In the early days, Sami Boulos and a handful of Egyptian friends and acquaintances used to gather in an apartment in Manhattan once a month.
Hosted in the home of Saba Habachy, Egypt’s former minister of commerce and industry, they momentarily transported themselves back to their native country, while dishing out servings of food that reminded them of home, like macaroni bechamel – an Egyptian staple based on the Greek dish pastitsio.
They were among the first Egyptian immigrants to the US, and as good ambassadors of their country the gatherings would not be complete without the whole package: they watched documentaries about the pyramids; invited researchers to deliver lectures on archaeology; listened to music, and screened movies and photographs from recent visits to Egypt.
“There was really a sense of community, a sense of closeness, because in the late 50s and early 60s [they were] a small number,” Michael Akladios, an Egyptian historian at the University of Toronto Mississauga focused on oral history and immigrant adaptation, tells Middle East Eye.
They were united by their shared experience of being expats, but their backgrounds were varied.
Boulos had only started working for Egypt’s Ministry of Education as a school inspector in Cairo in 1951, a decade after completing his undergraduate degree. Then, in 1955, he was offered the opportunity to travel on exchange to the US, which he readily accepted.
Thanks to a grant from the US Office of Education, a 35-year-old Boulos arrived in New York alone in 1957 for his doctorate. He left behind his family, expecting to return to Egypt once his two-year temporary migrant visa expired.
But then Boulos decided to stay on permanently. He secured a teaching position at the State University of New York in 1959 and applied for exit visas for his wife and child to join him.
Given that the US didn’t relax immigration restrictions until the late 50s and early 60s, when it abolished the discriminatory national origins quotas, Boulos and his family became one of the earliest Egyptian immigrants to the country.
At that time, Akladios estimates that there were between 100 and 200 Egyptians in the US, based on the American Immigration Services Records, almost all Coptic.
They greeted each other on arrival after coordinating by phone or mail, and stayed in regular contact. Those without direct contacts in the country would usually arrive with a letter of introduction and an address given to them by an elder or religious leader back in Egypt.