Zeinab's Odyssey: Gender, Mobility, and the Mahjar | Randa Tawil

Ottoman History Podcast

E478 | How do social categories like gender and race impact migrant trajectories as they move through different imperial, national, and liminal spaces? In this episode, we explore this question through the incredible journey of Zeinab Ameen, one of many Syrian migrants featured in the work of our guest Randa Tawil. Zeinab Ameen was born in late Ottoman Lebanon. Like hundreds of thousands of other people of her generation in the Ottoman Empire, she and her family decided to emigrate to America during the early 20th century. The result was a tale of tribulation that spans more than three decades. In telling Zeinab’s story, we’ll visit a number of other global ports, including Marseille, Liverpool, New York City, and Veracruz. We’ll also visit both land borders of the United States--the Canadian border and the Mexican border, as well as the Midwest, one of the great centers of the Syrian-American mahjar. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2020/09/zeinab.html Randa Tawil is an Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Texas Christian University, where she teaches courses on race, gender, and migration. Her research interests include history of migration, Middle Eastern diaspora, and film, and has written several articles on these issues for the Washington Post. Follow me @randa_tawil and visit randatawil.com Chris Gratien is Assistant Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region of the former Ottoman Empire from the 1850s until the 1950s. CREDITS Episode No. 478 Release Date: 28 September 2020 Recording Location: Seattle / Charlottesville, VA Music and Audio Elements (by order of appearance): Chad Crouch - Pilgrims Progress; Zé Trigueiros - Big Road of Burravoe; Emile Vacher - En Veilleuse; Silicon Transmitter - Badlands; Komiku - Un desert; Zé Trigueiros - Sombra; Soularflair - Slow Gentle Solo Piano; Soularflair - Dark-Schizo-Uneasy-Piano; Alvino Rey and His Orchestra - In the Hall of the Mountain King; TRG Banks - Across the mountainous region Sound production by Chris Gratien Additional credits to Gedney Barclay, Dan Cairnes, Rawan Arar, and Sam Dolbee Bibliography and images courtesy of Randa Tawil available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2020/09/zeinab.html