Background and Early Life
Though this project focuses primarily on Ms. O'Keefe's role as an Arab-American, the story of her family's immigration did not begin in the US, but in Colombia. A large number of Arab Christians and Jews emigrated from the Ottoman Empire to escape sociopolitical instability and were welcomed by Latin American countries as a workforce. [1] Among these immigrants were Ms. O'Keefe's grandfather "Chukri" Abouchar, who followed the lead of his brother in moving to Colombia. There was already a considerable Arab immigrant population in Colombia besides his brother, most of whom had fled from turmoil in Syria. Despite the aforementioned intent of the Latin American governments to use Arab immigrants for manual labor, Abouchar instead took over his brother's coffee plantation, as well as importing dynamite from America. This latter job allowed him to move to America with an assured position with the dynamite company, the promise of a job that was later denied due to his status as an Arab. They finally settled in Sunset Park, a community in New York settled primarily by Syrian and Lebanese immigrants.
Ms. O'Keefe's other grandparents immigrated directly from Syria to New York, but in many ways their backgrounds were similar. Both were fairly well-off and owned businesses, and her grandfather John "Habib" Homsy continued his family business of textile manufacture in America. They, too, settled in an Arabic enclave in New York, with entrepreneurial ventures leading them to California. At the time in California, East Asian immigration was restricted on racial grounds and the sizable Asian population was largely confined to manual labor. [2] Arab immigrants, however, were afforded a special dispensation given that the majority of Arab immigrants in the early 20th century, including the Homsy and Abouchar families, were Christian. Though their Catholic faith was the target of hatred from some nativist groups at the time, Christian Arabs were generally characterized by better incorporation into overall American society, and thus more easily able to form substantial immigrant communities such as that of Sunset Park. [3] [4]
Thus Ms. O'Keefe was born into a second-generation family, one where both parents had already grown up in America. Her parents, though they spoke a multitude of languages, tended only to speak English at home. The exception to this general use of English was in their religious traditions, as her father would reward her and her siblings for reciting the Lord's Prayer in Arabic. However, this lack of education in Arabic should not be mistaken as a repudiation of their Arab heritage. Such things as their Melkite Christian observances, Arabic poetry, and especially food meant that, despite the desire for older generations to assimilate, the Homsy-Abouchar family was distinctly Arab. Notably, Ms. O'Keefe and her siblings were not exposed solely to American culture. They attended a Catholic school which admitted many other children of immigrant families, particularly Norwegian, Irish, and Italian immigrants. Thus, though neighborhoods such as Sunset Park were primarily made up of Arab immigrants, they should not be viewed as hermetically sealed environments of Arab culture.