From Aleppo and Damascus to Buenos Aires:Opportunity Structures and Ethnic Entrepreneurship among Syrian Jews in Peronist Argentina

This article explores how the first and second generations of Syrian Jewish immigrants navigated the political and economic opportunity structures of mid-twentieth-century Argentina, especially during the Peronist period, to build distinct forms of ethnic enterprises ranging from peddling and later small shops to textile empires. It traces how the Peronist state policies and market transformations shaped the opportunity structure facing Syrian Jews. It also examines how ethnicity, class, kin networks, and transnational resources enabled or constrained their entrepreneurial trajectories. By adopting a historical-ethnographic approach and focusing on three family case studies that illustrate different trajectories of success, failure,and economic survival, this study emphasizes the importance of mixed embeddedness in refining existing models of ethnic economies and opportunity structures, while showing the“minority within minorities” position of Syrian Jews vis-à-vis other migrant group