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The article discusses the end of an era of Lebanese retail business owners in Waynoka, Oklahoma with the death of Kamell and Dee Cohlmia in an automobile accident in nearby Alva in 2005. It references the September 1929 issue of the "R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency Reference Book" which shows six businesses owned by five Cohlmias and a John Coury. It offers a history of Lebanese migration to Waynoka, brief profiles of the Cohlmia families, and their businesses including Frank's Department Store.

With an ethnographic focus on descendants of Lebanese migrants in the U.S.A., this paper examines what ethnic foods means for people who consider themselves to be “assimilated” into the American white, middle-class mainstream, and who are eager to remain accepted as unhyphenated Americans, as neither Lebanese-American nor Arab-American. The paper traces their food practices and analyzes how they use food within kinship networks to honour ancestors, communicate, and generate bonds between people of Lebanese ancestry. It illustrates how preparation and consumption of “Lebanese” cuisine has become embedded in social practices of these residents of small towns across rural New England. The findings presented in the paper provide an analysis of an identity practice with both a white, assimilated American aspect and a Lebanese diasporic one. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay discusses divorce and Islamic law in the United States. Specifically, it examines the Shi'i Muslim Lebanese-American community in Detroit, Michigan, and the way different actors such as women, local imams, judges, and lawyers are working to bridge the differences that exist between secular and religious laws in issues pertaining to divorce and the concomitant complexities involved. In particular, the essay highlights the contingent character of Islam, and the ways in which Muslim-Americans are working to navigate the nuances and find innovative legal solutions for marriage and divorce that take into consideration American civil law, Islamic law, the ethnic Lebanese subculture of the Lebanese Shi'i community as well as the wider American culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illustrating the presence of Middle Easterners and their descendants in Vermont shifts one's perspective on state history, an especially timely endeavor in light of contemporary American culture and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As healthcare systems around the world are facing increasing physician shortages, more physicians are migrating from low to high income countries. As an illustrative case of international migration of physicians, we evaluated the current number and historical trends of Lebanese medical graduates (LMG) in the US, and compared their characteristics to those of US medical graduates (USMG) and other international medical graduates (IMG). Methods: We evaluated the number of LMG using the 2004 the American Medical Association Physicians' Professional Data (AMA-PPD) and then compared it to the number of graduates of other countries. We evaluated the historical trends using the 1978-2004 historical files of the AMA-PPD. We analyzed the characteristics of all LMG and compared them to a random sample of 1000 USMG and a random sample of 1000 IMG using the 2004 AMA-PPD. Results: In 2004, there were 2,796 LMG in the US, constituting 1.3% of all IMG. Compared to other foreign countries contributing to the US physician workforce, Lebanon ranked 2nd after adjusting for country population size (about 4 million) and 21st overall. About 40% of those who graduated from Lebanese medical schools in the last 25 years are currently active physicians in the US. Since 1978, the number of LMG in the US showed a consistent upward trend at a rate of approximately 71 additional graduates per year. Compared with USMG and IMG, LMG were more likely to work in medical research (OR = 2.31; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.21; 4.43 and OR = 2.63; 95% CI = 1.34; 5.01, respectively) and to be board certified (OR = 1.43; 95% CI = 1.14; 1.78 and OR = 2.04; 95% CI = 1.65;2.53, respectively) and less likely to be in family practice (OR = 0.14; 95% CI = 0.10; 0.19 and OR = 0.18; 95% CI = 0.12; 0.26, respectively). Conclusion: Given the magnitude and historical trends of migration of LMG to the US, further exploration of its causes and impact is warranted. High income countries should consider the consequences of their human resources policies on both low income countries' and their own healthcare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay correlates the three waves of Arab immigrants to the U.S. with Arab American literature. The first and predominantly Christian wave from Ottoman Syria readily embraced American values. The post World War II wave consisted largely of educated professionals, many made stateless by the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The third group were national, anti-colonial Palestinian and Lebanese Muslims fleeing after the 1967 war with Israel. The author discusses Mahjar literature and writers like Kahlil Gibran associated with the first group and goes on to associate literary strains with the other two Arab immigrant waves.

The social ties that exist within an ethnic group are highlighted through the perceptions of adolescent children of Lebanese immigrants and examined to discern the process of acculturation and the negotiation of ethnic identity. The adolescents studied live in an ethnic community that continues to receive immigrants. They attend school where the majority of the students are of the same ethnic group. They are the first generation in their family to grow up in America. These conditions produce a unique intersection where place, age, and culture converge. Interviews were conducted with 20 Arab American adolescents from this ethnic community. They elaborate on factors that frame their identities through accounts of their social relationships. Positive and negative perceptions of living in an ethnic community are discussed. The parameters of ethnic identity formation and evidence of selective acculturation are detected through the adolescents' descriptions of their social relationships within this ethnic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]