Peddling prospering

These are surnames of immigrants who began arriving in New Mexico in the late 19th century from the Ottoman Empire’s Province of Syria, which today are the countries of Lebanon and Syria. The majority of those immigrants were from the village of Roumieh and the town of Zahle, Monika Ghattas writes in the introduction to her book.

Many stayed, worked hard and prospered. They and their descendants have made important contributions to the public and private life of the state.

	“Los Arabes of New Mexico” by Monika Ghattas Sunstone Press, $22.95, 187 pp.

Ghattas’ book provides a wealth of contextual background. She explains the geo-political and religious reasons for the immigration of these mostly Christian Arabs from a region that was under Turkish/Muslim rule. She writes about the routes these immigrants took to the Land of Enchantment; some came up through Mexico.

In one chapter, “Sojourners to Settlers,” Ghattas writes about how many started as itinerant peddlers and how their financial success led them to establish permanent businesses.

By the mid-1920s, Ghattas writes, there were Syrian-owned general stores from Belen to Las Cruces, and mercantiles in Santa Rosa and Carrizozo and as far north as Wagon Mound and Raton.

Another chapter, “Shopkeepers to Entrepreneurs,” shows the expansion of the immigrants’ commercial enterprises. They went into real estate, bought automobile dealerships, built and ran businesses (for example, El Fidel Hotel in Albuquerque) and constructed buildings (for example, the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe).

A separate chapter, “Resilient and Resourceful,” is devoted to the Syrian women.

Books have been written about the 19th-century German and Jewish immigration to New Mexico. With her book, Ghattas documents the life of Arabs in the state from the late 19th century through the first part of the 20th century.

Historian Marc Simmons said the book brings these people “out of the shadows…”

Ghattas, an Albuquerque resident, retired from Central New Mexico Community College, where she taught European and Far East history for more than 20 years.