In a loud and crowded world, identity often feels like a quiet question, whispered rather than shouted. For Syrian Americans, though, the question of identity has never been subtle. It’s a shout thrown into the wind, a voice trying to be heard over courtroom battles, war zones, and border checkpoints. From the early-20th-century fights over their “whiteness” to today’s exhaustive vetting of refugees, the journey has been relentless — like trying to stand still on shifting ground. And no matter how hard you reach for belonging, it always seems just out of grasp, slipping through your fingers like sand.

I think about this as I sit in California, where the palm trees stand still and the skies are endless, but I feel like I’m drifting. I moved to the U.S. this year, chasing the kind of education Syria couldn’t give me, the kind that whispers promises of opportunity and change. Stanford — what a name, right? Back home, it sounded like a dream stitched together from glossy photos of libraries and golden sunsets. But when I arrived, I realized I’d left more behind than I’d expected. Identity clings to you like a scent — familiar and stubborn — and yet I can’t quite place mine anymore. Even back home, my identity was a shifting thing. Nine houses, nine schools — each one a chance to start over, and yet none of them ever felt like home. Here, though, the questions have changed. People ask me, “Where are you from?” and I say “Syria,” but it never feels like enough. And what’s worse, the silence after feels loaded, like they’re waiting for me to explain myself, to justify my existence here. This struggle, this negotiation with identity, is nothing new for Syrian Americans. But it feels different now, louder somehow.

I’ve been searching for answers — not to untangle the contradictions of identity, but to sit with them. To make sense of the discomfort, to explore the layers of complexity. What does it mean to belong? What price does belonging demand? And when belonging is denied, what does that reveal about the society that withholds it?

Take Costa George Najour. It’s 1909, and he’s standing in a courtroom, wearing his best suit — probably a little too tight in the shoulders — and arguing that he’s white. Not just any kind of white, mind you, but the right kind of white to qualify for U.S. citizenship. The stakes? Everything. Under the Naturalization Act of 1790, only “free white persons” can become citizens. Whiteness, in this moment, isn’t just a label; it’s a ticket to survival. Without it, Najour will be barred from property ownership, legal protections, and any hope of truly building a life in America.

Najour’s argument is, well, creative. He points to the Bible — yes, the Bible — to claim his whiteness, arguing that Syrians are descendants of the same Biblical lands as Europeans. It’s an almost comically desperate move, like citing a family recipe to prove you invented spaghetti. But here’s the thing: it works. The court ruled in his favor, declaring Syrians “white” enough for citizenship. It’s a victory, sure, but it’s also an uneasy one. After all, what does it mean to win when the prize is something as fraught as whiteness? Historian Sarah Gualtieri, in her book Between Arab and White, describes whiteness as a socially constructed category, a shifting line drawn to include some and exclude others. “To be white was to be seen as a cultural equal to Anglo-Protestants,” Gualtieri writes, “but whiteness was also a vehicle of exclusion and marginalization.” By stepping into that category, Syrians gained rights but also participated in a system that marginalized Black and Indigenous communities. Hani Bawardi, the author of The Making of Arab Americans, emphasizes the heavy cost of this alignment, describing how it undercut potential solidarity with other oppressed groups. Whiteness was a shield, yes, but also a cage, one that confined Syrians to an identity that wasn’t entirely their own.

This is where the story starts to twist. Najour’s win wasn’t just his own. It opened the door for other Syrians to claim whiteness, to fight for their place in a system that, frankly, didn’t want them to belong. But what does it mean to fight for inclusion in a structure built on exclusion? Bawardi doesn’t mince words about the cost. By aligning with whiteness, Syrians reinforced a racial system that oppressed others. They were survivors, yes, but also participants in a hierarchy that marginalized their Black and Indigenous neighbors.

And yet, can we really blame Najour? How do you fault someone for using the tools at hand to build a life, even if those tools come with sharp edges? Imagine standing in his shoes, trying to navigate a society that seems intent on keeping you out. I think about Najour in that courtroom, clutching his Bible and hoping the judge sees him as worthy, and I can’t help but find myself torn. Was it a betrayal, or simply survival? He didn’t invent the system; he was trying to survive it. And survival, as we all know, is rarely clean.

Najour’s courtroom battle may seem like history, but its echoes remain. The labels have changed — “white” is no longer the prize — but the stakes for Syrian Americans remain as high as ever. Mary John Khouri, another Syrian immigrant, found this out when she tried to open a business in the early 20th century. Local officials repeatedly denied her permits, insisting that she wasn’t “truly American.” Her whiteness, hard-won in courtrooms, was meaningless in practice. Her story, as Gualtieri recounts, is a reminder that legal victories often fail to protect against the deeper currents of prejudice. Whiteness might have been a key to citizenship, but it didn’t unlock the door to acceptance.

And here’s where my ambivalence deepens. What does it mean to fight for a category that excludes so many others? Whiteness wasn’t just a lifeline for Syrians; it was a system built to protect privilege at the expense of equity. And yet, what was the alternative? To reject whiteness outright would have been noble, perhaps, but also self-destructive in a society that offered no other options.

If whiteness was the price of belonging for early Syrian immigrants, the terms have shifted for today’s Syrian refugees. The question is no longer about race but about trust. Can Syrian refugees be trusted to live, work, and share in the American story? It is a question wrapped in layers of suspicion, each one more exhausting than the last. The U.S. refugee admissions process is one of the most rigorous in the world. It involves biometric screenings, background checks, interviews, and coordination across multiple agencies. As Andorra Bruno, a specialist in immigration policy, explains in her report for the Congressional Research Service, “The refugee admissions process is not simply a humanitarian endeavor; it is a test of America’s willingness to balance security concerns with its foundational ideals of liberty and refuge.” The process takes, on average, two years.

Let’s pause here. Imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to be on the other side of that process. You’ve fled a war zone, your home reduced to rubble, your family scattered. You’ve spent months — maybe years — in a refugee camp, waiting, hoping, filling out forms with questions that seem designed to trip you up. Do you have any connections to terrorist organizations? How much money do you carry? Have you ever been arrested? Each question feels like a trap, a test of your worthiness. And even when you pass, when the paperwork is stamped and the interviews are done, you arrive in a country that looks at you not as a survivor but as a suspect.

This narrative of suspicion has deep roots. Norman Duncan, writing in the early 20th century, captures the wary curiosity that surrounded Syrian communities in New York. Then, as now, Syrians were seen as outsiders, tolerated but never fully trusted. Today, that suspicion takes on a sharper edge, laced with Islamophobia and post-9/11 anxieties. Refugees are framed as dangerous, their identities reduced to stereotypes of violence and extremism.

Critics like Bawardi argue that these fears are more about prejudice than actual security concerns. And I want to agree — I do. But I can’t dismiss the argument entirely. Isn’t caution warranted in a world where threats are real? Governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens, and the threats they face are real. The problem is that fear has a way of distorting reality, of turning refugees into scapegoats for problems they didn’t create. But at what point does caution become cruelty? At what point does a refugee, subjected to endless scrutiny, become more than the sum of our fears?

Let’s imagine again, for a moment, that a Syrian refugee clears the hurdles of the admissions process. They’ve passed every test, answered every question, waited through years of uncertainty. Now what? Does belonging unfold naturally, like the blooming of a flower? Hardly. Belonging, for Syrian refugees, is conditional. It comes with strings attached: learn English, find a job, assimilate, be grateful but not too visible. It’s a performance, a constant proving of one’s worth. It is a tightrope walk, and the stakes are impossibly high.

In states like Michigan, where Syrian refugees have settled in significant numbers, the stories are mixed. Some families thrive, finding stability and building new lives. Others struggle, facing housing discrimination, cultural isolation, and resentment from neighbors who see them as burdens rather than contributors. Belonging, it seems, is always provisional, always subject to revocation.

Bawardi’s critique strikes a chord, unsettling like an off-key note in a familiar melody. Refugees, he argues, are set up to fail. They are expected to succeed in a system that offers them minimal support, and when they struggle, the blame falls squarely on their shoulders. And yet, I hear the counterargument — that refugees should integrate, contribute, adapt. Is it wrong to ask for that? I don’t think so. But I also think we ask too much of refugees and too little of ourselves. If we demand gratitude, shouldn’t we also offer it? Gratitude for the resilience they bring, the culture they share, the ways they enrich the communities they join?

It’s easy to talk about gratitude when you’re on solid ground, but what about when dignity is stripped away, piece by piece? This is a truth that Hadi and Sama, the protagonists of No Land to Light On, understand all too well. When I read this novel by Yara Zgheib for the first time, I couldn’t look away. I read it late into the night in my dorm room, the light from my desk lamp pooling onto the page. Zgheib’s novel unfolds in the shadow of President Trump’s 2017 travel ban, a cruel twist of policy that separates Hadi from Sama just as they are about to welcome their first child. Hadi, detained at the border, finds himself trapped in a bureaucratic limbo, while Sama gives birth alone, surrounded by protesters at Logan Airport. Their son, Naseem, is born into a world that seems intent on keeping his family apart. The story is both intimate and universal, a heartbreaking reminder of how policies shaped by fear can tear apart lives built on hope.

But hope is a stubborn thing, and Syrian Americans have always found ways to cultivate it, even in the face of adversity. In the early 20th century, Syrian communities in New York City’s Little Syria and Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights became vibrant enclaves of culture and resilience. These were spaces where Syrian immigrants could speak their language, share their food, and build their businesses. Norman Duncan’s The Soul of the Street offers a vivid portrait of this era, capturing the sights, sounds, and smells of these bustling neighborhoods. Peddlers called out their wares in Arabic-accented English, children darted between carts and street corners, and the air buzzed with the energy of a people carving out their place in a foreign land. These communities were not perfect — discrimination and economic hardship were constant threats — but they were proof that belonging could be built, brick by brick, even in the most inhospitable of environments.

Duncan’s vivid stories of Syrian life in New York remind us that even in the face of systemic exclusion, there is room for creativity, for connection, for life. But storytelling, for all its power, has its limits. As Gualtieri notes, narratives can inspire but they cannot dismantle systems. Stories can change hearts, but they cannot change laws. And yet, I find myself clinging to them. They may not be enough, but they are something. They remind us of the humanity that systems so often forget.

I keep circling back to the same questions. What does it mean to belong? Who gets to decide? And at what cost? For Syrian Americans, the answers have always been tangled, the lines between survival and compromise blurred beyond recognition. And for all the progress we’ve made, the echoes of their struggle remain.

Yet the question of belonging has never been limited to physical spaces. It is also a matter of representation and recognition. The mahrajans, or outdoor festivals, that became a fixture of Syrian American life in Southern California after World War II were not just social gatherings; they were declarations of cultural pride. These festivals, as Gualtieri points out in Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California, were spaces where Syrian Americans could showcase their heritage through food, music, and dance. Danny Thomas, the beloved Lebanese American actor, often headlined these events, his humor and charisma bringing communities together. But beneath the festive atmosphere lay a tension: younger generations, eager to assimilate, sometimes saw these traditions as relics, while their elders viewed them as vital links to a shared history. The mahrajans were both a celebration and a negotiation, a reminder that identity is always a dialogue between past and present.

This dialogue extends beyond the Syrian American community. The story of George Shibley, a Syrian American lawyer who defended Mexican American teenagers in the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of 1942, exemplifies the power of interethnic solidarity. Shibley’s work, as Gualtieri details in Arab Routes, was a bold stand against the racial prejudices that permeated the case. His defense was not just about the law; it was about justice, about recognizing the humanity of those who were so often dehumanized. Yet Shibley’s contributions have largely been erased from the narrative, a stark reminder of how easily the stories of Arab Americans can be overlooked in the broader tapestry of American history.

As I delved deeper into Syrian American history, I began to notice a pattern: the stories were always fragmented, scattered across time and space, like glimpses through a kaleidoscope. Shibley’s defense of those Mexican American teenagers, Mary John Khouri’s battle to open her business, even Najour’s courtroom fight for whiteness — all of them were powerful, yes, but fleeting. They were individual acts of resilience, moments that pushed back against erasure but never quite seemed to coalesce into something larger. I was searching for something more — a thread to tie it all together, a way to make sense of a history that felt as fractured as my own experience of belonging.

And then I found The Syrian Ark. Unlike the fleeting acts of defiance I had encountered before, the Ark stood as something enduring, a cornerstone of Syrian American identity. Published between 1936 and 1954, the Ark was far more than just a local publication. As Edward Curtis IV explains, it served as a vital platform for storytelling, resistance, and connection at a time when Syrian Americans were fighting to claim space in a society that often treated them as outsiders. “The Ark envisioned a cosmological home,” Curtis writes, “where religious and cultural differences could coexist without undermining a shared identity.” For Syrian Americans scattered across the Midwest, the Ark was a lifeline — part rallying cry, part declaration of belonging — carving out a sense of place in a landscape that frequently sought to erase them.

Within its pages, the Ark celebrated the entrepreneurial verve of Syrian Americans, showcasing stories of businesses built from scratch and families flourishing against the odds. It wasn’t just about selling goods; it was about proving that this community could thrive in a region that often viewed them with suspicion. The paper spotlighted civic engagement too, proudly detailing contributions to local politics and public life. Through its reporting, the Ark painted an image of a people who were not just adapting to the Midwest but reshaping it, brick by brick, into a shared home.

But the Ark’s significance wasn’t limited to the stories it told — it lay equally in the act of telling them. At a time when immigrants were often depicted through the condescending lens of outsider narratives, the Ark flipped the script. It was Syrian Americans telling their own stories, on their own terms, without apology or embellishment. What makes the Ark even more compelling was its dual purpose: a local grounding and a global reach. It wasn’t just a newspaper for one town or city — it was a regional forum, connecting Syrian American communities across the Midwest, from bustling cities to quiet farming towns. The paper also maintained strong ties to the Arab world, with articles addressing Middle Eastern politics, culture, and the struggles of Palestine. These pages carried the weight of both homes — the one they had left behind and the one they were building.

The Ark was also remarkable in how it imagined community. Its vision wasn’t limited to Syrians alone; it reached out to other immigrant groups, forging alliances and celebrating shared struggles. The paper promoted interfaith harmony between Muslims and Christians, recognizing that unity within the diaspora was essential for survival. And yet the Ark’s vision was not without its complexities. The paper’s deep patriotism — its insistence that Syrian Americans could be loyal to both their new country and their roots — existed alongside a fierce critique of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It was a delicate balance, one that mirrored the duality of the Syrian American experience itself.

To understand the Ark’s significance is to recognize its audacity. In an era when immigrant communities were expected to assimilate quietly, this newspaper stood as a defiant reminder that Syrian Americans were not content to disappear. It gave its readers a sense of place, not just in the physical sense, but in the existential one. It told them: you belong here, you matter, your story is worth telling.

But belonging, as Rita Giacaman reminds us in her essay “Social Suffering: The Painful Wounds Inside,” is not just about being seen; it is also about being whole. For refugees who have experienced the traumas of war and displacement, the wounds are often invisible but no less real. It is not enough to provide refugees with food and shelter; true belonging requires healing the deeper wounds of loss and dislocation.

This need for healing runs especially deep for contemporary Syrian American women, who often find themselves carrying not just the weight of cultural expectations but also the unrelenting burdens of societal prejudice. In Arab Routes, published in 2019, Gualtieri brings these struggles into sharp focus through interviews conducted with Syrian American women in Southern California. These women speak of the pressure to fit neatly into spaces that are anything but accommodating: to be “American” enough without betraying their heritage, to embody an ideal of femininity that straddles both Damascus and Disneyland.

One woman recounted being told by a well-meaning coworker, “You’re so exotic. Where are you really from?” She answered “Anaheim” with a smile, knowing the question would loop back to her ancestry no matter how firmly she tried to ground it in Southern California. Another described the ritual of food: making kibbeh to feel connected to her roots, but also feeling an odd, guilty satisfaction when her non-Arab neighbors called it “fancy meatloaf.” For these women, identity isn’t a singular story; it’s a thousand tiny performances stitched together with humor, pain, and a quiet defiance that doesn’t often make headlines.

The pain of erasure that Gualtieri’s subjects articulate isn’t just academic. It’s visceral. It’s in the moments when their names are mispronounced — first by a Starbucks barista, then by the HR manager at their dream job. It’s in the way their hijabs become symbols for other people’s debates rather than personal choices. But it’s also in subtler, quieter moments. Like the woman who described visiting her grandmother in the Middle East and being scolded for her “American accent.” “I wasn’t Arab enough for them,” she said. “And I’m not American enough here. So what does that make me? A tourist, everywhere?”

Humor, as it often does, keeps these stories from spiraling into despair. One woman joked about her “identity fatigue,” saying, “If I have to explain the difference between baklava and a burrito one more time, I might lose it.” Another laughed as she recounted her failed attempt at Arabic calligraphy: “It was supposed to say ‘God is great.’ My aunt said it looked more like ‘God is confused.’ Fitting, honestly.” And then there are the quiet acts of rebellion that don’t ask for applause but matter deeply — a woman who wears her grandmother’s embroidered thobe to a Fourth of July barbecue, unapologetically blending her histories; another who teaches her children Arabic phrases even when their classmates tease them for it, because she wants them to know where they come from. These are not grand gestures, but they are powerful ones. They are reminders that belonging is not a state of arrival; it is a process of constant negotiation, of holding onto what matters while letting go of what doesn’t.

I don’t have answers to the questions these stories raise. Maybe no one does. How do we honor our heritage while adapting to a new home? How do we carve out space for ourselves in a world that so often denies it to us? These aren’t questions with clean resolutions. They sit with us, unsettled and demanding.

Lately, though, the questions feel louder, sharper, like they’ve grown teeth. The headlines scream of Assad’s fall. A new flag, a new government, a fresh start for Syria. I should feel relief, even joy, but all I can think about is how fragile it all seems. History is a tricky thing — it likes to repeat itself, and I can’t shake the feeling that this “new Syria” might crumble before it stands. What happens to those of us who have already left? Will we return? Will we even recognize what we’re returning to?

I should feel hope, but instead I feel distance. I live in a country where Trump is inching back toward power, a man who once called people like me a threat. I still remember the first time I heard his words — how my chest tightened, how I checked my passport like it might disappear. His return feels like a door creaking closed, like the edges of hope curling and burning. I think about what this means for refugees still waiting, their futures balanced on a system that can crumble with a signature. I think about my place here — my right to stay, to belong — feeling less like solid ground and more like ice thinly cracking underfoot.

I’ve always known that identity is a balancing act, a tightrope walk between past and present, here and there. But now, that tightrope stretches over an abyss I can’t quite see the bottom of. Assad is gone, and yet Syria’s future feels like a question mark. Trump is back, and yet America feels just as uncertain. Where do we land when both homes feel unstable?

Maybe, for now, I’ll hold onto the small things: the steady voice of my mother telling me to be patient, the familiar curves of Arabic calligraphy when I write my name, the scent of cardamom drifting through the house like a memory. Maybe we find belonging not in promises of stability, but in persistence — showing up, carving out space, building futures even when the ground shakes beneath us.

It’s not neat. It’s not clean. But neither is life. Like Turkish coffee, it’s strong and messy, bitter but lingering. And maybe, just maybe, there’s something worth holding onto in the tension of it all.

For now, I’ll sit with that.