• “Claimed by Turkey as Subjects”: Ottoman Migrants, Foreign Passports, and Syrian Nationality in the Americas, 1915–1925

    Author(s):
    Stacy Fahrenthold (see profile)
    Date:
    2020
    Group(s):
    Global & Transnational Studies, History, Ottoman and Turkish Studies
    Subject(s):
    Middle East, History, Emigration and immigration, Ethnicity, National characteristics, Nationalism, Syria
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    lebanon, passports, mobilities, Middle Eastern history, Immigration history, National identity, Migration
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/cwv7-9p30
    Abstract:
    Unofficial Description: In Arab American studies, it's long been understood that Syrian immigrants became "legally white" in 1915's George Dow v United States. This access to whiteness was critical in getting access to US citizenship. However, US laws governing Syrian racial status also bore implications beyond the US context. Starting with Dow (1915), this chapter examines the implications of wartime laws governing Syrian and Lebanese ethnicity in the United States on emerging nationality codes post-1918. It argues that a "Syrian American legal exceptionalism" in US law divided Arabic-speaking Ottoman immigrants from other Ottoman groups for the purposes of wartime mobilization. US laws set a precedent for the first post-Ottoman laws governing "national origins" as France asserted itself as Syria and Lebanon's administration. In sum, the chapter considers the intrinsic link between the assertion of "post-Ottoman" nationalities by Syrians in the mahjar (diaspora) and the arrival of practical nationalities in the eastern Mediterranean.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.2979/subjectsottomaninternationallaw.0.0.12
    Publisher:
    Indiana University Press
    Pub. Date:
    2020-8-17
    Book Title:
    The Subjects of Ottoman International Law
    ISBN:
    9780253056610
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    3 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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