Arab Americans in Michigan

Understanding General Patterns of Arab Settlement

21 Understanding General Patterns ofArab Settlement I n general, Arab Americans came to the United States by chain migrations .28 In this type of migration, the first member of the family to arrive (usually a male family member) will attempt to bring his or her immediate family, other relatives, and friends to the United States. As noted in the author’s research, often Arab-American males have brought their parents to the United States, in order to care for them in their old age.29 Brothers, sisters, and cousins often followed. Most immigrants to the United States have shared this pattern of chain migration. Periodically, U.S. Immigration laws and various push and pull factors change, causing these chain migrations to ebb and flow. A peak wave in U.S. migration occurred in the early 1900s. Until September 2001, the United States was experiencing a second great wave of immigration. Within this broader pattern, different ethnic groups have their own subpatterns. Arab-American immigration patterns have been an area of contention among researchers. One problem for researchers is the exact dates and cutoff points of the different waves of Arab immigrants. Some researchers fail to emphasize the period between 1924 and 1952 when restrictive immigration laws brought migration from the Arab world to the United States to a virtual standstill. This first period of restriction became more significant after the tragedy of 9/11, when tighter enforcement and restrictions were again imposed on immigrants from the Arab world (and from Muslim countries). Figure 4 provides a new synopsis of general patterns of immigration of Arab populations to the United States. Arab immigration to Michigan follows the larger general national pattern, with a few unique exceptions. This interpretation of immigration patterns considers three major waves of immigration. Sameer and Nabeel Abraham identified four specific waves of migration in the four major groups of Arab Americans in the Detroit area.30 Other researchers, like Michael Suleiman , speak of two great waves of Arab-American immigration (1860 to 1948 and 1948 to the present).31 Because Arab-American studies is a relatively young field of study, with most of its practitioners and theorists currently living, many rich debates and discussions have ensued. The field of Arab-American studies dates to the initial published work of Phillip Hitti in 1924,32 but the field was not recognized by the mainstream until the 1970s through the research of Barbara Aswad and Mary Sengstock from Wayne State University. The cutoff dates for the different waves and even the number of waves vary somewhat, according to the researchers. The current analysis could be compared with either a two-wave or three-wave pattern. The pattern given in figure 4 places more emphasis on U.S. immigration laws as cutoff dates for the different waves and reconsiders the significance of the impact of these laws on Arab Americans. It also illustrates the differences between the migrations that came before and after WWI, the wave that arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, and the most recent waves of predominantly Muslim refugee populations. Previous researchers have stressed the dates 1948 and 1967 as cutoff dates for the different waves because of the large numbers of Palestinian refugees created by the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the political awareness that these events sparked in Arab Americans. That analysis downplays the significance of the National Immigration Act of 1924 and the change in American immigration with the Immigration Act of 1965 that allowed for a larger number of immigrants and triggered an upswing in influx of immigrants. Rosina J. Hassoun 22 Samia El Badry reports that 75 percent of Arab Americans polled in the 1990 U.S. Census reported having arrived in the United States since 1964.33 The fact that such a high percentage of Arab Americans arrived in America after the mid-1960s strengthens the case for using 1965, with the concurrent change in immigration law that year, to designate the beginning of the next wave (the third wave) of Arab immigrants. A R A B A M E R I C A N S I N M I C H I G A N 23 Figure 4. General Patterns of Arab-American Immigration WAVES COMPOSITION DATES First Major Wave Predominately Lebanese Christians, some Yemeni, 1860–1924 Chaldeans, and others. First...