Family, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, and the Lebanese of Kansas Jay M
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 2013 Family, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, And The Lebanese Of Kansas Jay M. Price Wichita State University, [email protected] Sue Abdinnour Wichita State University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United States History Commons Price, Jay M. and Abdinnour, Sue, "Family, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, And The Lebanese Of Kansas" (2013). Great Plains Quarterly. 2513. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2513 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Great Plains Quarterly 33:3 (Summer 2013) © 2013 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska FAMILY, ETHNIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND THE LEBANESE OF KANSAS JAY M. PRICE AND SUE ABDINNOUR ing the accommodations, however, Handuma no- As they entered the elegant lobby of the Waldorf ticed a major problem that had to be addressed Astoria, Elias G. Stevens and his wife, Handuma, right away. She insisted they find a grocery store, must have marveled at how their lives turned and the family headed out. A while later, the Ste- out. They had both been born and raised in what vens entourage returned, marching through one was once the Ottoman province of Syria. They of the most sophisticated hotels in the country had come to the United States at the turn of the carrying bags loaded with provisions. Back in the century, found their way to Wichita, Kansas, and room, Handuma dutifully arranged the food on worked hard to build a successful candy and to- dishes to set before the company representatives. bacco business. They were in New York to meet To her, it was unthinkable to host such impor- with representatives from Philip Morris. Survey- tant guests without offering them something to eat and drink. The Stevenses understood the needs and nuances of American consumerism, Key Words: Arab, business, peddling, Syrian, Wichita while never forgetting the ancient Arab tradition 1 Jay M. Price is head of the Public History Program at Wichita State of hospitality. University. His recent books include Wichita’s Lebanese Com- The Stevenses were one of several Syrian-Leb- munity and Kansas: In the Heart of Tornado Alley. His lat- anese families who had established themselves est book, published by Oxford University Press, is Temples for a in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma.2 Modern God: Religious Architecture in Postwar America. He Names like Stevens, Cohlmia, Ablah, Farha, currently serves on the board of the Kansas Humanities Council, the Wichita Sedgwick County Historical Museum, and the Kansas Bayouth, Jabara, and Razook, among many oth- Association of Historians. ers, have become well known in the region, with Wichita being one of the important hubs. Start- Sue Abdinnour is Omer Professor and Kansas Faculty of Distinction ing as peddlers and proprietors of small stores, in the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. She they went on to establish a tradition of entrepre- received her PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington, and her MSc from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Her neurship that continues to the present. From research interests include operations management, business modeling, the early years of peddling to today’s real estate information systems, and ethnic entrepreneurship. and restaurant ventures, the Lebanese have main- [GPQ 33 (Summer 2013):160–186] 161 162 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2013 FIG. 1. An invoice written in Arabic from N. F. Farha. Courtesy of Ted Farha. THE LEBANESE OF KANSAS 163 tained the practice of family-based businesses cades, British, Irish, and Yankee arrivals to the with extended family ties central to several en- Midwest tended to move from place to place sev- terprises. Naturally, not all Lebanese went into eral times before finally settling down on a parcel. business for themselves; in each generation, some Some studies argue that ethnic attitudes toward have chosen to work for others. However, the de- land use are very evident, even over generations. gree to which the Lebanese preferred to found Others find that the difference between the vari- their own ventures is striking and noteworthy. ous groups is not statistically significant overall, Moreover, those who did found their own stores, although certain case studies suggest that at least companies, and investments embodied a culture where immigrant populations are sufficiently of entrepreneurship that merged Anglo-Ameri- concentrated in one area, cultural attitudes to- can business practices with features that were also ward farming can persist over decades.5 distinctly Arab, such as providing hospitality and Other studies have looked at urban or at least working within the extended family. The result small-town immigrant business traditions. Jews was a culture of entrepreneurship passed down represent a particularly well-documented popula- from generation to generation, as much a part of tion demonstrating the interplay between ethnic- local life as eating kibbe or dancing the dabke.3 ity, immigration, and entrepreneurship, a conver- Studying ethnicity and the adaptation and sur- sation particularly evident in scholarship about vival of cultural traits of immigrant groups and Jewish communities in the Midwest and the West their descendants has become a staple of Great of North America. There are studies about Jews Plains scholarship, with works such as Frederick as peddlers, such as Oliver Pollak’s analysis of Jew- Luebke’s Ethnicity on the Great Plains serving as a ish peddlers in Omaha, that provide valuable in- cornerstone of what has become a truly vast lit- sights into the nature of peddling as a profession, erature. The region has a rich tradition of main- as well as how peddlers transitioned into small taining ethnic communities, from distinctive business owners by the 1930s. There are recent neighborhoods in large cities to self-contained studies of Jewish entrepreneurship in small-town towns made up almost entirely of one population America, as well as some larger, more analytical to rural ethnic enclaves. To understand the na- surveys, such as Lee Shai Weissbach’s survey that ture of these populations, historians, sociologists, looks at the roles midwestern Jewish families folklorists, and demographers have looked at ev- played in the heyday of small-town America.6 erything from foodways to music, voting patterns Like Jews, Arab entrepreneurs have also been to religious institutions.4 part of the midwestern entrepreneurial story, Economics, work, and labor have been part of although one that is less documented. As with this literature as well, including studies of how Jewish entrepreneurship, Arab business scholar- ethnic groups practiced agriculture in ways that ship in North America seems to be especially in- sometimes paralleled and sometimes differed terested in the role of particular families. Much from their Anglo-American neighbors. This lit- of it is descriptive rather than analytical, often erature, much of it from a sociology framework the story of an individual who served as a ped- instead of a history one, is still unresolved in its dler and later transitioned into a small business overall conclusions. Some, such as Sonya Sal- proprietor. Much of this literature is nationwide, amon, contend, for example, that Germans main- even North America-wide, in scope. A compelling tained a “yeoman” approach to farming based on narrative study of Arab American culture and a single family’s ability to grow multiple crops on ethnic entrepreneurship in a particular commu- one plot of land as opposed to the “Yankee” view nity is Elizabeth Boosahda’s Arab-American Faces that saw agriculture as a business and tended to and Voices. She studied the origins and history of favor monoculture of crops for a larger market. Americans of Arab ancestry who emigrated from Building on this, Gary Foster and others posit 1880 to 1915 from the Ottoman Empire of Syria that, in contrast to the Germans who found a and Palestine and settled in Worcester, Massachu- single plot of land and stayed rooted over the de- setts. These immigrants’ first work of choice was 164 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2013 as a merchant of goods and potions, commonly influxes and outmigrations through the twenti- known as a “pack peddler.” After peddling, Arab eth century, the Lebanese provide a particularly Americans in Worcester started setting up stores fruitful opportunity to explore cultural traits and and owning real estate properties, often transi- business practices among families over an extend- tioning into owning a store that sold dry goods ed period of time.7 and clothing. The implication is that these Arab A useful model for explaining how entrepre- American immigrants came out of hardship, with neurship can function as a cultural marker comes, very little money, but became entrepreneurs first not surprisingly, from those who study business. as peddlers then as storekeepers, realtors, and For example, Jeffrey Timmons’s New Venture Cre- stock market investors. ation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century identi- fied six dominant themes based on what success- 8 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS ful entrepreneurs do and how they perform. A CULTURAL MARKER These themes were taken by testimony given by the first twenty-one inductees to the Babson Col- Those who study Arab Americans have tended to lege’s Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs. focus on those who stayed on the East Coast, in The six themes are (1) commitment and determi- New York and Massachusetts, for example, with nation, (2) leadership, (3) opportunity obsession, less attention given those who settled elsewhere, (4) tolerance for risk, ambiguity, and uncertainty, such as in the Midwest or in the Great Plains.