The Lebanese in Mississippi

The Lebanese in Mississippi: An Oral History documents and interprets the lives of first- and subsequent-generation Lebanese Mississippians whose families immigrated to the state looking for a better life. It is an oral record—sometimes a second-hand “remembering”—of their forbears’ experiences of settling in a foreign land where they knew few people, did not speak the language, and had to create their own occupations. It is the collective story of struggles and successes, of maintaining an ethnic identity and assimilating into a new culture, and of creating a new culture that mirrors that experience. Heard together, these stories provide a picture of a people remembering, envisioning, and interpreting where they came from and the struggles of those who came before them. Their stories begin on a ship leaving harbor in the Mount Lebanon region of Syria, and they continue today in towns and cities across Mississippi.

Each participant in this project contributes a piece of an inherited puzzle, and the themes that emerge from this collection demonstrate a collective understanding of why such a large number of Lebanese-Syrians left “the Mountain” and traveled west as far as the Americas. They illustrate an understanding of how and why their ancestors came to Mississippi, what their lives were like living in the segregated South, and how they chose to make a living and find a place within that place, all while maintaining cultural ties to their homeland. This project is dedicated to the narrators herein and to their ancestors whose stories have contributed to this project as a way of retaining a part of Mississippi’s past.

See also the online exhibit: The Lebanese in Mississippi

Image: The Ellis Family in November 1921.