Book Reviews 125

Arab-American Faces and Voices: The Origins
of an Immigrant Community

Elizabeth Boosahda
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. 288 pages.

Arab-American Faces and Voices: The Origins of an Immigrant
Community offers a detailed history of the lives of Arab immigrants in



126 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 22:1

Worcester, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Booshada conducted primary source
research, interviewed nearly 200 people, and documented the immigrants’
stories of their families’ lives from 1880-1915. The author’s personal and
family connections to the community, in combination with the candid inter-
view excerpts, provide a fascinating and much needed account of a people
who survived, thrived in, and helped to create an important part of
American society.

The book’s main focus is to describe, from the perspectives of elderly
immigrants of mainly Christian Arab ancestry, their experiences in the
United States. Booshada gives a brief history of the Arab world at the time
of their migration, and each chapter provides extensive depictions of their
neighborhoods, workplaces, traditions, education, culture, the process of
Americanization, and the legacies that they left to their progeny.
Importantly, Booshada points out the complex and complicated socio-
cultural and economic ties that these early sojourners, and eventually set-
tlers, had to the Arab world and the Americas. For example, they traveled
far and wide to be with family and to make a living.

The book is rich in description, especially regarding the voices of
individuals as they remembered the hardships and successes of starting a
business, getting married, joining the war effort at the turn of the twenti-
eth century, practicing religion, or becoming American during politically
difficult times. One of the book’s main strengths is its great detail about
the various streets and buildings in Worcester in which the early immi-
grants invested, occupied, or built. However, more could be said, for
example, about how property, as well as the use of space for business,
church, and family, contributed to an Arab and American identity-in-the-
making. 

While the book’s descriptive dimension is compelling, especially in its
presentation of photographs of community members, more analysis could
have been focused on the various themes presented by the author. At times,
she offers what seem to be long lists of things, such as the roles of women
or Lebanese or Syrian food dishes, without relating these elements to an
overall argument about identity and the immigrant experience. While the
historical content, archival research, and first-hand accounts make this
book a “must-read,” the reader might be left with a nostalgic feeling for
what was, rather than with a compelling set of arguments for what makes
this community so important in the tapestry of immigration and Arab com-
munities in today’s world.



In light of its rich descriptive nature, Arab-American Faces and
Voices is an excellent example of a book to be read alongside texts that
focus generally on immigration. These books often do not include the
experiences of Arab-Americans, and, as such, ignore the geopolitical,
emotional, and sociocultural connections between the United States and
the modern Middle East. Importantly, the book addresses the cultural,
economic, educational, and religious diversity of early Arab-Americans
and their progeny, and provides a helpful contrast to such works as
Barbara Metcalf’s Making a Muslim Space in North America and Europe
(The University of California Press: 1996) and which, as the title implies,
focuses on the recent and current immigration experiences of Muslim
Arabs. 

Also noteworthy are the book’s addenda and appendices, which feature
Arab-American organizations in their historical context, along with a
genealogy of Booshada’s family and a timeline of the Eastern Orthodox
Syrian Church. The annotated suggested reading list and the list of organi-
zations, collections, and exhibits provide excellent resources and docu-
mentation of Arab community life and activism in the United States. 

While Arab-American Faces and Voices is not directly relevant to the
study of Islam, it is clear that the experiences, customs, and language
practices of the immigrants whose stories Booshada shares have much in
common with Arabs of all faiths. As such, the book presents a unique
window into the everyday lives of ordinary people, who, as in all immi-
grant cases, creatively reached out to one another to build a community
and to succeed in their adopted country. This is evidenced in the chapter
on Americanization, in which Booshada painstakingly accounts for the
civic participation and service that the Worcester immigrants provided as
new citizens. As a whole, the book serves as a testimonial of their partic-
ipation in society, from the early peddlers who braved cold winters to sell
their wares to appreciative households, to brilliant politicians and intel-
lectuals, and to Booshada herself, who, in writing this book, offers the
general public access to a little-known but significant population in New
England. In a timely fashion, she weaves her story and their stories into
American history.

Loukia K. Sarroub
Assistant Professor of Education
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Lincoln, Nebraska

Book Reviews 127