05 August 2009
Here I Am, a Young Tree
By Najwa Nasr
Najwa Nasr came to the United States from Lebanon in 1981, believing that she was coming to a strange country alone to pursue an advanced degree in her chosen field of linguistics. As the years went on, she found she wasn’t building her own bridge to this new land, as much as she was crossing one erected by her countrymen generations before. Professor Nasr now teaches English linguistics at the Lebanese University. She received her Ph.D. in that field from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The experience in international exchange that has had the most profound effect on my life came after I completed my studies in 1986. I returned to Georgetown University in 1991 for three months of research in language and culture on a senior Fulbright grant I received through the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). During that period, I discovered the Naff Arab American Collection, which documents the heritage of early Arab, mainly Lebanese, immigrants to the United States.
Housed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, the collection was donated to the museum by Alixa Naff in 1984 to honor her parents and their generation of immigrants. Naff, the author of Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience, gave me a detailed and enthusiastic tour of the archives, housing personal photos, souvenirs, and artifacts donated to the collection.
I had been to many museums, but entering a museum archive requires a series of rituals. I had to sign my name and time of arrival. I was issued an identification badge and began the descent to the archive, only to encounter another ritual of signing in, relinquishing my purse, and passing through a security check.
Alixa Naff began my tour pointing to the different rows of boxes in a series of shelved stacks forming a complex maze! She pulled down a box and carried it to a desk. Wearing white gloves, she started going through the contents, showing me photos, printed documents, and handwritten personal letters. She told me how she had visited these people all over the United States, collecting historically valuable items given away with pleasure by people wanting to clean up their attics. She was kind enough to help me buy sample copies of some photos as well as photocopies of documents.
I returned home feeling that this collection should be more accessible to the public in Lebanon. It is our heritage buried away in boxes underground, accessible only to those who know where to look. Something had to be done, so I decided to take a proposal to Lebanon’s minister of culture. I had a hard time trying to get an appointment, but I finally had an audience with his excellency. I showed him the sample copies and notes I had written, and fervently explained to him the importance of the collection and the importance of sharing this immigration history with the Lebanese people. He was convinced, but there were no funds to finance my trip. I arrived at a compromise, “Pay for my ticket, and I’ll take care of other expenses.”
The Immigrants Speak
A few months later, I returned to Washington to visit the Naff Collection again. For 10 days, I shuttled to the archives with insatiable eagerness, and stayed from open until close. With awe, I held photographs of people of all ages and their personal letters. Early immigrants spoke to me through tape recordings. My heart leapt at hearing those shaking voices from the early 20th century. Tears rose at the photos of people through so many phases of their lives.
A girl in her Palm Sunday dress stood beside a candle taller than she was. A photo postcard had hand-lettered numbers on each person pictured, and on the back, the numbers referred to individuals’ names -- Theodora, a girl, and a boy, Roosevelt, both named evidently for a popular U.S. president of the era.
Those young men and women, now decades long dead, believed that America was the land of opportunity, freedom, and equality for all. They were mostly peddlers, a job that required no experience, no capital, and no advanced language skills. Daily contact with American citizens broadened the immigrants’ knowledge of their new environment and facilitated the process of their assimilation.
Stories about their experiences on the road revealed that they suffered from scorching heat and biting frost. Their clothes became wet and rotten; they starved and were beaten with fatigue. They spent nights in the open, on wet grass, tied to tree branches, or in barns; they were attacked by robbers and bandits, and chased by wild beasts.
Yet the stories they left behind showed they survived and prospered. Bashara Forzley, a young immigrant who came to the United States without mother or father, wrote an autobiography detailing how he rose from peddling to big business.
I read Khalil Gibran’s address to those young immigrants back in the 1920s. His words will ever remain a valuable guidance for immigrants who oscillate between the poles of their national identity and their new citizenship:
… I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny.
I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization.
I believe you can say to the founders of this great nation. “Here I am, a youth, a young tree, whose roots were plucked from the hills of Lebanon, yet I am deeply rooted here, and I would be fruitful.
An Unfolding Story
Back home, with sample copies of photos and documents, my meeting with His Excellency Minister Michel Eddé was a celebration of my rediscovery of this little-known heritage of my people. By 1996, with ministry support, I supervised the first photo exhibit of early Lebanese immigrants to the United States, calling it “A Journey of Survival.” Hundreds visited the exhibit in downtown Beirut and swarmed around the photos and documents. Someone shouted with joy at discovering his grandfather’s photo.
The effects of the event are still growing. “A Journey of Survival” is on the Internet [http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ASC/csacl/progs/ASC22/nasr/nasr.htm]. People get in touch with me in search of their ancestors or seeking guidance on related research. I give slide lectures on early Lebanese immigrants to the United States. My ultimate goal of founding an immigration museum in Beirut has not been realized yet, but I have not given up.
My experience in international exchange began at Georgetown University more than 20 years ago, but has unfolded in more chapters than I ever could have known. Today, still growing from this experience, I find the roots go deeper still and the branches grow higher with healthy foliage and hearty fruit.
The poem by Khalil Gibran was written for the first edition of Syrian World magazine published in Brooklyn, New York, in 1926.
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
