Possible Histories: Arab Americans and the Queer Ecology of Peddling

206 Pages·2023·17.474 MB·English

by  Charlotte Karem Albrecht

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Many Syrians who immigrated to the US beginning in the 1870s worked A
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as peddlers. Traveling enabled men to transgress Syrian norms related to M
marriage, while Syrian women’s roles in peddling led to more economic A
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autonomy. In Possible Histories, Charlotte Karem Albrecht explores this R
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peddling economy to reveal the sexual ideologies imbricated in Arab H
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American racial histories. Possible Histories marshals a queer affective
approach to community and family history to show how Syrian immi- P
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grant peddlers and their networks of labor and care appeared in intercon- S
nected discourses of modernity, sexuality, gender, class, and race. Karem S
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Albrecht theorizes this profession, and its place in Arab American his- B
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toriography, as a “queer ecology” of laboring practices, intimacies, and
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knowledge production. This book ultimately proposes a new understanding
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of the long arm of Arab American history that puts sexuality and gender I
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at the heart of ways of navigating US racial systems. T
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“Possible Histories brings an innovative queer analytic to Arab American history, in- I
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quiring into the intimate relationships among itinerant peddlers. Uncovering the
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role of sexuality in racializing Arab Americans, it challenges respectability politics
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and brilliantly upends reigning paradigms in Arab American history.” r
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EVELYN ALSULTANY, author of Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion A
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e
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“A deeply personal queer history that is brisk, unsettling, and brimming with ic
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insights. Puzzling through gossip, shame, and scandal, Charlotte Karem Albrecht n
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offers an astounding kaleidoscope of Arab Americans in the twentieth century.” n
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NAYAN SHAH, author of Refusal to Eat: A Century of Prison Hunger Strikes t
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e
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“Possible Histories is a rich contribution to queer theorizing on kinship, archives, and e
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diaspora. In this moving tribute to the challenges and traps of recovery work, Karem E
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Albrecht traverses the maze of memory and family with care and thoughtfulness.” o
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JASBIR PUAR, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Rutgers University y
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Charlotte Karem Albrecht is Assistant Professor of American Culture and e
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Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. lin
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American Crossroads, 70
University of California Press | www.ucpress.edu
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ISBN: 978-0-520-39172-7
Cover design: Kevin Barrett Kane
Cover illustration: Original photo courtesy of Boston Herald-Traveler
Photo Morgue, Boston Public Library. Art by Yasmine Nasser Diaz. 9 780520 391727
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Possible Histories
AMERICAN CROSSROADS
Edited by Earl Lewis, George Lipsitz, George Sánchez, Dana Takagi, Laura Briggs,
and Nikhil Pal Singh
Possible Histories
Arab Americans and the Queer Ecology of Peddling
Charlotte Karem Albrecht
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2023 by Charlotte Karem Albrecht
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) license.
To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses.
Suggested citation: Karem Albrecht, C. Possible Histories: Arab Americans
and the Queer Ecology of Peddling. Oakland: University of California Press,
2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.140
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Karem Albrecht, Charlotte, author.
Title: Possible histories : Arab Americans and the queer ecology of
peddling / Charlotte Karem Albrecht.
Other titles: American crossroads ; vol 70.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2023] |
Series: American crossroads ; vol 70 | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022026740 (print) | LCCN 2022026741 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780520391727 (paperback) | ISBN 9780520391741 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Syrian Americans—Social conditions. | Syrian
Americans—Economic conditions. | Peddlers—Social networks—
United States. | Sexual orientation—United States.
Classification: LCC E184.S98 A43 2023 (print) | LCC E184.S98 (ebook) |
DDC 305.892/75691073—dc23/eng/20220902
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026740
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026741
Manufactured in the United States of America
32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my father, who always supported and loved me
To my mother, who graciously answers my probing questions about her life
To the Karem and Abboud women who came before me

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Note on Terms and Translations xix
Introduction 1
1. Traveler, Peddler, Stranger, Syrian: Queer Provocations and
Sexual Threats 24
2. “A Woman without Limits”: Syrian Women in the Peddling Economy 55
3. Wandering in Diaspora: The Syrian American Elite and
Sexual Normativity 81
4. The Possibilities of Peddling: Imagining Homosocial and Homoerotic
Pleasure in Arab America 102
Conclusion: Alixa Naff and the Parenthetical Syrian American Lesbian 136
Notes 141
Bibliography 159
Index 171