14 Types Of Lebanese Expats You’ll Find In The States

Whether their relocation was a product of the Lebanese diaspora, work opportunities abroad, or personal life choices, Lebanese families who relocate to The States manage to emphasize their homegrown culture or try unbelievably hard to assimilate into their new one in the funniest of ways. As a Lebanese-American who spent the first 15 years of her life growing up in the states, these are some of the fellow expats I encountered in my time there.

1. The American dreamers

These Lebanese expats could have been living in the states for 5 days, 5 months, or 5 years, it doesn’t make a difference, because they will forever be in awe of their newfound home. They’ll be oblivious to the fact that everyone around them hates Arabs, and when in conversation with their American neighbors they’ll over-emphasize the fact that they do all the same things as their next-door-friends.

They’ll host American-style BBQs at their house on the weekends, abundant with fried chicken dishes and baby back ribs (even though they still don’t eat pork). They’ll try to incorporate at least one American slang word into every sentence they utter, even if it is out of context and sounds outlandish. Picture a 40-something-year-old Lebanese man standing by the grill with a red cup in one hand filled with Coors Light telling Kyle, his 32 year old plumber neighbor “I am so hella pumped for the Superbowl” in an overwhelmingly heavy Arabic-English accent, so, pronounced like “Aye am so0o hilla bumped foRR the subarPowlll.”

2. The Lebanese patriots

This family will live in a humble neighborhood in a small suburban American town filled with rednecks and hillbillies. Step into their house, though, and you’ll be stepping right into their family’s house in Beirut. Walls will be adorned with Arabic calligraphy, their floors will be covered with sejjed 3ajame, their fridge (one of three fridges: two in the kitchen, and an extra one in the garage for extra freezer space) will be jam-packed with Arabic bread from that one distant store in the city that sells Arabic goods, along with an abundance of labaneh, za’atar, fatayer, sabenekh, and whatever the tabkha of the day is in a huge Tupperware in the middle. Probably Mloukhiyye.

Their house will smell of Arabic spices, the matriarch of the house will be a stay-at-home mother of at least 4 children who wears a long kaftan dress around the house (and to the supermarket) every day. She will start every sentence uttered to locals with, “in my country,” followed by something like “we have the sun, the sea, and the mountains.” She’ll struggle to keep her mouth shut when her childrens’ friends come over, because in true Lebanese fashion she will not be able to sleep at night if she doesn’t offer them a pot of Mloukhiyye, but her kids tell her that it looks weird, smells weird, and they don’t want to freak their only non-Arab friends out, so they’d rather order McDonalds.

3. The No-New-Friends Arabs

This is a group of Lebanese expats living in the same state in America, who only speak to each other, in Arabic, only eat together at Arabic restaurants, and only listen to Arabic music. They’ll try desperately to maintain Lebanese traditions like big Saturday lunches and will herd together during festivities like Ramadan and Eid. Their houses will be the only ones that are not lit in their neighborhoods during Christmas, and they’ll only assimilate with their community when they pass out ma’amoul to their very confused American neighbors during those times.

4. The Americanized

This one will have 0 affiliation to their hometown. Usually in a sunny state like Florida, these expats will walk around town in flip flops and board shorts, even if they have no intention of going to the beach that day. They’ll drive a 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipse and blast Drake music from its always opened windows. They’ll call family and friends in Lebanon once a year, but dread that phone call for the entirety of the remainder of the year, and they’ll promise their family that they’ll come visit this summer, but they definitely will not. They will have taken up fishing as a hobby and will try to make a business out of it. They’ll say things like ‘far out’ and ‘dude’, despite never having surfed and never intending to.

5. The Occidentals

Still bitter about their move away from home decades ago, this ex pat Lebanese family will be adamant that they hate the country they are now forced to call home. They’ll complain about every aspect of American culture, and swear that they only left Lebanon because they couldn’t find work opportunities or because the country is so corrupt that they had to get out. Despite this, they’ll bash everyone and everything around them, from the style of American supermarkets to the huge portions of food served at restaurants, and the way their children now speak English and are so far away from their roots and their religion. They’ll encourage their children to go to AUB, even if the smartest kid in the family got an acceptance from Stanford. Despite their cynicism and outward disdain towards the country that so eagerly welcomed them and gave them opportunities for prosperity, these Lebanese expats will never, ever admit to finding happiness in Amreeka.

6. The Lebanese romantics

Constantly reminiscing on the beauty of their long-lost Lebanon, this family will forever mourn the loss of their beloved country due to the war that drove them away from it. Their house will perpetually play a CD of Fairouz’s greatest hits on repeat, and there will be an artsy Lebanese flag painting at the entrance. They’ll call home every single day, and spend hours talking to their friends and family asking about the latest gossip in their day3a and the weather in Beirut. They’ll only go out to eat once a month, because they hate American food, and they’ll be the most loyal patrons to their neighborhood Lebanese restaurant. Their kids will be home-schooled and will not speak a word of English.

7. The fresh off the boaters

Rolling their ‘R’s and forever misinterpreting American slang and style, these Lebanese expats will travel in packs because they’re cringey and could never make new American friends when they’re trying so hard to fit in so hard. They’ll go out in huge groups of other expat Arabs living in the same town, and their favorite restaurant will be Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, or Red Lobster.

8. The first generation ‘modern’ American-Lebanese kids

Hipsters, yogis, tattoo-dreamers, and alternative-rock fiends, these first generation American kids will be the torment of their Lebanese parents’ lives. They’ll forever concern their parents with their affinity towards all things American, and their parents will eventually send them to Lebanon for a year of high school in hopes that they’ll magically become Lebanese in a span of 365 days. They’ll be sent to live with their Teta in Ras Beirut, and they’ll ask her to make avocado toast for breakfast instead of the usual halloum, tomatoes, bread, and za’atar. Their Teta will be heavily confused by their existence and will only speak to them in Arabic, and they will only respond in English because it’s cooler.

9. The proud “I can’t believe I got the passport” American

This Lebanese expat is still in shock that they got the passport 5 years ago. They’ll still live like they’re about to take the citizenship test in the next few days, perpetually praising their newfound community and smiling at every single person they pass on the street. They’ll partake in local charity events, focus all of their energy on speaking English more fluently and with less of an accent, and enroll their kids in the district’s most renowned public school because they’re still in awe of such American institutions.

10. The activists

They yearn to rectify the stereotypes towards Arabs in the states, and seek to spread awareness about the true meaning of Islam and the true loving nature of Arab culture. They’ll join American Facebook groups like “Americans In Solidarity With Arabs” and they’ll post something daily on their personal Instagram accounts about how 9/11 was an inside job aimed to further the narrative of Arabs being the demise of the modern world. They won’t notice, though, that in all of their efforts to rectify the all-Arabs-are-terrorists narrative, they’ll only be making it worse by becoming known as the “crazy Lesbianese guy” in town.

11. The AMERICAN-Lebanese

This Lebanese expat is a hater of Lebanon and a lover of the United States of America. They voted for Trump, they deny being Arab to their fellow Americans, and they own several guns. The American flag is planted in their front yard, and their Toyota is embellished with a bumper sticker that says “Proud to be an American.”

12. The wife-seekers

These guys just go to The States to study and hopefully stay there long enough to get the passport and find a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl-next-door to make their wife and teach how to make wara2 3enab and kousa. Once they find her, they’ll ask her to gather her (girl) friends and go with him on a trip to Lebanon, where he hopes to hook his cousins up with wives.

13. The Lebanese fuckboy

Works at 7-Eleven, spends his evenings smoking weed, sleeping with neighborhood girls, and drinking from beer bongs, but doesn’t eat pork because it’s haram.

14. The family of the Lebanese doctor

This doctor will have studied medicine in AUB and eventually left Lebanon to go to America for his/her residency at a renowned American university. He/she will then have opened a private practice in the same state, and will become the pride and joy of his/her family back in Lebanon.

Dr. Lebanon’s entire extended family will visit from Lebanon at least once a year, and will send their family to Lebanon for Christmas and the entirety of summer every year to ensure that their kids get a taste of true Lebanese culture – where the kids will be forced to spend their summers at an Arabic school learning how to read and write their ‘Mother Tongue’.