Lebanese and Syrian Americans
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After World War II, aided by the G.I. Bill, there arose a large professional class (doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, etc.) among the Syro-Lebanese, which came to number about 150 by the year 2000. If one counts all those who have some portion of Lebanese or Syrian descent, there are approximately 5,000 in the Utica area. They have three ethnic churches: Maronite Catholic (St. Louis Gonzaga), Melkite Catholic (St. Basil's), and Syrian Orthodox (St. George's).
The local history of the Syro-Lebanese has been written by John Moses ("From Mount Lebanon to the Mohawk Valley") in the volume Ethnic Utica (Ethnic Heritage Studies Center, Utica College, 2nd ed. 2002, available by contacting the Ethnic Heritage Studies Center at 315-792-3001), and dramatized in the memoir Wind of the Land (Ethnic Heritage Studies Center, 1979, available from Syracuse University Press) by Eugene Paul Nassar.
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