Date

4-7-2026

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Chair

Margaret Crosby

Keywords

Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Agency, Immigration Act of 1965, Middle East and North Africa, Arab-Americans, Transnational, Racialization

Disciplines

History

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of entrepreneurship as an institution of transition for Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) migrants in the United States from 1965 to the present. Drawing on oral histories, legal analysis, census data, and scholarship on racialization and migration, it argues that small cash-based businesses—particularly corner stores, gas stations, and bodegas—have functioned as critical sites through which third-wave MENA migrants navigate economic precarity, racial marginalization, and community formation. By situating contemporary entrepreneurial practices in relation to earlier forms of pack peddling among first-wave Syrian-Americans, this study demonstrates continuity in migrant strategies of survival while accounting for divergent racial outcomes across historical periods. A community study of Tampa, Florida illustrates how informal networks and community-based entrepreneurship facilitate chain migration, labor incorporation, and institutional growth despite persistent racialization. Ultimately, this work reframes MENA entrepreneurship not merely as economic adaptation, but as a historically grounded mechanism of agency, resilience, and collective mobility within the United States.

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