Edward E. Curtis IV

Arabic-speaking men and women who arrived in the United States before 1920 transplanted a diverse and rich array of Eastern Mediterranean religious traditions on American soil, but their histories are largely unknown and underappreciated. Contributing a new chapter to the history of religion in the United States and Arab diaspora studies, this project explores their religious worlds, including their practices concerning the evil eye and other forms of material religion, their religious feelings and spiritual experiences, their theological and ethical commitments, and their organizational efforts to establish Maronite, Melkite, Orthodox, Muslim, and Druze associations and communities. Understanding the many meanings and functions of Arab American religious life in a variety of settings from the home to the congregation reveals new perspectives on the nature of American religions in the early twentieth century. In this era of Protestant middle-class norms that included patriarchal authority, US nationalism, white racial supremacy, and English-language mastery, Arabic-speaking immigrants simultaneously assimilated, resisted, and transcended the powerful forces of social hegemony.