The Ethnic Group as a Collectivity

Abstract

T H HIS article is an attempt to analyze the Syrian collectivity in metropolitan Boston, making use as far as possible of the conceptual scheme developed by Talcott Parsons in The Social System.' The analysis has seemed worth undertaking, because collectivities with an expressive rather than an instrumental primacy offer a relatively uncharted field for research, and yet it is in such sub-systems within the larger society that many people live the most significant part of their lives. Syrian and Lebanese immigration to Boston took place chiefly in the period 1890-1914. The first settlements were made near South Station and in one section of the South End, where a constantly diminishing population still retains residence. Areas of second settlement were developed somewhat later in West Roxbury and Allston. The group, now numbering at a conservative estimate at least ten thousand, is tending to scatter throughout the metropolitan area, but churches, clubhouses, and grocery stores draw the Syrians back to the congested area where their homes were first established. Plans however are already far advanced for moving one of the churches, St. John of Damascus, to a better location. Contacts were made with some two hundred and fifty persons drawn from many segments of the elite. While the ethnic group is making a highly satisfactory adjustment to American society, clannishness is still characteristic even of its most successful members. Enjoyment of each other's company is the bond that holds together almost all individuals with this nationality background.