There are also sizeable minority populations from Syria in the U.S. including Jews, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, and Circassians.

[14][15] The earliest known Syrian and first Arab to die for the United States was Private Nathan Badeen, an immigrant from Ottoman Syria who died fighting British forces during the American Revolutionary War on May 23, 1776, a month and a half prior to American independence.

[16] The first major wave of Syrian immigrants arrived in the United States from Ottoman Syria in the period between 1889 and 1914.

[20] Early immigrants settled mainly in Eastern United States, in the cities of New York, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and the Paterson, New Jersey, area.

Although the number of Syrian immigrants was not sizable, the Ottoman government set constraints on emigration in order to maintain its populace in Greater Syria.

[11] Due to the Arab-Israeli and religious conflicts in Syria during this period, many Syrians immigrated to the United States seeking a democratic haven, where they could live in freedom without political suppression.

[24] An estimated 64,600 Syrians immigrated to the United States in the period between 1961 and 2000, of which ten percent have been admitted under the refugee acts.

Other urban areas, including Paterson, New Jersey, Allentown, Boston, Cleveland, Dearborn, New Orleans, Toledo, Cedar Rapids, and Houston have large Syrian populations.

[20] The traditional clothing of the first Syrian immigrants in the United States, along with their occupation as peddlers, led to some xenophobia.

[28] Scholars such as Oswaldo Truzzi have speculated that this work ultimately helped Syrian integration into the United States by accelerating cultural contact and English language skills.

[30] They and their children were often negatively stigmatized as "street Arabs" or inaccurately assumed to be unmarried mothers or prostitutes.

[33] Syrians did not congregate in urban enclaves; many of the immigrants who had worked as peddlers were able to interact with Americans on a daily basis.

Aside from negative stigmas, the first generation of Syrian migrants also faced romantic stereotyping for their Christian origins.

[17]: 305  Writers such as Horatio Alger and Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe contributed to the understanding of Syrian migrants as "redeemable peasants".

Assimilation of early Syrian immigrants was so successful that it has become difficult to recognize the ancestors of many families which have become completely Americanized.

[17]: 311  Historian Naff writes that as a broad global diaspora threatened the Syrian identity, the preservation of its religious traditions became increasingly important.

[45] Initially they lived on the Lower East Side; later settlements were in Bensonhurst and Ocean Parkway in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

[24] Mitch Daniels, who served as Governor of Indiana from 2005 to 2013, is a descendant of Syrian immigrants with relatives in Homs.

When Syrian American community leaders attended a conference[51] in Michigan, one of Donald Trump's former foreign-policy advisers, Ric Grenell, said that Syrian Americans were more favorable to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 United States Presidential Election.

The majority of the early Syrian immigrants arrived in the United States seeking better jobs; they usually engaged in basic commerce, especially peddling.

[23] Syrian American peddlers found their jobs comfortable since peddling required little training and mediocre vocabulary.

[52] Most of these peddlers were successful, and, with time, and after raising enough capital, some became importers and wholesalers, recruiting newcomers and supplying them with merchandise.

[57] One of the first Syrian-Americans to popularize Levantine cuisine was Helen Corey, who published the bestselling The Art of Syrian Cookery in 1962.

The prototypical Arabic music ensemble in Egypt and Syria is known as the takht, and relies on a number of musical instruments that represent a standardized tone system, and are played with generally standardized performance techniques, thus displaying similar details in construction and design.

Such musical instruments include the oud, kanun, rabab, ney, violin, riq, and tableh.

Ethnic dance performers wear a shirwal, which are loose, baggy pants with an elastic waist.

Traditional Syrian clothing for women is typically a long garment with triangle sleeves, referred to as a Thob.

Muslims also celebrate Eid ul-Adha (which means The Festival of Sacrifice) 70 days after at the end of the Islamic year, a holiday which is held along with the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Hajj.

For example, Syrian Muslims only date after completing their marriage contact, known as kitabat al-kitab (Arabic: كتابة الكتاب, which means "writing the book" in English), a period that ranges from a few months to a year or more to get used to living with one another.

[55] Many old Syrian American families have lost their linguistic traditions because many parents do not teach their children Arabic.