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Constantinople Cafe and Copper Binds: Kurds, Lebanese, and the Emergence of Butte, Montana
Abstract
During the early 1900s, there was a boom in mining. Coal mining and copper mining expanded into major industries in the United States. There were not enough local labor and thus there was both an opening of borders to bring in labor for the mines while also opening up spaces locally for racial Others to join the mining workforce. In this paper, I am interested in the relationships between Kurds and Lebanese/Syrian Arab Christians in Butte, Montana. As Butte was known as the copper capital of the world in the early 1900s, I examine the points of intimacy and difference between Kurds and Lebanese in the city. In particular, I am interested in the ways that the Lebanese set up the infra-structure that provided pathways to employment and support for Kurds and Turks. The formation of a Syrian Colony integrated Kurds into vital networks for employment. This infrastructure became a model for Kurds to then institute their own forms of support, employment, and life in Butte, Montana. As copper became king in Butte, Montana, Kurds and the Lebanese managed their place in a site of whiteness through capital, employment, property, religion, and marriage. Thus, I am interested in the connections and distance between Kurds and Lebanese in Butte, Montana at the turn of the century. There is little to no work on people from the Ottoman Empire in the mountainous region of the United States. Montana is often imagined through a rugged white frontier masculinity that erases the histories of indigenous communities and the presence of non-white racial Others. By weaving in the stories of Kurds, it expands the conversation about labor and race by incorporating histories of the Kurds and Lebanese in the copper mining town of Butte, Montana. In addition, the work on Arab America has proven pivotal to rewriting US histories and this article asks us to reimagine Arab America through its relationship to Kurdish America. These relationships provide important information on how these communities worked together and managed in a city deeply structured to Irish masculinity, vice (gambling and prostitution), and industrial expansion.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Kurdistan
Sub Area
None