Syrian immigrants won citizenship by proving their whiteness through Christian faith
Evidence
As Khaled A. Beydoun notes, societal perceptions that Islam was a pagan faith and a heathen foil caused Syrian litigants in naturalization cases to highlight their Christian religion to distinguish themselves as civilized and fit for self-government, in contrast to the uncivilized and illiberal Muslims. Some Arab litigants, for example, pointed to the 1891 law barring polygamists or persons who admit their belief in polygamy as evidence of Congress’s intent to bar Muslims, not Christians, from the eastern Mediterranean. Syrian Christians, thus, emphasized their connection to the Holy Land and belief in Jesus Christ. Whatever differences Syrians may have had with respect to American society were attributable to culture, not race. And they assured the courts that as Christians, they were assimilable into Protestant Anglo-American society, in contrast to Muslims. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 538 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
These immigrants perplexed judges presiding over naturalization applications as US law permitted only White persons to become citizens. Did the litigants’ Christian religion from the eastern Mediterranean make them civilized and assimilable Whites such that they qualified for American citizenship, or did their status as subjects of the Muslim Ottoman Empire make them uncivilized and inassimilable non-White Turks? The courts’ inconsistent findings demonstrate the role that religion played in racing Arab immigrants in America, a phenomenon that informs the social construction of the Racial Muslim today. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 521 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
- XREF: connects to: Syrian immigrants argued Christianity and Holy Land ancestry to win US citizenship; Syrian Christian immigrants strategically deployed Christianity to win US naturalization — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 538; Syrian Christians won nominal whiteness yet were never treated as fully white (+13 more)
Broader Connections
- Syrian immigrants argued Christianity and Holy Land ancestry to win US citizenship
#corroborates(0.95) - Syrian Christian immigrants strategically deployed Christianity to win US naturalization
#corroborates(0.95) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 538 - Early US naturalization law treated Christian Syrians as White.
#corroborates(0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 540 - Syrian immigrants’ whiteness was legally constructed, creating the ‘Middle East’ as a category
#expands(0.85) - Religion shaped whether courts classified Arab immigrants as White for citizenship
#expands(0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 521 - Lighter skin and Christian identity secured citizenship privileges that darker or Muslim Arabs lacked
#corroborates(0.85) - Arabs had to litigate their whiteness to gain US citizenship
#corroborates(0.85) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 978 - Syrian Christians won nominal whiteness yet were never treated as fully white
#qualifies(0.80) - Syrian Christians accessed nominal whiteness but remained incompletely white
#qualifies(0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 717 - Syrian naturalization hinged on courts linking the region to Judaism and Christianity
#corroborates(0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 122 - Religious expansion to Judeo-Christian framing was a precondition for immigrant Whiteness
#expands(0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 420 - Legal whiteness construction created the Middle East category by separating Syrians from Asia
#expands(0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 241 - Citizenship in America has historically been tied to whiteness and Christianity
#expands(0.75) - Arab Christians can be racialized out of whiteness by phenotype and origin
#qualifies(0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 565 - Lighter-skinned Syrian immigrants found easier acceptance in early 1900s America
#qualifies(0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 227