Mission and Migration in the Formation of an Arab Middle Class

Abstract

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, there was significant migration of Arabs from the Ottoman Empire to the Americas, and such migrants often originated in the communities that had been subject to Protestant missionary programs. This article uses a micro-history of a single family to assess the relationship between missionary activity and emigration. The article concludes that Arabs deployed both involvement with missions (employment, conversion, and education) and temporary economic migration as strategies to join a transnational middle class.