Early Palestinian Emigration to the Americas and British Mandatory Citizenship Policies toward Returning Immigrants from Latin America, 19th to Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

Thirty one years have passed since we began talking about the emigration problem in Palestinian society at Al-Liqa’ Center in Jerusalem and Bethlehem and twenty six years have elapsed since the holding of the Al-Liqa’ pioneering conference on the problem of emigration where Palestinian academicians, church leaders and others met to discuss this pressing issues facing Palestinian society. Emigration to the Americas was an inseparable part of international migration of human waves, which started between 1880 and 1920 from South and Central Europe and from the Ottoman Empire to the United States. This paper is an effort to analyze in detail about the early Palestinian emigration, Palestinian immigrants in Latin America and its historical perspective, related movements, and the history of Palestinians’ settlement in Latin America.