The Rise of the Assad Regime 55 [The adults] had schools on Sundays that taught us Arabic; we had young people who annually would rent a theater and put on shows. As much as we were a product of America, there was always a really strong bond between us and Libya, even just culturally, despite the fact that most of us had never been or would [not] go back and forth. While I found no other named community associations during my research, respondents across various cities reported regularly hosting informal social events, such as religious Eid celebrations and annual community picnics. Respondents reported that these initiatives fostered their heritage and homecountry connections, thereby inculcating loyalty to Libya among the younger generations. These ties would come to fruition and become conduits for activism during the 2011 revolution, as subsequent chapters explain. 2.4 the rise of the assad regime The modern-day state of Syria, like Libya, was once part of the Ottoman Empire. It was ensconced in a territory known as “greater Syria,” which included Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and parts of contemporary Iraq. As emigrants fled war, religious persecution, and political violence, Syrians reached both the United States and Britain by the 1860s, settling in a larger wave than began in the 1880s (Gualtieri 2009, 2020; Seddon 2014). Muslims, however, were largely blocked from emigrating because of their forced conscription into the Ottoman military. Under the Ottomans, Syrians were considered part of the “yellow race” in the West and were associated with anarchists, papists, barbarism, and “Moslem” threats (Younis 1995). Thus, the majority of early Syrian emigration to the United States and Britain was comprised of Christians (Orthodox, Maronite, Melkite, and Protestant) who attained social mobility as peddlers, traders, and merchants (Younis 1995: 233). Syrians became categorically distinguished from Turks in 1899 in the United States, though they were also suspect due to their Orthodox, non-Anglo origins (Jamal and Naber 2008). Through forming robust civic organizations, including the Federation of Syrian American Societies, they contested racial discrimination in the courts (Bragdon 1989; Gualtieri 2009, 2020; Younis 1995). By 1915, Syrians came to be considered white, and therefore able to naturalize, after a Syrian Christian named George Dow won his third appeal in court (Jamal and Naber 2008). By 1920, no Syrians were refused citizenship on the basis of their supposed race. From the 1880s until the more restrictive quotas of the 1920s, Syrians emigrated to New York, New Orleans, into Texas and California through Mexico, and eventually spread to most states; about one hundred thousand Syrians entered the United States during this period (Gualtieri 2020). While they continued to face discrimination and racism, they also mobilized to https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press