Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp, So far from Allah, so close to Mexico: Middle Eastern immigrants in modern Mexico

Abstract

There is an immediate indication on the back cover of Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp’s So far from Allah, So close to Mexico that this is field-altering scholarship—the general topics of the book for classification purposes are listed as Middle Eastern Studies and Latin American Studies. The equating of these two Area Studies topics promises a re-examination of traditional approaches to the scholarship that exists on the Middle East and Latin America. This work is a valuable contribution to the growing number of works that link these two world areas not usually studied together and that strive to deepen our understanding of a world order too-often reduced to facile categorizations such as East/West or the developed world versus the developing world. A truer understanding of the world system is provided by studying issues such as international migration. This issue and others like it complicate a more basic understanding of the world which has gained much currency of late. AlfaroVelcamp’s So far from Allah directly challenges approaches to international affairs that result in an ‘us versus them’ framework. So far from Allah helps us better understand the history of Middle East migration to Mexico. It covers the period from the end of the nineteenth century, when this migration began, to the present. Alfaro-Velcamp’s sources include immigrant registration cards, Mexican immigration laws, citizen complaints about Middle Easterners, immigrant community-based publications, U.S. immigration cases involving Syrians crossing into the US and personal interviews. The range of sources is laudable. Beyond providing a wide-ranging profile of Middle Eastern immigrants to Mexico and discussing the different roles they have played in Mexican society, So Cont Islam (2010) 4:255–257 DOI 10.1007/s11562-009-0082-2