Abrahim Booklail and Wife
Australia (1890)
[Source]
Abraham Melick’s family, preparing to migrate to Australia
Lebanon (1903)
[Source]
Mulky sisters of Burren Junction, NSW, with Jameelie and John Melick and a cousin visiting from Lebanon, Redfern
Australia (1910)
[Source]
George Michael & Mary Asthma Malouf (née Deep) marry at Cootamundra NSW
Australia (1914)
[Source]
I’m running a little late with Oceania Week, but I do want to talk about another wave of Asian immigration to the region. Specifically, the legacy of Lebanese Australians:
As part of a large scale emigration in the 1840s, numerous Lebanese (mostly Christians) migrated in great numbers out of Lebanon to various destinations. Most emigrated to Brazil and other Latin American nations… others to Australia, primarily to the eastern states, and most to New South Wales in particular. Thus, Australia’s Lebanese population is one of the older established non-English speaking minorities in the country…
In the 1890s, there were increasing numbers of Lebanese immigrants to Australia, part of the mass emigration from the area of the Lebanon that would become the modern Lebanese state, and also from the Anti-Lebanon mountains region of what would become Syria.
What did folks do once they landed? Like Indian immigrants, they often worked as hawkers:
Lebanese Australian hawker Elien George’s wagonette
Australia (c. 1900)
[Source]
Though wealthier immigrants often managed to start up warehousing businesses and bigger stores:
Calile Malouf & Sons Drapery, located in Adelaide Street, Brisbane
Australia (c. 1910)
[Source]
Under the White Australia policy of the nineteenth century (and with Lebanon being located in the Middle East, geographically known as South West Asia) Lebanese migrants were classified as Asians and came within the scope of the White Australia policy which intentionally restricted non-white immigration to Australia. Lebanese migrants, like others deemed non-white by Australian law, were excluded from citizenship, the right to vote and employment, and were treated as enemy aliens during World War I and World War II. In 1897 Lebanese store keepers and businesses were accused of fraud by state border Customs officers during Queensland customs prosecution cases.
Prior to 1918, Lebanese migrants to Australia were not habitually distinguished from Turks because the area of modern Lebanon was a province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Administration then passed to the French Mandate for several decades, which ruled it together with what would become Syria, its neighbour. Hence, for that period, the Lebanese were not distinguished from Syrians.
There were Lebanese among the ANZAC troops of World War I, though–even though some of their parents were Turkish citizens! More info here.
Australian troops in Lebanon
Lebanon (1910s)
[Source]
From 1920, people from Lebanon (and Syria) were granted access to Australian citizenship as the Nationality Act 1920 removed the racial disqualification from the naturalisation laws.
All that only describes the first wave of Lebanese immigration. There was another wave between 1947 and 1976, and a third wave after the civil war broke out in 1976, which included many more Muslims…
But I think it’s clear that there’s been precedent to opening up the gates for a new wave of Syrian refugees, don’t you think? There’s a way, just not the political will. :(
romaincrisis
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
