez, White By Law, p. 91; David R. Roediger, "Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of 'White Ethnics' in the United States," in Towards the
Abolition 47. 48. See United of Whiteness: "The Essays on Race, Politics Act and Working of 1917," Class History (Lon Select

don, 1994), p. 182.

Comprehensive v. Thind, Immigration p. 215. in Immigration:

Documents

and Case Records, ed. Edith Abbott (Chicago, 1924), p. 211.

States

49. Joseph Ferris, "Syrian Naturalization Question in the United States," The Syrian World 2, no. 9 (1928), p. 22; Helen Hatab Samhan, "Not Quite White:
Racial 217. 50. Lesser, For a more detailed discussion of the Thind and Ozawa the cases, Supreme see Jeff H. and 'Outsiders': Asians, Naturalization, "Always 12, no. 1(1985-86): Amerasia, pp. 83-100. in American 51. Mae M. Ngai, "The Architecture of Race Re-examination 52. nese See of Lesser's cases the Reed discussion in "Always Johnson of Act of 1924," Journal Classification and the Arab-American Experience," in Arabs in America, p.

Court," Law: History, and Japa A

Immigration of American naturalization

86, no. 1 (1999): 67-92.

the continuities 'Outsiders'," pp. between 92-93. internment

56 Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer 2001

53. United States v. Balsar a, 180 Fed. 696 (1910). 54. In re Ellis, 1003; Dow v. United States, p. 148. 55. The vast majority of "first wave," that is, pre-World War II, Syrian immi grants to the United States were Christian of either the Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic (Melkite) orMaronite denominations. Lucius Miller's comprehensive 1904 in the majority, fol study of the Greater New York community found Melkites
lowed tants. and by Out Eastern the Maronites, of a total population one and a much smaller number of Protes Orthodox, seven Muslims, of 2,482 there were persons, only area of In Worcester, Jews. hundred another MA, Syrian were two examples, in the majority. the Orthodox These of other communities in the United States, and

approximately

settlement, early Syrian not be representative however, may

there is still much work to be done on how the religious composition of themigra tion changed over time. See Philip M. P. Kayal and Joseph M. Kayal, The Syrian Lebanese in America (Boston, 1975), p. 78; Lucius Hopkins Miller, A Study of the Syrian Population of Greater New York (New York, 1904), p. 22; Najib E. Saliba,
Emigration 56. from "Elkourie Syria Takes and Burnett the Syrian-Lebanese to Task," Birmingham Community Age-Herald, of Worcester, 20 Oct. MA 1907.

(Ligonier, Pa., 1992), p. 39. This was the second of two letters written by Elkourie. The first appeared under the title "Dr. Elkourie Defends Syrian Immigrants" in the Birmingham Ledger, 20 Sept. to Nancy Faires Conklin, the two letters were collected in a 1907. According and distributed under the title "In Defense of the Semitic and the Syrian pamphlet Especially." See Conklin and Faires, "'Colored' and Catholic: The Lebanese in
Alabama," Birmingham, ton, D.C., 1987), p. 76. 57. "Elkourie Takes 58. in Crossing Burnett the Waters, ed. Eric J. Hooglund (Washing

to Task."

no unified Ottoman for example, that there was Braude, argues Benjamin administrative but rather "a set of arrangements, consid local, with system, largely over "Foundation of the erable variation time and place." See his article Myths Millet 59. 60. 61. 63. 65. System," In re Dow, Ibid., Ibid., Al-Hoda, Al-Hoda, in Christians p. 351. p. 363. p. 356. 11 March 11 March 1914, 1914, p. 3. p. 3. and Jews in the Ottoman Empire v. 2, ed.

Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York,

1982), pp. 12-1 A.

62. Ibid. 64. Al-Hoda, 4 April 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid.

68. 70. See, Kalil for example, A. Bishara, al-Hoda Asl 17 Sept. 1914, p. 8.

1914, p. 3.

Modern Syrian (New York, 69. Kalil A. Bishara, The Origin of the

1914), p. 5.

al-hadith (New York, 1914), p. 5. al-suriy in Cross for Identity" 71. Michael the Search Arab-Americans: Suleiman, "Early an impedi common was that Islam was p. 45. The most ing the Waters, perception were ment to debauchery. to progress, These ideas and that its adherents prone as well as in enormously in the accounts of American could be found missionaries,

popular literary works

Twain's American 72. to The Innocents Images

like Robert Hitchens'

Abroad. See Terry to 1948,"

The Garden of Allah (1904) and Mark

Hammons, '"A Wild Ass of a Man': 1978). paragraphs identity to of Oklahoma, two devote Syrian racial

of Arabs

Naff, Becoming the naturalization

diss., University (Ph.D. and Kayal American, p. 259. Kayal over cases the debates and attribute

Gualtieri

57

"the

general

anti-immigrant

climate

prevalent

in the

country

at

the

time."

While

noting that "legally and politically the question was important," they minimize the participation of Syrians in the debates and add, rather cryptically, that "socially, the
Syrian See, few blond and blue-eyed?were in America, p. 74. Helen Syrian-Lebanese studies that problematizes classification the racial The with Naff by Christians?often not particularly handicapped." in one of the Hatab Samhan, as "white," of Arabs oddly in race' while the most crisis, not See have "Not a very Quite was

concurs tensely

disciminatory on effect penetrating White," 73. p. 217. In 1923,

that "this 'yellow arguing of the early Arab did experience immigrants, nor on their civic their identity assimilation." the home of a Syrian family

for example,

in Marietta,

Georgia,

dynamited, allegedly by the KKK. Jusserand to Poincar?, 3 January 1923, Levant 1918-1940, Syrie-Liban (SL), v. 407, Minist?re des Affaires ?trang?res (MAE),
Paris.

74. Reported
75. Matthew

in The Syrian World 3, no. 12 (June 1929), p. 47.

Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color, p. 239.

76. Letter from S. Mokarzel to Gaston Li?bert, 29 September 1920 (contained in dispatch to the French Consul in Panama), Levant 1918-1940, Syrie-Liban,
v.l28,MAE,p. 93.

77. Excerpted in The Syrian World 3, no. 12 (June 1929), p. 42. 78. Costa Najour to Adele Younis (in Arabic), January 1961, SAAC, Gr. II, Series C, folder 203, CMS, Staten Island. 79. In re Ahmad Hassan, 48 F. Supp. 843 (1942).
80. Ibid., p. 845.

81. Ibid. 82. Ibid.

83. Lawrence Oschinsky, "Islam in Chicago" (M.A. Thesis, University of Chi

cago, 1947), p. 27; Abdo Elkholy, The Arab Moslems in the United States: Religion and Assimilation (New Haven, 1966), pp. 29-33. 84. United States v. Cartozian, 6 F. 2d. 919 (1925). 85. In re Halladjian, 174 Fed. 834 (1909). The case involved four Armenian
applicants and was heard in Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts. It was cited in In re

Mudarri 176 Fed. 465 86. "The Eligibility

gration Italics and Naturalization in original.

of Arabs
Service,

to Naturalization,"
Monthly Review

Department
1, no. 4

of Justice, Immi
(Oct. 1943), p. 12.

87. Ibid. 88. Ibid. Both the INS and the naturalization courts appeared oblivious
power Brodkin and of institutionalized argues, spaces and in her the the anti-Semitism exclusion "authentic" of Jews into See New to construct of Jews Jews from as nonwhite. professional, whites, middle-class Jews Became N.J., 1998). As systematic for reserved

to the
Karen

educational contributed did White Jews Folks

social

(usually

Protestant)

to their racialization. Not until after the Second World War, with the rise in philo
Semitism become, and What 90. 91. 92. Social first ascendancy the American her How Brunswick, estimation, that Says About p. 943. fully "white." in America Race

89. Ex parte Mohriez,

Ibid., Ibid. Joseph

54 F. Supp. 941 (1944).

Text, conferred

sympathy

the Limits of a Racialized "Palestinians and Discourse," Massad, status was white" that "honorary 94-114. Massad 34 (1993): argues on European white and Jews who became of Gentile support objects con era. It has, been in his opinion, in the post-holocaust recently only

58 Journal of American

Ethnic History

/ Summer

2001

ferred on Palestinians as objects of Israeli human rights violations. I am suggesting that naturalization law defined Muslim Arabs as "honorary whites" much earlier, but that their whiteness was not considered as legitimate as that of the Syrian
Christians, who claimed it earlier and more successfully.

93. E.C.
Administration's

Hagopian,
Campaign

"Minority
against

Rights

in a Nation-State:
Journal

The Nixon
of Palestine Stud

the Arab-Americans,"

ies, 5, nos. 1-2 (1975): 97-114; Jack Shaheen, The TV Arab (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1984); Michael W. Suleiman, The Arabs in theMind of America (Brattleboro, Vt, 1988); Nabeel Abraham, "Anti-Arab Racism and Violence in the United States," in
of Arab-American Development pp. 155-214. Mich.,), The Americans: Continuity and Change, Identity, ed. Ernest McCarus (Ann Arbor,

94. Nabeel Abraham, "Arab-American Marginality: Mythos

ed. Baha Abu-Laban

and Praxis," inArab

W. Suleiman,

and Michael

AAUG Monograph Series, no. 24 (Belmont, Mass., 1989), pp. 17-43; Janice J. Terry, "Community and Political Activism Among Arab Americans in Detroit," in
Arabs in America, pp. 241-254.

95. Michael W. Suleiman, "Introduction: The Arab Immigrant Experience," in Arabs inAmerica, p. 15; Th?r?se Saliba, "Resisting Invisibility," p. 309; and Helen Hatab Samhan, "Not Quite White," pp. 222-223. For an interesting discussion of how the debate on racial classification points to a split within the Arab-American
community between those in favor of maintaining formal classification as "whites,"

and those wishing to ally with people of color, see Lisa Suhair Majaj, "Arab in Arabs in American Ethnicity: Locations, Coalitions, and Cultural Negotiations,"
America, 96. p. 322. Samhan, "Not Quite White," p. 222. Arab-American feminists, in particular,

have embraced the term "people of color" to identify and forge alliances with other minority groups. See, for example, the collection edited by Joanna Kadi, Food for Our Grandmothers (Boston, 1994).