Tales Of The Syrian Night

You know how they come to this country travelling by water and by air by car by truck sneaking in sometimes and risking everything; they are all itching to be part of America the most powerful nation of our times. They come because of poverty or because they were maligned for some reason in their homeland. From here they hope to find opportunity to make a good living to support a family to live never again in need of the basic requirements of life. They come too because of the concept of freedom meaning they wish to move about freely and think anything they choose to think. We have heard all about these people who have come the Germans the Irish Italians Jews. Great literatures have been produced on all of them and their children. And this literature is wonderful. The American character is defined by them their customs and culture their foods language have been taken over by us and incorporated into the American ideal. But there are other people who arrived on American shores whose legacy isn't so clear whose name has never come to the forefront. There are many of these but we are concerned with one in this collection the Arab particularly the Syrian Arab who came in great waves during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These Syrians were Jews and Moslems and Christians who sought to leave behind the turmoil then engulfing their nation. Though these people were different in religion they shared the common bond of nationality. Many of these Syrians settled in New York in Michigan and Ohio in California and other cosmopolitan centers bustling with human activity and there recreated the eastern environment they knew and loved. Here we have a collection of stories written from the perspective of these Syrian-Americans. The stories provide a human edge on the immigrant’s struggles in a new country and with their Arab heritage left behind. The tales that result are sometimes sad sometimes poignant sometimes humorous but always relevant.