This collection of essays addresses various aspects of Arab and Jewish immigration and acculturation in Latin America. The experiences in the region of these two groups have never been the subject of joint and comprehensive scrutiny. The volume examines how the Latin American elites who were keen to change their countries' ethnic mix felt threatened by the arrival of Arabs and Jews. Their arrival was largely unexpected, and in some cases frankly undesired and practically banned.
Negotiating national identity was never easy, and many of this volume's multidisciplinary cast of authors examine discrimination and prejudice as a component of Arab and Jewish life in the region. These cultural, economic and political (public) negotiations left neither side unchanged: while Latin American society and post-migratory immigrant identities have been in a constant state of flux, the elite's desired homogenization of national or cultural identity has been precluded to this day.