Syrian merchants profited by supplying America’s Orientalist consumer fantasies
Evidence
In this context, Syrian immigrants to the United States were able to amass wealth by quickly making available “carpets, fine silks, and lace.” Historian Sarah Gualtieri has noted that Syrian immigrant merchants at the turn of the twentieth century became part of an “emerging transnational bourgeoisie who cleverly exploited America’s desire to ‘shop the Orient’.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 226
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the vault’s pre-9/11 Islamophobia history cluster and to orientalism-as-commodity analyses like those in the broader Aziz/Razack/Rana dialogue. — connects to: Advertisers harnessed Orientalist excess tropes to legitimize American consumer indulgence — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 222; Orientalist imagery taught Americans to buy indulgence by linking it to the East; Consuming oriental commodities functioned as a symbolic possession of Muslim people — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 421 (+4 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 226
Broader Connections
- Victorian catalogues sold purchasable Oriental fantasy items to Americans.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 661 - Orientalist imagery taught Americans to buy indulgence by linking it to the East
#corroborates(0.82) - Buying Orientalist commodities was a way of possessing the Orient
#expands(0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 421 - Consuming oriental commodities functioned as a symbolic possession of Muslim people
#expands(0.78) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 421 - Arab immigrants to New York have hawked goods since late Ottoman times
#corroborates(0.75) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 476 - A market exists that rewards fiction reproducing existing views of Muslims.
#qualifies(0.72) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 24