Syrian Migration and the Economic Incentive
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As we have discussed multiple times before in this class, Immigration into America for Arab and South Asian people was often very different from the preconceived notion of immigration we tend to hold today. In a similar instance to the Bengali peddlers we've discussed, Syrian immigrants to the United States did not exclusively come to the Americas with the intent to set up shop in this foreign land, cut their ties from their motherland, and start fresh like most English/German/Western European migrants. Instead the intent was often less "immigration" and more "travelling", these migrants sought job opportunities and methods of making wealth that they could then export back to their homelands for their families and communities.
After economic failure and recession hit Syria following a blight on mulberry trees, which then stunted silk production, as well as the opening of the Suez canal that undermined Syrian silk exports, it was very common for Syrians to emigrate internationally in search of job opportunities. Some studies suggest that as much as a sixth of the Syrian population emigrated from the area between 1881 and 1901, likely in search of these very opportunities.
As to where these people migrated, the Gualtieri reading seems to suggest that the majority of Syrian immigrants came through New York City and other large metropolitan areas. While it is true that many Syrian migrants, after amassing some wealth, purchased homesteads in more rural areas of the United States, the truth of the matter is that large Syrian communities were often based in large metropolitan areas because those were the ports of entry. For someone entering a foreign country, it is much easier to stay within the community of foreign people like yourself, or moving to another large, similar community, than it is to strike it out fresh into a population totally alien to oneself. Just as those from rural areas of Syria had often migrated to the more populous areas of Syria in search for job opportunities, once these were no longer available, immigration to foreign populous areas still provided the best chance of amassing wealth.