More Argentine than You: Arabic-Speaking Immigrants in Argentina by Steven Hyland Jr. (review)

Steven Hyland informs readers that his "study examines how Arabic-speaking immigrants and their descendants evolved from a group of foreign nationals into a well-integrated ethnic minority committed to life in northwestern Argentina" (1) from the late 19^th century to 1946. He states further that the "study casts a wide net in an attempt to identify and interpret the diverse experiences of Syrians and Lebanese residing in the Northwest" (5); "builds upon rich scholarship on migration and its focus on adaptation and integration" (6); "adds to scholarship on immigration history by examining how transitional process affected new arrivals and their identities" (7). Notwithstanding these ambitious goals which are scattered in the introduction, and which could have been consolidated into one paragraph, Hyland has produced a compelling and commanding narrative of migration, settlement, accommodation, activism, retention, anti-immigration sentiments, transformation and leadership roles of one ethnic group from the Middle East to northwestern Argentina in the early twentieth century. By using archival and selected secondary sources in both English and Spanish, Hyland has moved the marginal history of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants to the center of Argentina's national immigration experience.

What is so interesting about this book is the revelation that the immigrants' journey from their homeland to Argentina never seemed to cease even when they had matured and settled. The immigrants' world was a busy one. They were building themselves, their families, their new communities, and contributing to their homelands through navigating various channels for jobs, housing, political representation, meditation, and social networking in Argentina, and repatriating remittances to their departed homeland. These activities were not always based on the pursuit of economics but on culture, literature, folklore, poetry, homeland religious rituals, and education. Whenever these events occurred in immigrant society, we tend to read about the common experiences of anti-immigration sentiments, racism, exclusion, marginalization, stereotypes, prejudicial discourses, confrontations, helplessness, assimilation, and adaptation alongside some success. While some of this did happen among Syrian and Lebanese immigrants in Argentina—such as the "internal wrangling and general divisiveness" (126) and the ways "young people pursued interests that lay beyond the social world of their parents" (217)—they were not mainstream. Hyland maintains that "Arabic speakers and other groups utilized state institute and interacted in an atmosphere that was neither oppressive nor entirely welcoming" (46). The democratic atmosphere in early nineteenth Argentina and the immigrants' pre-migration values, as well as their continuous interaction among themselves and with the wider Argentine society at myriad levels (as opposed to self-isolation), influenced him to argue through case studies and testimonials that Syrians and Lebanese had become as equally patriotic and Argentine as any other person born in Argentina. Hyland declares that the "most important lesson to draw from the example of the Syrian-Lebanese experience in the Northwest may be how a group of foreign nationals and their descendants evolve into an ethnic minority group undeniably identified with the host nation" (224).

Interesting, too, is the involvement of youths and women in building Syrian and Lebanese community in Argentina. Through access to education, women earned university degrees and participated in political and charity organizations, and fought for rights to shape their own community, which in turn, accelerated the integration process of the immigrant community. Women's voices were heard; their participation in soup kitchens, welfare institutions, and labor unions was valued; but above all, these activities provided women with a sense of confidence and worth which were denied to them in their departed home. Conservative patriarchal and Middle Easterner customs had restricted them to the domestic sphere (163). Youths deepened the process of women's involvement and made them more Argentine than their own previous generation and like other born Argentines. Over time, these diverse immigrants were fully integrated into Argentina and even "married into local families" (223) while simultaneously maintaining their religious identity and Arabic language.

In...