What's The History Of Syrian Peddlers? with Dr. Charlotte Karem Albrecht

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Science, Self-improvement, Comedy, Education, Society & Culture

4.9 • 21.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Starting in the late 1800s, a group of Syrian immigrants settled in America. Many of them took up peddling as a career. When American newspapers described these peddlers, it was often in derogatory ways—and through terms of queerness. This week, Dr. Charlotte Karem Albrecht joins Jonathan to explore this moment in Arab American history, how it's been remembered, and what it reveals about “the sexual, racial, and gender machinery of American society.” A note from Team JVN: In this episode, Dr. Karem Albrecht and Jonathan discuss how Arabs and Arab Americans were understood by white Americans. As part of that discussion, we reference various historical documents that include anti-Arab and anti-Semitic language. If you'd like to pre-screen those moments, you can find them in the transcript at jonathanvanness.com. Charlotte Karem Albrecht is an Assistant Professor of American Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she is also a core faculty member in the Arab and Muslim American Studies program. She is also an avid lover of plants and mushrooms and her five fur babies. You can follow Charlotte on Twitter and Instagram @CKaremAlbrecht. You can learn more about her work at www.charlotteka.com. Make sure to check out her new book Possible Histories: Arab Americans and the Queer Ecology of Peddling, published by University of California Press. A free ebook version is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Head to www.luminosoa.org for details. And if you’re curious for more, Dr. Karem Albrecht recommends: Alixa Naff’s Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience Mejdulene Shomali’s Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives Susan Schweik’s The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public Sarah Gualtieri’s Between Arab and White Randa Tawil’s work on Syrian interpreters Vivek Bald’s work on Bengali migrants Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our associate producer is Zahra Crim. Our editor is Andrew Carson. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Getting Curious, I'm Jonathan Biannes and every week I get to sit down for
0:04.4	gorgeous conversation with a Bo-Realian expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.
0:10.2	On today's episode, I'm joined by Charlotte Karam Albrecht, where I ask her,
0:15.1	what's the story of America as told by Syrian peddlers?
0:22.7	If the late 1800s had a phone, we'd have her on speed dial. We keep coming back to this era
0:28.9	on the podcast. It's central to our episodes on racialized fat phobia with Sabrina Strings,
0:34.1	abortion and eugenics with Jackie Antonovitch, the organ trail with Margaret Hettle,
0:38.1	and she's trash-baking and beyond. You know what it is? I think a lot of shit went down in the 1700s
0:42.8	and the 1800s. So today we are revisiting this pivotal moment in US history with All New Fair.
0:49.3	Charlotte Karam Albrecht is an assistant professor of American culture and women's and gender
0:54.2	studies at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, her new book, Possible Histories, Arab Americans
1:00.7	and the Queer Ecology of Peddling. It's the coolest fucking title of all time.
1:05.0	Examines the experiences of Syrian peddlers starting in the late 1800s. Through these portraits,
1:11.6	she makes the case that we cannot understand US racial systems without centering sexuality and gender.
1:18.8	So today we're asking, what's the story of America as told by Syrian peddlers? First of all,
1:25.5	how are you, Charlotte? Thank you, Jonathan. It's so great to be here. I'm great. It's totally wild
1:31.7	to be doing this and I really appreciate it. I'm just thrilled to get the chance to talk about
1:37.7	this with you. Oh my god. This entire book and your whole academic career is so fucking fascinating.
1:43.6	I'm obsessed with what you study. We're obsessed with you and thank you for coming on the show.
1:47.3	Okay, so before we dive in, I want to linger a little bit on our guiding question. So
1:52.7	the story of America, it's a huge story. It's got lots of angles. Why are we understanding it
1:58.4	through the lens of Syrian peddlers? So first, I just want to note that when I'm talking about
	...

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