immigration Archives - Page 3 of 3

Mapping Newcomers in Buenos Aires, 1928

Published in 1928, the Guía Assalam del Comercio Sirio-libanés en la República Argentina, or, the “Assalam Guide to Syro-Lebanese Commerce in the Republic of Argentina,” contains tens of thousands of names and addresses for shops, services, and professionals from among or affiliated with the Syrian and Lebanese communities of Argentina. “Syro-Lebanese” here corresponds with the Spanish siriolibanés, a term that gained some popularity throughout Latin America after WWI to designate a community wherein árabe (Arab), libanés (Lebanese), and sirio (Syrian) were associated with particular political movements. It also contrasted with turco, with which Levantine migrants were (and continue to be) labelled, having initially come with Ottoman documentation.

The guide features both cities with significant populations of siriolibaneses, like Buenos Aires, Santiago del Estero, and San Miguel de Tucumán, and the rural areas where many Syrians and Lebanese established themselves, including future Argentine president Carlos Menem’s father, who owned a store in the small town of Anillaco in La Rioja providence. The first map below presents the locations of the 1,633 entries for the city of Buenos Aires, providing a snapshot of the commercial and social geography of Arabic-speaking immigrants and their descendants in Argentina’s capital.

GIS data was imported from Google Maps. Some street names and numbers in Buenos Aires must have changed between the 1920s and the present, when coordinates were matched with addresses. However, these changes should not have had a major impact on this map, as most of the city’s main road infrastructure – on which the majority of the above entries are concentrated – have not changed significantly since the late nineteenth century.

A closer view with major avenues shows Syrian and Lebanese businesses throughout the city. Since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Buenos Aires had sported a vigorous transportation network and was known as the “City of Trams.” Unsurprisingly, then, the establishments listed in the Guía could be found on and around most major thoroughfares. Concentrations, however, are evident (1) on Tucumán and Lavalle Avenues in the Balvanera neighborhood, (2) Reconquista in today’s downtown Retiro and Centro neighborhoods, and, to a lesser extent, (3) along Rivadavia in the late nineteenth century suburbs of Flores and Floresta and (4) on Patricios between the working-class neighborhoods of Barracas and La Boca.

Many Syrian and Lebanese migrants to the Western Hemisphere established themselves initially by peddling various goods to rural markets. These mercachifles, or peddlers, played an important role in bringing urban consumer goods to rural Argentina, following burgeoning railway networks and often setting up permanent storefronts. Within the urban context of Buenos Aires, Syro-Lebanese businesses also spread throughout the city to market dry goods and consumer items. Tiendas, or “stores,” in green on the map below, are around 1,000 of the 1,633 addresses listed in the Guía. The vast majority of these were also mercerías that sold sewing supplies and could be found in the city center as well as the surrounding neighborhoods. Much of the city’s population must have had access to these corner shops.

The guide also includes around 350 businesses involved in the sale of clothing products, mostly tejidos, or general textiles, in addition to specialty shops like camiserías (for shirts), sederías (silk), and artículos de punto (knit woolen clothes). These are displayed in blue below; green dots indicate auxiliary industries, such as mercerías and confecciones (alterations).

Importers, like the textile businesses, were located for the most part in two downtown neighborhoods, (1) and (2) above. For example, the advertisement for Tufik Sarquis & Hno, on Reconquista Avenue in the Centro, shows the company to have commercial connections to European textile centers Paris and Manchester and a number of registered trademarks. Import businesses are displayed below in yellow.

Communal institutions, such as societies, publications, and religious institutions, in addition to professionals (mainly lawyers, dentists, and doctors) generally clustered around the downtown Reconquista Avenue, where much of the siriolibanés import and textile businesses were concentrated. Here, the Syro-Lebanese elite built a public life from commercial prosperity. Communal institutions are shown below in blue, while professionals are in purple.

This important area, pictured in detail below, provides a portrait of the urban layout of this Syro-Lebanese public sphere. The newspaper al-Mursal was affiliated with the nearby Misioneros Libaneses Maronitas, or the Lebanese Maronite Mission, while Bunader Y Rustom published the Lebanese periodical Azzaman. On the other hand, Imprenta Assalam, in addition to publishing the guide itself, issued the periodical Assalam, while community luminary José Moisés Azize, founder of El Banco Siriolibanés and president of El Club Siriolibanés, would later issue the first daily bilingual Arabic and Spanish newspaper in Argentina, El Diario Siriolibanés.

The only communal institutions that lay outside of downtown Buenos Aires are the Sociedad Islámica de San Martín (San Martín Islamic Society), the Sociedad Siriana de Socorros Mutuos (Syriac Mutual Aid Society), and La Natura, later Natur-Islam, a newspaper with a pan-Islamic political and religious orientation. That these religious minorities among Syro-Lebanese immigrants (the majority of whom were Maronite and Greek Orthodox Christians) are peripheral in a geographical sense is mainly indicative of the smaller size and financial weight of these communities. Note, as well, the Círculo Social Israelita, or Jewish Social Circle. The Guía features many Jewish and joint Jewish-Levantine businesses; connections between merchants of both communities was likely common, especially when many Jews from the Syrian city of Aleppo migrated to Argentina in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As a whole, the Guía Assalam gives us a sense of the social and economic structure of the Syro-Lebanese community in Buenos Aires on the eve of the Great Depression. Importation firms, communal institutions, and professional services were based in certain downtown areas of the city, while textile and dry goods stores spread throughout the urban landscape. The guide also captures the diversity of Syro-Lebanese commerce, which included Sunni Muslims, Jews, Druze and various Christian sects and their respective communal organizations. At the same time, the Guía on its own fails to provide sufficient information for the typical migration history. It lacks, for example, the birthplaces or origins of the men and women it lists, unlike an otherwise similar 1908 Syrian Business Directory from the United States. Only when paired with other sources, like censuses, would the guide tell us much about family or hometown networks and the fates of migrant businesses over time.

The Guía Assalam is, nonetheless, a fascinating document on its own merits. What prompted the creation of this “ethnic yellow pages,” and what prompts similar efforts like the Syrian-American Directory mentioned above? The answer lies in part in an effort to control and project communal reputation. The guide serves as a means for the Imprenta Assalam, the guide’s publisher, to advertise the community’s commercial reach throughout Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina. An introduction to the guide explains the Assalam-affiliated Oficina Consultativa del Comercio Sirio, or Consultative Office of Syrian Commerce, as follows:

There are no textile trading firms that do not have hundreds of Syrians among their clientele. Being as we are the most well-suited to know the community as a whole, we are, precisely for that reason, the most consulted to provide our opinion with respect to the commercial capacity of such clients.

The Guía simultaneously displays the informational capabilities of the Oficina Consultativa and attests to the commercial success of Syro-Lebanese businesses. More than just a directory of use to other Syrians and Lebanese, then, the guide represents the positioning of Assalam and its Oficina Consultativa as a conduit for interactions between the community and the wider Argentine economy and society.

Sanctuary Austin: 1980s and Today

By Edward Shore

Civil war and unrest have triggered a global humanitarian disaster without parallel in recent history. In June 2015, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported that the number of refugees and internally displaced people had reached its highest point since the Second World War. Violence in countries like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Sudan has forced more than 60 million men, women, and children from their homes. One in every 122 people worldwide is a refugee or an internally displaced person (IDP). More than 9.5 million Syrians, roughly 43% of the Syrian population, have been displaced since 2012. The majority of asylum seekers have re-settled in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Yet a rising tide of virulent xenophobia has inflamed much of Europe and the United States.

Texas has opposed President Obama’s plan to grant asylum to 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016. Nearly half of all Texans support banning non-U.S. Muslims from entering the country and more than half support the immediate deportation of all undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S. Last December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit against the Obama administration to block the relocation of refugees from Syria to Texas. Governor Greg Abbott has vowed to use next year’s legislative session to punish “sanctuary cities,” a loose term describing municipalities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. One Austin-based non-profit organization is leading the charge to defend Texas’ refugees.

Image of the front facade of Casa Marianella in Austin, Texas — Casa Marianella in Austin, Texas. Courtesy of Casa Marianella.

Casa Marianella is a transitional shelter for refugees and asylum seekers in East Austin. It emerged during the Sanctuary Movement, a religious and political campaign that provided safe-haven to refugees fleeing civil wars in Central America during the early 1980s. At its height, the Sanctuary Movement comprised a network of 500 religious congregations that provided shelter and legal counsel to Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees. Advocates acted in open defiance of U.S. immigration law. Over half a million Guatemalans and Salvadorans arrived to the United States during the 1980s. The vast majority were civilians fleeing atrocities perpetrated by anti-communist paramilitaries. Yet the Reagan administration, which supported right wing military juntas in their crusade against leftist insurgencies in El Salvador and Guatemala, accepted less than three percent of all asylum applications from those countries. The U.S. government argued that Guatemalans and Salvadorans were “economic migrants” fleeing poverty, not governmental repression. In 1983, the United States granted political asylum to one Guatemalan.

Press conference launching the Sanctuary Movement at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, California. March 29, 1982. Photo courtesy of share-elsalvador.org. — Press conference launching the Sanctuary Movement at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, California. March 29, 1982. Courtesy of share-elsalvador.org.

Activists Ed Wendler, Mercedes Peña, and Jennifer Long were members of the Austin Interfaith Task Force for Central America, an ecumenical peace coalition that opposed U.S. military aid to Central America. In the fall of 1985, they lobbied Mayor Frank Cooksey to declare Austin a “sanctuary city.” The city council, under intense pressure from anti-immigration groups, rejected the proposal. Unfazed, the Austin Interfaith Task Force for Central America established a residential space to serve the needs of refugees in East Austin’s Govalle neighborhood. Casa Marianella opened its doors to dozens of Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum seekers on January 6, 1986. Casa’s namesake honors the memory of Marianella García Villas, a Salvadoran human rights lawyer who was assassinated by paramilitaries in March 1983. She was a close associate of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in San Salvador by state security forces while celebrating mass on March 24, 1980.

A mural honors the memory of Marianella García Villas. Photo courtesy of Casa Marianella. — A mural honors the memory of Marianella García Villas. Courtesy of Casa Marianella.

Today, Casa Marianella provides shelter and social services to asylum seekers from 28 different countries, including Colombia, Nepal, India, Angola, and Nigeria. The shifting demographics correspond to recent changes in U.S. immigration policy. “It’s much harder to cross the U.S. border from Mexico today than it was thirty years ago,” explained Jennifer Long, current executive director of Casa Marianella.

In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice launched Operation Streamline, a “zero-tolerance” approach to unauthorized border crossing. Those caught at the U.S. border in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas may be subject to criminal prosecution for misdemeanor illegal entry, an offense that carries a six-month maximum sentence. Any migrant who has been deported in the past and attempts to re-enter without authorization can be charged with felony re-entry, an offense that carries a two year maximum sentence. Ninety-nine percent of detainees prosecuted under Operation Streamline plead guilty. Detainees from Mexico and Central America are often placed in removal proceedings.

Immigration activists protest Operation Streamline at Sen. John McCain's office in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo courtesy AFSC Arizona. — Immigration activists protest Operation Streamline at Sen. John McCain’s office in Phoenix, Arizona. Courtesy of AFSC Arizona.

By contrast, refugees from the Horn of Africa are jailed at ICE detention centers pending the outcome of their asylum cases. This is because the U.S. government cannot deport people to states without recognizable governments. Detainees seeking asylum that ICE determines not to be flight risks or threats to national security can secure release after posting bond. This is how most refugees arrive at Casa Marianella. In 2015, the majority of Casa’s residents came from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Several must still wear ankle monitors, including a father and his young daughter, while they await the court’s decision on their asylum requests.

As one of the last remaining shelters for asylum seekers in the United States, Casa Marianella labors to meet the needs of the country’s swelling refugee population. Last Friday, a deluge of collect calls poured into Casa Marianella from ICE detention facilities in Port Isabel, Pearsall, Hutto, Taylor, and Karnes, Texas. Others called from Krome, Florida, where a federal judge boasts a 95% denial rate for asylum seekers. Casa Marianella reserves space for 38 residents but currently shelters 51. Although overcrowded, the organization still manages to assist the majority of its residents and the refugee community at large to secure legal counsel, work, medical care, English classes, and a place to call home. Of the 188 refugees who entered Casa’s adult shelter last year, 92% successfully exited. Casa’s triumph is a testament to the compassion, dedication, and courage of its staff, volunteers, and residents.

Casa Marianella staff, residents, and volunteers gather for Convivio, a monthly celebration of food, live music, and community. Photo courtesy of Casa Marianella. — Casa Marianella staff, residents, and volunteers gather for Convivio, a monthly celebration of food, live music, and community. Courtesy of Casa Marianella.

Mattias is an asylum seeker from Eritrea. He visited Casa’s office last Friday when I interviewed Jennifer Long. Mattias arrived at Casa last year and has since found a stable job and lives with his family in an apartment in East Austin. “What’s the secret for your success, Mattias?” I asked. “Oh, just walking here,” he replied. “That’s it. Nothing else.”

Now, more than ever, Casa Marianella needs volunteers. Students and faculty with language skills can get involved by interpreting for pro bono attorneys who are working on residents’ asylum cases. For instance, I recently interpreted for an Angolan refugee fleeing sectional violence in Luanda. I also officiated a wedding in Portuguese for an Angolan couple at Casa. Posada Esperanza, Casa’s women and children’s shelter, needs volunteers to assist students with their homework. Others are needed to help prepare and clean up after meals. Finally, join Casa residents and staff from 6-8 pm every last Sunday of the month for “Convivio,” a celebration of community with live music, dancing, and ethnic cuisine.

To volunteer, please email volunteer@casamarianella.org.

Arminda married Gabriel at Casa Marianella in the presence of family and friends. February 13, 2014. Courtesy of the author.

Disclaimer: I used pseudonyms to protect the anonymity of Casa’s residents.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, by Rich Cohen (2012)

by Kody Jackson

The best stories teach us without our knowing. The best way to illustrate this, of course, is with a story. When I was in elementary school, I had to memorize the prefixes of the metric system: kilo-, hecto-, deca-, base, deci-, centi-, milli-. And I could never get it right! It always went something like this: Kilo…Hecto…something else…pass…deci…I forget…umm. All I ever wanted was to go back to feet and inches. And so it went, until our fifth grade teacher introduced us to the magical phrase, King Henry died by drinking chocolate milk. My teacher’s little jingle changed everything: King Henry made that infernal metric system memorable. It was a wonderful lesson on the power of a story, one that has stuck with me to this day.

I would like to think Rich Cohen had a similar experience in his fifth grade classroom, one where he too learned how to defeat the evil metric system, but I cannot be sure. All I know is that he holds story in the same esteem in his The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King. In the first couple pages, Cohen introduces his readers to his compelling protagonist, Samuel Zemurray, a poor Jewish immigrant to the United States who later came to embody the American Dream.

The book’s first glimpse of Zemurray shows him working hard in his uncle’s Alabama grocery store, sweeping and cleaning, stacking and shelving, and always looking for an opportunity to succeed. His real break comes when a banana peddler arrives in town. Fascinated by the sight, Zemurray sets out to involve himself in the trade. He begins selling freckled bananas, the ones thought too ripe for long-distance transport. He finds a partner; they invest in a company. They purchase banana ships. Zemurray takes sole control, buys banana land in Honduras, and profits enormously. The story reaches its climax when Zemurray ascends to the presidency of the United Fruit Company, one of the United States’ most dominant and successful monopolies of the late nineteenth century. Even from this perch, Zemurray still embodies the underdog, fighting to maintain his banana empire, championing the noble cause of Zionism, and struggling to be accepted by mainstream America. The story ends as a triumph that, while acknowledging certain mistakes, largely celebrating the life of Zemurray. He was a self-made man, a shrewd banana tycoon, and, most importantly to Cohen, a Jew who succeeded in a hostile and prejudiced world.

Cohen’s story, on the whole, proves successful. As a reader, one becomes so engrossed by Zemurray and his work ethic that one almost does not notice the technical descriptions of banana planting, the history lesson on U.S. trust-busting, or the explanations of Central American politics. These chapters pass like clouds on a windy day, quickly and without much notice. Thus, in terms of story, Cohen presents his readers with a tour de force.

Samuel Zemurray, a Russian who rose to become a fruit magnate (Image courtesy of Peter Ubel)

Samuel Zemurray, the Russian immigrant who rose to become a giant in the American fruit industry (Image courtesy of Peter Ubel)

Stories, however, are never without their faults. To accommodate his narrative structure, Cohen simplifies and whitewashes the actions of Zemurray and his fellow banana titans. Rarely do abuse and corruption come up; even when they do, they are largely minimized. In sum, Cohen tells a story of business decisions and individual effort, not exploitation and collective sacrifice. Cohen falls most grievously into this trap when writing about Zemurray’s involvement in a Honduran coup. With colorful mercenaries and crafty strategy, it starts to look more like a Wild West adventure than a violation of sovereignty. Cohen gets so caught up in the romance that he forgets the other side of the story. To neglect the Central American experience is like telling the Illiad without mentioning Priam’s grief or recounting the Crusades without mentioning the experiences of Muslims (or Byzantines, for that matter). A more circumspect tale might have noted that triumphs for U.S. business, at least in this age, often played out as tragedies for a foreign people.

While The Fish that Ate the Whale oversimplifies the complex and glorifies the morally questionable, readers should evaluate it for what it truly is, a wonderful story. Its quick pace and well-crafted characters make it exciting to read. More than that, Cohen makes the history memorable, which is no small feat. As such, it provides a great introduction to Central American history and a jumping off point for future research into the area.

The Founders and Finance by Thomas K. McGraw (2012)

by Mark Eaker

Thomas McGraw argues that there was something in the background of immigrants to the United States that distinguished them from native born Americans and contributed to their suitability to become Secretaries of the Treasury. Including those born in Africa, less than 8% of the population was not native born and yet four of the first 6 Treasury Secretaries were immigrants. They served in that capacity for 78 percent of the period from 1789 through 1816. McGraw makes his case based almost entirely on the two most important of the Treasury Secretaries, Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin.

Most of the Founders, like Washington, Jefferson and Madison under whom Hamilton and Gallatin served, were raised as wealthy members of the planter class. Their experiences and lifestyles revolved around agriculture and large landholdings. In contrast Hamilton and Gallatin both had early exposure to merchant activities in which they developed knowledge of markets and finance. Hamilton had little interest in land and agriculture and although Gallatin had a romantic notion of land and the West, he was not successful as a landowner.

Although plausible, the argument is not very convincing. First, McGraw provides no evidence to connect immigrants in general with a merchant background. He does not even make that connection with the two other Treasury Secretaries who were immigrants. Second, Gallatin shared the Republican view that land and agriculture were of paramount importance to the future of the country even though he came from an urban background.

A daguerreotype of Albert Gallatin, taken sometime between 1844 and 1860 (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Fortunately, the linkage between Hamilton and Gallatin’s service to the country and their immigration status is not very important in assessing the contributions that the two men made. McGraw makes the case that they were the most dominant cabinet members in the administration in which they served. The two of them along with another immigrant, Robert Morris, who served as Superintendent of Finance under the Articles of Confederation were largely responsible for establishing the foundation of the country’s economic policy. They made the new nation credit worthy by implementing a national tax system that reduced the revolutionary war debt of the states and by establishing the Bank of the United States that provided a stable supply of currency.

A 1791 draft of Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures,” a treatise on American manufacturing (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Historians often emphasize the policy differences between Hamilton and Gallatin, but the similarities are much more important. Both men understood markets and the importance of national credit worthiness. Hamilton was instrumental in the first battle to establish the Bank of the United States and Gallatin convinced Jefferson of the need to renew the charter. The policies that each supported were less a function of their views than the views of the principals for whom they worked. Washington was a committed nationalist who believed that the Federal government should take the lead in fiscal matters. Jefferson and Madison believed in a minimal role for the Federal government and more authority for the states. Hamilton and Gallatin provided policy recommendations consistent with the beliefs of their Presidents and the functioning of the market. Both men were pragmatists who placed an emphasis on what would work rather than on ideology.

Statue of Alexander Hamilton in front of the United States Treasury Building, Washington, DC. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

It is one of the great ironies of the era that had Jefferson and Madison prevented the establishment of the Bank of the United States, the Louisiana Purchase would likely not have been possible and the United States would have had difficulty fighting the War of 1812.

The Founders and Finance provides a valuable historical perspective on our current fiscal problems. The nation has confronted from its earliest days questions about our fiscal policies and the potential answers to them. McGraw died within three weeks of the publication of the book but not before he wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal. In that essay he applied the lessons of his book to our current fiscal crisis. McGraw did not offer a specific plan, but he argued the need for the type of leadership that Hamilton and Gallatin provided the nation in its first three decades.

You may also like:

Mark Eaker’s review of Lords of Finance, a history of the most influential central bankers of the 1920s

“‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In- Between’ Jew”

by By Allison E. Schottenstein

This year’s Perry Prize for Best Master’s Thesis went to Allison E. Schottenstein, a third year doctoral student in Jewish History. Her thesis, titled “‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In- Between’ Jew,” tells the story of Rabbi Sam Perl’s efforts to unite the Mexican and Anglo communities within the Texas town of Brownsville, as well as integrate the border town with its sister city of Matamoros. Read the abstract of Schottenstein’s thesis, as well as her biography, below.

Abstract

“‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In- Between’ Jew” examines archival materials from the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The Brownsville Herald and El Heraldo de Brownsville to demonstrate how Sam Perl — an Eastern European Jewish immigrant who changed the face of Brownsville, Texas — redefines historical approaches to Jewish acculturation. In this bordertown, Perl not only revitalized the Jewish community when he became the temple’s lay-rabbi, but he also actively united Mexican and Anglo communities both in Brownsville and across the border in its sister city of Matamoros. In Perl’s efforts to simultaneously revitalize his own religious community and the greater social landscape of the border area, Perl proved that he did not need to conform to the expectations of Anglo-Christian identity to succeed. Challenging theories of whiteness studies scholars, Perl never sacrificed his Jewish identity, had a boulevard named after him, and came to be known as “Mr. Brownsville.” Indeed, Perl’s profound impact on the Brownsville-Matamoros community was the result of his ability to occupy an “in-between,” interstitial position that did not require him to blend in with majority cultures; that is, Perl remained distinctly Jewish while simultaneously involving himself in both Anglo and Mexican arenas. Immersing himself in every aspect of bordertown life, Perl occupied multiple roles of community authority, serving as a businessman, rabbi, a Charro Days founder, cultural diplomat, court chaplain and radio host. A close examination of Perl’s life and considerable legacy demonstrates how new acculturation models are needed to better understand the manner in which Jews like Perl have adapted and contributed to dominant cultures.

Jewish immigrants arrive in Galveston, Texas in 1907.

A 1917 photograph of students sitting in front of a San Antonio Texas Jewish Synagogue.

An H. Budow postcard from 1918 features the Jewish Temple in San Antonio, Texas.

Sam Perl smoking a cigar while playing pool.

About Allison Schottenstein:

Allison E. Schottenstein was born in Columbus, Ohio on March 18, 1986 to Gary and Gail Schottenstein. In 2004, Allison attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. She received a combined degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies as well as Women and Gender Studies. Allison graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2008. From 2008-2009, Allison served as an intern at the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. She entered the University of Texas at Austin’s doctoral program in History in 2009.

Visit Allison Schottenstein’s homepage.

Photo credits:

Photographer unknown, “Jewish immigrants arriving in Galveston, Texas,” 1907.

Courtesy of the UT Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio

Phootgrapher unknown, “U.S. San Antonio Texas Jewish Synagogue,” 1917.

Courtesy of stephaniecomfort/Flickr Creative Commons

Artist unknown, Untitled, 1918. Courtesy of Addoway.com Frances Perl Goodman, “Sam Perl,” Undated.

Courtesy of Frances Perl Goodman via the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life

You may also like:

Professor Robert Abzug’s DISCOVER piece, in which he shares photographs and memories of trips throughout historically Jewish communities in South Texas.

Professor Miriam Bodian’s DISCOVER piece – titled “A Dangerous Idea” – about a young Jew who went on trial before the Portuguese Inquisition in Lisbon in 1495 after being captured in Brazil.

Family Outing in Austin, Texas

By Madeline Hsu

This photograph captures a 1943 family outing to The University of Texas, in Austin.

Image of an Asian family from July 19, 1943 sitting on the edge of a fountain on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin

The young father, Fred Wong, was a grandson of one of “Pershing’s Chinese“–a group of 527 Chinese who accompanied General John J. Pershing into the United States after the failure of his campaigns against General Francisco “Pancho” Villa in 1917. Villa threatened retaliation against the Chinese for aiding Pershing, who determined to bring them back with him to the United States even though he had to lobby for special federal permission to do so in violation of immigration laws that banned the admission of all Chinese laborers. Many of these refugees settled in San Antonio where they established grocery stores, laundries, and restaurants.

Fred Wong grew up in San Antonio and in 1936 married Rose Chin from Chelsea, Massachusetts. They moved to Austin in 1938 and opened New China Food Market at 714 Red River. Fred served as a Rollingwood Councilman and R.C. became a well-known artist. The couple had three children, Mitchel–reportedly the first Chinese baby born in Austin–and Linda, and Kay. Mitchel went on to attend UT and became a leading ophthalmologist in central Texas, credited with introducing Lasik surgery to the region.

On May 11, 2011, Mitchel Wong was honored with a Legacy Award at the Asian American Community Leadership Awards jointly organized by UT’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, the Center for Asian American Studies, and the Texas Exes Asian Alumni Network.

For more information about Chinese in Texas, please visit:
The Institute of Texan Cultures
The University of Texas at Austin’s Asian American Studies website
The Texas State Historical Association online

You can look up materials available at the Austin History Center, here in its finding guide.

More about Asian Americans, in Texas and beyond:
Edward J. M. Rhoads, “The Chinese in Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 81 (July 1977).
Irwin Tang, ed., Asian Texans: Our histories and Our Lives (2008).
Pawan Dhingra, Managing Multicultural Lives: Asian American Professionals and the Challenge of Multiple Identities (2007).

The photograph of the Wong family is posted here with the kind permission of the Austin History Center; AR.2008.005(027), Wong Family Papers, Austin History Center.

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