Table of Contents

List of Tables and Illustrations; Preface and Acknowledgments; Introduction; * Lebanese Background; The Place; From the Ancients to the Ottomans; The Ottoman Imarah; The Mutasarrifiya; World War I and Its Aftermath; Migration from the Mountain to Beirut; Business Traditions; * Ecuadorean Background; The Regions; The Colonial Heritage; Liberal Politics and Immigrant Lure; Guayaquil in the Early Twentieth Century; Latin American Foreign Merchants; * Arrival of the First Patriarchs; The First to Come; Pioneer Patriarchs; Culture and Interaction; Maintaining a Valued Heritage; * Visibility, Organization, and Leadership; The Lebanese Organize; Pioneering with Wealth and Economic Opportunity; Lutfallah Kozhaya Abi-Hanna; Membership and Visibility; Pedro Saad: Labor Leader; Joining Ecuador's Functional Elite; Beyond the Store to Diversification; The Professions; Toward a Third Generation; Historical Revisionism and Celebrating Sixty Years; * The Lebanese in Twentieth-Century Quito; Centro Cultural Arabe and Social Interchange; Diversity After the 1960s; * High Visibility and Imagery; The Isaas Empire; Prejudice; Social and Cultural Contributions; Pursuing the Image; * Political Leadership: From Urban to National; The Ecuadorean Political Agenda; Political Participation; Assertive Leaders; Assad Bucaram; Lebanese Support and the Elite Critique; * Reaching for National Office; The Advance into Political Office; Populist Politics After Assad; Building a Positive Image: The 1992 Elections; Abdala Bucaram and Elsa Bucaram Ortiz; Mixed Reactions; Lebanese Descendants as Ecuador's Presidents; Epilogue; Appendix 1: Founding Members of Sociedad Unin Libanesa, 1921; Appendix 2: Andean Political Particip

About the Author

Lois J. Roberts is an adjunct professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California and is the author of Ecuador and Cacao.